Posted on 02/01/2003 4:25:45 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Columbia's Problems Began on Left Wing By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:56 p.m. ET
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- Investigators trying to figure out what destroyed space shuttle Columbia immediately focused on the left wing and the possibility that its thermal tiles were damaged far more seriously than NASA realized by a piece of debris during liftoff.
Just a little over a minute into Columbia's launch Jan. 16, a chunk of insulating foam peeled away from the external fuel tank and smacked into the ship's left wing.
On Saturday, that same wing started exhibiting sensor failures and other problems 23 minutes before Columbia was scheduled to touch down. With just 16 minutes remaining before landing, the shuttle disintegrated over Texas.
Just a day earlier, on Friday, NASA's lead flight director, Leroy Cain, had declared the launch-day incident to be absolutely no reason for concern. An extensive engineering analysis had concluded that any damage to Columbia's thermal tiles would be minor.
``As we look at that now in hindsight ... we can't discount that there might be a connection,'' shuttle manager Ron Dittemore said on Saturday, hours after the tragedy. ``But we have to caution you and ourselves that we can't rush to judgment on it because there are a lot of things in this business that look like the smoking gun but turn out not even to be close.''
The shuttle has more than 20,000 thermal tiles to protect it from the extreme heat of re-entry into the atmosphere. The black, white or gray tiles are made of a carbon composite or silica-glass fibers and are attached to the shuttle with silicone adhesive.
If a spaceship has loose, damaged or missing tiles, that can change the aerodynamics of the ship and warp or melt the underlying aluminum airframe, causing nearby tiles to peel off in a chain reaction.
If the tiles start stripping off in large numbers or in crucial spots, a spacecraft can overheat, break up and plunge to Earth in a shower of hot metal, much like Russia's Mir space station did in 2001.
Dittemore said that the disaster could have been caused instead by a structural failure of some sort. He did not elaborate.
As for other possibilities, however, NASA said that until the problems with the wing were noticed, everything else appeared to be performing fine.
NASA officials said, for example, that the shuttle was in the proper position when it re-entered the atmosphere on autopilot. Re-entry at too steep an angle can cause a spaceship to burn up.
Law enforcement authorities said was no indication of terrorism; at an altitude of 39 miles, the shuttle was out of range of any surface-to-air missile, one senior government official said.
If the liftoff damage was to blame, the shuttle and its crew of seven may well have been doomed from the very start of the mission.
Dittemore said there was nothing that the astronauts could have done in orbit to fix damaged thermal tiles and nothing that flight controllers could have done to safely bring home a severely scarred shuttle, given the extreme temperatures of re-entry.
The shuttle broke apart while being exposed to the peak temperature of 3,000 degrees on the leading edge of the wings, while traveling at 12,500 mph, or 18 times the speed of sound.
A California Institute of Technology astronomer Anthony Beasley, reported seeing a trail of fiery debris behind the shuttle over California, with one piece clearly backing away and giving off its own light before slowly fading and falling. Dittemore was unaware of the sighting and did not want to speculate on it.
If thermal tiles were being ripped off the wing, that would have created drag and the shuttle would have started tilting from the ideal angle of attack. That could have caused the ship to overheat and disintegrate.
Dittemore said that even if the astronauts had gone out on an emergency spacewalk, there was no way a spacewalker could have safely checked under the wings, which bear the brunt of heat re-entry and have reinforced protection.
Even if they did find damage, there was nothing the crew could have done to fix it, he said.
``There's nothing that we can do about tile damage once we get to orbit,'' Dittemore said. ``We can't minimize the heating to the point that it would somehow not require a tile. So once you get to orbit, you're there and you have your tile insulation and that's all you have for protection on the way home from the extreme thermal heating during re-entry.''
The shuttle was not equipped with its 50-foot robot arm because it was not needed during this laboratory research mission, and so the astronauts did not have the option of using the arm's cameras to get a look at the damage.
