Posted on 12/31/2008 1:34:25 PM PST by BuckeyeTexan
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Astronauts on the shuttle Columbia were trying to regain control of their craft before it broke apart in 2003, but there was no chance of surviving the accident, a NASA report said on Tuesday.
From the crew's perspective, the shift from what appeared to be a normal descent on Feb. 1, 2003, into tragedy happened so fast that the astronauts did not even have time to close the visors on their helmets.
Columbia broke apart about 20 kilometres over Texas as it headed for landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The cause of the accident was traced to a hole in one of the shuttle's wings, which was hit by a piece of falling foam insulation during launch 16 days earlier.
Seven astronauts were killed when superheated atmospheric gases blasted inside the breach like a blow torch, melting the ship's structure.
(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
“That was an unexpected accident, not a reasonably foreseeable risk”
Fire in a rocket is unexpected? They failed to identify and address the risk but it was certainly foreseeable.
Otherwise it's a just a "Death Race 2000". Only not a B-movie, real lives. Murder.
The tragic Apollo 1 fire was not in a rocket, or on a rocket. The astronauts where doing in-capsule ground testing, the fire was contained withing the capsule, and that was horrible enough.
It must have escaped your notice that Apollo 13 was a failure, caused by someone dropping the oxygen tank such that it could not then be drained later during tests. Their solution? Turn the heat on and boil off the liquid oxygen. Only problem was that this burned the electrical insulation, creating a time-bomb in the Service Module. The crew got back alive, but barely.
The "Right Stuff"? No, just human error -- sometimes found and corrected, sometimes not. In the 1950's -- the era of "The Right Stuff" -- test pilots died at a rate of about one a week. We've had 14 fatalities on the Shuttle since it started flying almost 28 years ago.
Lest we forget Alan Shepard's words of wisdom before his lift-off:
Flight Control [after yet another launch delay]: How are you feeling?
Shepard: How would you feel, sitting atop 2 billion dollars of the lowest bid?.
Apollo 13 was a success. The crew lived, the system showed itself to be robust. The Shuttle has ever been a fragile piece of crap, and deadly.
Apollo as a flight system never had a launch abort, although it came very close to one (Apollo 12, struck by lightning on launch, was seconds away from an abort). If they had to use the Launch Escape Tower on Apollo, there was only a 50-50 chance of surviving such an abort.
Yes they can be compared and that is the point. People compare the jet test-pilots of the 1950's to the shuttle crews. THAT is an inappropriate comparison.
As you say, the Shuttle is an operational system. The proper comparison is to airliners, or to look to more hazardous OPERATIONAL transport forms -- to ice road truckers, or early airline travel of the 1930's or the 1920's era air mail flights.
I also have compared the Shuttle record of catastrophic failure -- total failure, loss of lives -- to an endeavors which should be far more risky than experimental modes of travel. To war. As a mode of operational travel the Shuttle is at least 20 times more total, deadly failure prone than being an American soldier on the ground in Iraq during the war, during the recent surge period.
And the experimental travel mode of Apollo had a ZERO PERCENT catastrophic failure rate. They got to the moon and back, again and again. There would have been more Apollo but the Shuttle Socialists killed it.
Bump for the 29th anniversary of our watching Challenger live on the ground. Today always makes me sad.
Columbia was the heaviest shuttle ever launched. All that weight was descending into a dense winter atmosphere with a hole in the wing. Had they dumped all the weight possible and attempted a landing in Australia with a modified reentry program to take stress off the bad wing they may have survived.
Remember Apollo 1? Things happen.
I can chip in.
If I thought it would work, I would spare no expense. Heh.
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>> “ The cause of the accident was traced to a hole in one of the shuttle’s wings, which was hit by a piece of falling foam insulation during launch 16 days earlier.” <<
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Caused by “environmentalism” replacing engineering!
The original foam that had been designed for the launch vehicles required the use of fluoro-carbons, which were banned due to ‘Chicken Little’ environmentalism.
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I can't quite believe it has been seven years since I made that post to you. Slow the clock down! lol
Same here. Our school hallway had a big television and we were all gathered around, perhaps even a bit jaded about launches, and then, confusion followed those agonizing shots of wayward trails...
I was sick to my stomach and numb. Twice in my life I felt that way. The other was 9-11.
“And their souls are forever at peace in heaven and in the loving arms of Jesus.”
Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on what decisions they made during their lives on earth.
Yeah, I felt numb too. My mind just wouldn’t re-boot for some time. I think 9-11 hit me harder but the anger that came with it burned off that stunned feeling faster.
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