NASA Press Conference Thread

[ksen]

NASA Press conference any minute now....

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Answer these questions, if you can:

Once a shuttle enters the orbit that it did, can it still reach the International Space Station?

If it can, how many Soyuz capsules are on there (if the answer is less than 4, who do you leave behind?)?

If it can't, how long does it take to get a semi-warm shuttle launched (hint; Atlantis was due for a March 1 launch)?

If that shuttle can be launched in time, how do you get at least 9 people into a shuttle that seats 7?

Where are the replacement tiles supposed to be stored? How is the crew going to heat the adhesive to get these replacement tiles to stick?

I'm waiting....

The answer is that NASA tries to improvise, just like they did with Apollo 13. Maybe it will work, maybe not, but you don't give up without trying. Seven lives and a $2 billion spacecraft are too costly to give up without trying.

[HairOfTheDog]

Do you guys honestly think you know better? - Have you sent NASA your resumes? I am sure they would love to have people on-hand that could immediately solve this problem. Think of how much money they would save on rocket scientists!

[steveegg]

Unfortunately, orbital mechanics aren't exactly like moving around a flat earth. It takes a certain velocity to reach the altitude of the ISS, which Columbia was incapable of attaining because of its weight-to-thrust ratio.

[Bronco_Buster_FweetHyagh]

HairoftheDog..

If you believe that everyone in management at NASA is a rocket-scientist....better yet, if you believe that everyone involved in accident investigation and reconstruction is a rocket-scientist, you are misinformed.

Sorry, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to sniff out someone who is being less than forthcoming in their responses.

My point was simple - the program director was evasive in his answer, non-responsive. It was a very simple question. Did NASA consider a space-walk to examine the damage?

He did not say yes or no. He said "we cant' technically go outside the shuttle and repair tiles."

[Jonah Hex]

I'll take a shot at this.

The ISS and Columbia are on different orbital inclinations relative to the Earth's equator. The ISS orbit ranges further north and south than the normal shuttle orbit. To shift Columbia's orbital inclination to match the ISS would require an enormous amount of delta-v, more than the shuttle's OMS fuel supply can support. Try as they might, they never could have matched orbit with the ISS.

Why are the oribital inclinations different? NASA made that decision when Goldin decided to being on the Russians as ISS partners. They needed the greater inclined orbit to support launching modules/crews/supplies with Russian boosters. Not only did this change the ISS-support orbital inclination, it also reduced the available orbiter ISS mission payload since additional fuel is required to reach orbit due to the inclined orbit loses some the advantage of using the Earth's east-west rotation.

Bottom line: Columbia could not have reached the ISS.

[snopercod]

Yup. Time to get good and drunk...

[HairOfTheDog]

I think the program director did as good of a job answering questions as a man can do, off the cuff, unrehearsed, and human, what, three hours after he watched his shuttle blow up before his eyes.

He certainly knows more than I do. But I admit that. I know how silly I would look if I tried to pretend I knew more.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

They were not in the same orbit and your fuel only allows minor corrections.

Fuel only allows minor corrections if you are planning a re-entry burn, because you would have to reserve enough fuel for that. If a visual inspection had revealed that re-entry would result in certain catastrophic failure, then at that point a re-entry burn becomes moot. At that point, the question becomes how to save the crew, and at least leave open the possibilty of the shuttle being salavaged at some future time. I don't know if the fuel supply on board for the re-entry burn would have been sufficient to boost them into an interecept orbit with the ISS or not. I do know just enough about orbital mechanics to know that it would take a sequence of several small, precisely timed burns rather than one big one.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

No, but the MANAGEMENT of NASA -- especially the POLITICAL MANAGEMENT -- is by no means infallible or beyond criticism. They have made errors of judgment before, and it is thus quite legitimate to wonder out loud if some more haven't been made this time.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Bottom line: Columbia could not have reached the ISS.

Not with sufficient fuel left to do a re-entry burn, that is. But if re-entry = death, and is therefore out of the question, that significantly changes the equations.

[Just mythoughts]

No you are missing the point.

From the response you are getting, when you take your case to court hope and pray that some of us are not on your jury.

It is your training that is the point. You listen to a press conference and when an answer does not come out the way you are trained to hear, your brain twitched, immediately you have guilt and now you are trying to convince the rest of us you are right.