NASA did not request help in trying to observe the damaged area with ground telescopes or satellites, in part because it did not believe the pictures would be useful, Dittemore.
Long-distance pictures did not help flight controllers when they wanted to see the tail of space shuttle Discovery during John Glenn's flight in 1998; the door for the drag-chute compartment had fallen off seconds after liftoff.
It was the second time in just four months that a piece of fuel-tank foam came off during a shuttle liftoff. In October, Atlantis lost a piece of foam that ended up striking the aft skirt of one of its solid-fuel booster rockets. At the time, the damage was thought to be superficial.
Dittemore said this second occurrence ``is certainly a signal to our team that something has changed.''
The real corollary, sir, is that you are full of shit.
They (mission control) had taken pictures (visual check) of previous missions using telescopes yet declined to do so in this case.
I'll stand by my assessment that mission control screwed up by not doing a visual check. Like I said in a earlier post , the debris impact may or may not have damaged the left wing.
Since they didn't bother to check it out to their utmost ability, it'll just have to be a question that naws on them while they lay awake at night. Action or lack thereof when other people's lives depend on what you do has it's consequences.
I admit to being fuzzy on this point: but NASA had *BETTER* not have thought that! I certainly hope, for all of the obvious reasons, that the decision was "we think this course of action involves an acceptable risk" -- and maybe secondarily "and that's a relief, 'cause we wouldn't know what to do anyway."
If it's truly the other way 'round, then people should be headed to jail for gross negligence. Risks of the job are one thing: you expect your support crew to minimize them, however.
For the record, I would call myself pro-NASA in terms of the space program. However, I wonder if they have once again gotten complacent in their own success. I think that given the possibility of catatrophic failure and loss of human life that at least a reasonable amount of effort should have been expended... we've had several ideas for that here in this forum -- and we're not exactly the experts.
That's a load of crap ... did they stop taking MMU (manned maneuvering units) for the spacesuits up with them ?
Do you think I am going to forget what the guys that did this the last time, did? Do you think you always should get the benefit of the doubt? Goldin was so Clintonesque, I lost all faith in the good faith of NASA Engineers.
Typical fourth estate BS. This crash occurred during the period of maximum dynamic stress on the ship. It will probably turn out to be structural failure caused by a heavy cargo load and spacecraft aging. The foam will likely turn out to be unrelated. Didn't early shuttle flights routinely come back with missing tiles?
If NASA had known the ship was in danger, they would have at least instructed the crew to dump the cargo and lighten the load. If they were convinced it wasn't coming back, they could have perhaps sent the Discovery up to rescue the crew and then made a probably futile attempt to auto pilot the Challenger back to Vandenberg (or some other destination where a breakup would occur over water).
Typical NASA Group Think...
All the Defenders have said they couldn't lighten the load....etc.
They couldn't prep a shuttle in a few days for launch ? How long would it take to get one of them ready and launched from a dead start ?
And ALL of that "non-essential" wiring is contained in wiring harnesses along with other essential systems... And very little of it is accessible without the facilities to do a major overhaul.
Ed White carried a little handheld jet on Gemini, connected via an umbilical and fueled from inside the spacecraft if I remember correctly. If you'll forgive me, this is not rocket science.
And if you recall, Ed White was tethered to his Gemini capsul by an umbilical cord that carried oxygen, climate control and power to his suit. MMUs provide more than just manueverability, they are also life support and heating/cooling units. Inspecting, much less repairing, the tiles is not a quick job and would require more time than would be allowed by a mere spacesuit plus little hand held jet.
With all due respect this really IS rocket science.
(Yes, I'm proceeding under the leap of logic that falling foam damaged multple tiles in the same area of the left wing. And that, compounded by NASA managers discounting the potential harm, led to the tragedy).
If I recall correctly, the FIRST schoolteacher in space was on the Challenger when it went down.
Now this perhaps the SECOND teacher in space?
Perhaps school teachers are just plain bad luck to have aboard.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.