Air Force imagery confirms Columbia wing damaged

Spaceflightnow.com ^ | 02/07/03 | CRAIG COVAULT

[MississippiMan]

Chalk another one up to being too overzealously environmentally whacko...

The latest sacrifice on the altar of political correctness. Sickening and so sad.

MM

[lepton]

NASA didn't have to use the foam but did anyhow .. why?

No one produced it anymore? After all, few were getting into the freon market, and NASA hadn't bought any in over 4 years.

[tophat9000]

NASA's been trying to discredit the foam damage theory, but it looks more and more like that was the root cause.

I agree but I am starting to think there might more to in then just foam insulation on the tank....

If there was a bad spot of foam insulation on the tank could moisture have built up underneath it on the tank skin an froze in to a good size chunk of ice

Bad foam insulation on the tank could be the root cause but in its self not the cause of damage on the bulk of the wing...

I.E. Bad foam insulation in tank... alows ice to form on tank... ice and foam insulation come of tank and hit wing... hard ice causes bulk of the wing damage

[Mo1]

Ok, thanks for clearing that up

[bvw]

When did Dr. Kervorkian become NASA director? You should, we should all, have higher standards -- it would be a cheaper space expolration if we just handed the astronauts a 10 shot revolver with nine empty chambers, and a good personal telescope and camera. That'd be better safety than NASCAR too, I guess. And about the same science results.

As my friend anarcho-libertarian "Wild Bill" says ... "Hey if it [the shuttle] was military, I'd be 100% for it." He's right, such risks might be acceptable to acheive a military goal, in in the framework of a (theoretically) higher military accountability. Practically the shuttle is not only lousy for science, not only "jams the channel" for space-enterprise both public and private, but would be a ultra-lousy military platform too.

NASA has NO institutional common sense to even continue with it. You'll notice the military has run away from it, some years back. Thankfully!

[tophat9000]

Bad foam insulation in on tank

[lepton]

Because it's easier for a foriegn country to test systems designed to shoot down missles in international space than it is to smuggle the stuff into the Florida swamps.

There's just a wee bit of signature on a missile that would catch such a thing, not to mention the missile size, and radar reflection.

[bvw]

It was NASA who made the decision to launch. Not Greenpeace. NASA, the institution, where over time, environmental and diversity considerations are weighed right up there with safety. A "Can Do What Has Been Done" mantra-chanting NASA.

[DoughtyOne]

The Russian rocket may have been able to deliver supplies.  I'm not sure about fuel though, and that may have been critical.  I'm not sure.

We did have at least one EVA suit on the Columbia.  I'd suspect there may have been more than one.  I'm not in the camp of people who think we couldn't have passed some supplies back and forth.  A docking collar might not have been critical since no live inhabitants would have required it on the Russian supply ship.  However, the ISS may have needed supplies and not been able to wait until another supply ship arrived.  And it is possible that technicly, there was a reason why a manual supply transfer without a dock wasn't possible.  I don't know.

I do not believe the shuttle crew compartment decompression chamber door to the payload bay was blocked.  I've seen photos that show the largest cargo a distance away from the cabin.

Some of the folks here have been supportive of the towed to space theory of space entry.  I believe it would be worth NASA's efforts to aid in private efforts to get this off the ground.  If for no other reason than to lauch an alternative route back to base, this would be worth it.

[lepton]

Yet the president tells us that terrorists might have the ability to spread chemical weapons over our country with a drone. We never thought of that idea until yesterday either

Wanna bet? :)

[Plutarch]

I heard a NASA rep explain the reasons they couldn't [effect rescue]...

That is, make miserable excuses. That we spend tens of billions on NASA, and they don't have a contingency plan for a Shuttle unable to re-entry is mind-boggling and inexcusable. Thats what you'd expect from a friggin' FRENCH program, not the U.S.!!

[lepton]

I've taken the photo,used a sharpening algorithm on it and changed the gamma to give it the proper contrast. it IS the shuttle at what appears to be a 30 degree down angle vieved from the rear and travelling sideways to the left.

The photo is symetrical about a vertical "plane" from beginning of blob-phase to end of blob-phase, and is travelling forwards after the focus is regained.

[ContemptofCourt]

Your post makes no sense....first, you are telling me that a standard video camera can accurately photograph an object at 200K feet traveling 12K miles an hour.....second, why would the shuttle be backwards and angled down 30 deg, when it was traveling fowards angled up 57 deg.?

[isthisnickcool]

One think that comes directly to mind. The wing, if damaged initially after launch on the leading edge located near the body of the fuselage, is dang near directly under the opening of the shuttle bay and should have been visable to anyone looking at the wing.

It was visable from the flight deck.

[jlogajan]

Don't leave out the fact that the out-of-focus shape just happened to look exactly like the ass-end of a Space Shuttle. The iris explanation doesn't address that little fact.

Not to me, but then again I never was the type to see Elvis in cloud formations.

[Minutemen]

As I recall,the Russian Soyuz accident in 1971 was the first loss the Russians actually admitted to happening. Supposedly,the Russians suffered many losses of life in space that were completely covered up or denied so as not to discredit the mighty "Red Star"

[lepton]

The foam was much lighter, and much more brittle, than a single brick that is about a tenth the size of the chunk that fell off, and it hit a glancing blow. I don't think it's a valid comparison.

One thing of interest: XBob posted a loop of pictures that I would interpret as showing the object fluttering outward (and a second object appearing, then disappearing), then swinging back towards the shuttle. I would expect foam to be blown almost straight back, but perhaps ice would have given it the inertia to be carried along more. This would result in a strike of less energy, as the relative speed would be lower, but at a more perpendicular angle. Thus a smaller, but deeper impact.

Either there is lateral motion, or the object at one point is moving FORWARD relative to the motion of the Orbiter.

[RightOnline]

Could be right, but this is exactly how it was described by Rush's guest host earlier this week.

[CCWoody]

Bump!

[Cold Heat]

It was visable from the flight deck.

I considered that, but I was not sure a window angled back for a view.