I heard the same press conference, and understand fully why your brain twitched, however, my brain heard what he said and because of all speculation of the news today, understood fully his response.

Attorneys are required to look at the world in a specific way, anything that does not flow in that world, their brains twitch. I am not an attorney but spent alot of time working with and for a bunch. They never admit they are wrong, especially if someone says they are. They have to fall face first in the mud to get their attention.

To have nothing more than the manner of answering a question, words used, order of answering a question, how much of the question answered, in a press conference, just a few hours after a horrible event are used by you to assign "guilt" is a brain twitch.

You don't stop there, you then try to spin that this would not be the first time a government funded agency skirting answers.

Talk about rolling the dice, that is exactly what you have done on your posts. Roll the dice, whatever response you get you go on that thread gathering up ideas.

Your words have exposed your thought process, you don't care about damage you do, but yet in your high and mighty world sure can asses damage you think you hear others do.

[steveegg]

Here is each option that was possible (note that the ISS is not an option because Columbia simply couldn't get to it no matter what):

• Abort the mission as soon as the boosters are separated. In hindsight, this may be what they should have done. However, they had a similar situation 2 flights ago, where the chunk of external tank foam hit a booster with no apparent damage. Upon examination, no real damage was found. Morever, Columbia would have faced similar stresses had it aborted.

• Rush Atlantis out a month early to repair any tile damage, or failing that, rescue the crew. First things first, NASA would be asked to rush a shuttle into orbit from a fleet that has nearly a zero on-time percentage when they don't know why 2 tanks launched chunks at the rest of the system. While there is a built-in reserve of consumables, it wouldn't have come close to lasting until Atlantis' scheduled March 1 launch.

  Then comes the problem of getting the tiles (assuming they broght the right ones; each is custom-cut) on. Adhesives don't work too well when you hit triple digits below zero. If they don't have the right ones, there's nothing else on board that can withstand the temperatures of re-entry.

  As for rescue, 7's the limit for the shuttle. At a bare minimum, you'd have 9 up there.

  Using what they could extrapolate from 2 frames of film shot at a distance, they thought the tiles would withstand that strike as well as the booster did.

• Bring it back essentially on schedule. This is what they did. They apparently underestimated the damage done. By the time that the problems became apparent, it was far too late to do anything. You can't re-orbit a shuttle once you begin the descent.

[steveegg]

You brought up Apollo 13 and appeared to say that they had the option to sit in a space station. As it was already explained that there was no way for Columbia to get to the space station, you needed the history lesson.

[CharacterCounts]

I just heard on Fox News that nine times in the past insulation has broken off and hit the shuttle ( six times for the Columbia alone). There never never an incident before. Does this affect your thinking?

[HairOfTheDog]

No one is infallible. Do you have any idea what you are asking human beings to be? - They will NEVER measure up. With people who think like you, that for every accident there are people to skewer for every risk ever taken, what, pray tell, would we ever accomplish?

For the guts they have to risk everything and take part great things, I admire them. And I thank them for the moments of great amazement they bring to us. And I stand by them now. It is easy to send them out on our missions if we only have to be loyal to them when they win. Loyalty only really has value when they lose.

With efforts as complex as this, you always walk shoulder-to-shoulder with disaster. Tough are the soles that tread the knife's edge.

[steveegg]

Not with sufficient fuel left to do a re-entry burn, that is. But if re-entry = death, and is therefore out of the question, that significantly changes the equations.

Two problems with your analysis. First, there simply isn't enough fuel left in Columbia to reach the ISS (the burn required would take more fuel than Columbia can stuff on-board). Second, until no earlier than Columbia's landfall over California on its descent, every indication, including the evidence from a similar event 2 launches prior, was that re-entry would not be affected.

[Just mythoughts]

Not thinking fishing for a case.

We are being used to gather themes/ideas for a lawsuit.

This is cheap research picking brains for ideas, keeps pressing on some questions like questioning a witness on the stand. Note NASA seems to be the target, you know the skirting goverment program agencey that won't admit mistakes.

Take care with information and answers given taking notes.

[Bronco_Buster_FweetHyagh]

The level of bias and prejudice on this forum is remarkable. Just because I happen to be an attorney somehow gives people the right to make personal attacks against me, and to make claims about the "real" motivation of my post?

Sad. Welcome to Free Republic I guess.

[DoughtyOne]

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