Even if another vehicle had to be launched to rescue the crew, and the Columbia skuttled in orbit?
How easy could it be to sabotage the insulation panels over the fuel tanks in an attempt to ruin a Jewish triumph?
< /removing tin hat >
Those insulation panels have to be bonded on, then a vaccuum bag applied over the patch. It would have to be cured at room temperature or higher, and space is absolute zero. There is no way that I can think of to bond that panel onto the wing in space through a space walk.
I think it is possible that the area that had the broken panel, had more damaged panels that came off during re-entry, and that section of the wing/bofy, flared up, and the heat brought the ship down.
May God grant their famlies peace.
Those insulation panels have to be bonded on, then a vaccuum bag applied over the patch. It would have to be cured at room temperature or higher, and space is absolute zero. There is no way that I can think of to bond that panel onto the wing in space through a space walk.
I think it is possible that the area that had the broken panel, had more damaged panels that came off during re-entry, and that section of the wing/body, flared up, and the heat brought the ship down.
May God grant their famlies peace.
How easy could it be to sabotage the insulation panels over the fuel tanks in an attempt to ruin a Jewish triumph?
I don't think sabotage or terrorism should be ruled out this early. I've been surprised again and again at how security gets taken for granted in the US in too many other ways when it really isn't there. And NASA is in the public relations business at least as much as in the security business (if they're even in the security business). I would keep an open mind at this point.
There was some kind of incident at launch with tiles falling off a wing. Heard something in the distant past re the Challenger about how range security at launch is so tight that one could never get within 30-06 rifle range. Wonder about .50 caliber rifle range, maybe from a point offshore. It would be good to find out that the Space Shuttle is an impossibly hard terrorist target but I don't know that that is true.
Also, a lot of stuff about NASA launches has been contracted out. I don't know if the contractor employees who have access to the Space Shuttle even have to be US citizens.
Something also could have been slipped on board with all the third-party scientific experiment packages that are piggybacked, or something could have been sabotaged.
And (maybe someone from NASA could speak to this) NASA itself doesn't seem to use security clearances. You might need to be a US citizen to be a NASA civil service employee, but I'm not sure many are even left at KSC with all the contracting-out. Commercial background checks only look for a police or conviction record. Possibly excepting some visa problems, the 9-11 terrorists were clean in that respect - no speeding tickets etc.
The various tiles and parts on a shuttle pose a huge problem, bcause if one comes off, the skin underneath is vulnerable. The NASP would have solved this by being constructed out of an essentially single piece design. We could not (so far) get the scramjet engine to work, but then again, the program did not receive any kind of priortiy funding. Now, it is time to revisit that program.