Columbia's Problems Began on Left Wing

NYT.com ^

[Swordmaker]

And it's perfectly possible to do an EVA. I'm sure that it wouldn't have been as safe as they would have liked, but... connsider the alternative.

It may have been possible to do an EVA... but to what purpose? Either the tiles are OK and you will have a safe re-entry or they aren't and you are going to die, either quickly attempting re-entry or slowly and painfully by asphyxiation. Why take the risk of an EVA to learn you must decide as a group how you are going to die?

I think it might be better to remain ignorant of the extent of the UNREPAIRABLE DAMAGE and not have to make that horrible choice. Perhaps, someone at NASA made it for them and elected that they not know at all of the potential for disaster. Since staying in orbit was NOT an option (no, gcochran, a resupply was not feasable in the time they had), the only possible option was to de-orbit and try to get the ship home. When all other options lead to certain disaster, you take the one that has only a slight chance of success... at least is a chance.

Had they elected to die in orbit to "save" the shuttle, I think they would have died painfully to no purpose. The altitude the shuttle was orbiting is actually NOT A STABLE ORBIT for such a large object... it is still in the atmosphere (very attenuated) and drag will eventually pull it down to burn in an uncontrolled re-entry in a very few months... probably before a salvage mission could be mounted with a new technology of tile repair that could be done in space... or a way of refueling and repowering frozen, dead shuttle and elevating its orbit.

These are just the grim realities. I am glad I didn't have to make the decision... if someone did.

[Swordmaker]

Gee, OReilly, space flight is dangerous. Golly.

We have to stop all space flights until it is perfectly safe.

Uh, how are we going to learn how to make it safe?

Guess what, OReilly. More people died today in automobile accidents than died in the space shuttle. All of these untimely deaths are tragic. Could we have done more to prevent those deaths? Probably. Could we have done more to prevent the astronauts deaths? Probably.

Am I going to stop driving my car? No. Would I go up in the next space shuttle? You bet your life, I would! And I would bet my life, I would.

If given a choice knowing they were going to die, do you think the astronauts would have preferred to die in one of those automobile accidents... or on the space shuttle?

I know what my choice would be. Somethings are worth risking your life.

[OReilly]

Could we have done more to prevent those deaths? Probably. Could we have done more to prevent the astronauts deaths? Probably.

That is my point...

[Swordmaker]

That is my point...

And we could make cars that are perfectly safe and no one would die in them... but they would cost so much, travel so slowly, and be undesirable to drive.

All things in life are trade offs, economic and societal, life and death, choices we make for things we need and things we desire.

We are learning how to MAKE safer cars... and how to make Space Travel safer... but along the way we WILL make mistakes, we will have accidents... and some are unavoidable because of the trade offs that have to be made.

If we took your implied route, NO ONE would ever start. No progress would ever be made for fear that someone MIGHT GET HURT. That, my friend, is societal cowardice.

[Swordmaker]

Each astronaut is allowed a "personal allowance" for such items... it goes with the job. The few pounds each would not make a dent in the equipment required to inspect 20,000 tiles, do an EVA, etc.

It is interesting you single out the Jewish crewmember for criticism of the personal items he elected to bring along. His choices were pretty symbolic to his people.

Dr. Brown brought a T shirt from the Elementary school he graduated from... would you not allow that?

[Swordmaker]

By the way, Welcomd to FreeRepublic!

[Finny]

bookmark 151

[GOPyouth]

Hey all, I asked this question on another thread, but I'll give it a shot on this one.

I have a question that MAY have been possibly answered today among the large number of posts, BUT I would first like to thank the engineers on here that know a helluva lot more about physics that I do. I've appreciated the crash-course in space travel. :

My question is based off of previous landings that are shown on tv. On the last several landings, and on the NASA website, there is a HUD view of the shuttle coming in. It's several minutes of display that is shown live on TV sometimes. I suppose that Houston has this recorded? I would think that would help decide the issue of whether the shuttle was coming in side-ways. (which looks that way to me) Any info will be appreciated. Matt

[Swordmaker]

No, I am not backing off my statements. Those small personal items are considered necessary for the psychological well being of the crew members. They tried banning such items back in the Gemini period and morale went down and smuggling of such items went far beyond what they had tried to stop.

Your idea that a "robot" video inspection camera COULD be built for under $10k and weigh less than the few pounds of personal stuff is naive. The readily available video stuff you are referring to is not designed to operate in a vacuum, in extremes of temperature (+&-250 degrees) and lighting from pitch black to unfiltered raw sunlight, You know NOTHING about the electrostatic environment of the Space Shuttle (how do you propose to maintain a charge differential if the robot is in contact with the Shuttle?) and do you have any idea at all of how many square feet of tiles there are to inspect by a crawling robot and how long that would take??? I thought not.

The decision to include foreign astronauts has always been political. The 'need' for him to be there and the costs are not associated with space flight. What your comment about holocaust reparations has to do with anything escapes me.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks for the article. This expresses what I was talking about better than I could.

[John Jamieson]

Yes the APUs, you're right, it is certainly too early to pick on just a tile problem.

[John Jamieson]

"My point was, it doesn't take much to drop the orbit altitude"

IT TAKES ENGINES!!!

Oreillium has to be the densist material yet known to science.

[John Jamieson]

These same engineers, myself included, saved Apollo 13.

Your like reasoning with a piece of mercury.

[fso301]

Could do it but also need kiln. What about the other thousand things that can go wrong?

Agreed. My point was that if a spare tile kit were carried along, blanks, a milling machine, cutters and bonding kit would have been part of such kit. Finally, an astronaut would have to receive tile replacement training.

[djf]

I, too, was struck by the "we can't do anything about it, sowhy bother? attitude re: fixing tiles. Bet your bottom dollar, before another launch, they will have some contingencies for at least checking to see if there is tle damage. If they knew, they could have brought the crew down and left it in orbit. Fer cryin out loud, they practically rebuilt the HST.

[John Jamieson]

With all the concentration on tile, few people are talking about the fact that this was the heaviest reentry ever attempted.

The Columbia was the heaviest Shuttle, but I have not yet found the exact weights.

This was the first flight of the Double Space Hab module, an additional 10-12% weight (about 30,000 pounds).

A 10% increase in reentry weight means that the thermal protection has to handle 10% more energy dissapation. This combination produced the heaviest termal load on the tile ever in the history of the program.

Food for thought.

[glock rocks]

thanks for the reality checks, and the insight.