NASA Grounds Shuttle Fleet While Probing Columbia Disaster

The U.S. space agency, NASA, is suspending future shuttle flights until it knows what caused the loss of the shuttle Columbia and its seven- member crew. Columbia broke up over Texas Saturday minutes before it was to land in Florida after a 16-day research mission in Earth orbit.

Seven astronauts, including the first from Israel, went down to their deaths in a hail of shuttle debris over Texas. Dramatic videotapes from a Dallas television station show it streaking to Earth in several smoking pieces.

Shuttle officials say the first sign of a problem was the loss of readings from sensors that measure tire pressure and temperature and structural heat on the orbiter's left side as it at headed toward landing at 18 times the speed of sound. Chief flight director Milt Heflin says controllers lost all contact with the shuttle minutes later.

"We lost the data and that's when we clearly began to know that we had a bad day," he said.

News reports tell of shuttle remains strewn across a wide area of east Texas. NASA is sending technicians to Texas to collect it with help from national, state, and local emergency agencies. NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe has established both an internal and independent external review board to investigate the cause of the disaster.

"This is indeed a tragic day for the NASA family, for the families of the astronauts, and likewise tragic for the nation," said Mr. O'Keefe.

The head of the shuttle program, Ron Dittemore, says debris analysis is key to understanding what happened to Columbia. He pledged a non-stop effort to assess it and all related flight data.

"It's going to take us some time to work through the evidence and the analysis to clearly understand what the cause was," he explained. "We will be poring over that data 24 hours a day for the foreseeable future."

Pending the answer, NASA is suspending all space shuttle flights. It has stopped preparing orbiters for flight at the Kennedy Space Center launch site, including the one that was scheduled to exchange crews at the International Space Station in early March.

A Russian supply rocket, set for launch Sunday, is bringing supplies that NASA says will support the station crew through late June.

Seventeen years ago, the shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after launch, but the Columbia disaster is the first time a shuttle has been lost returning from orbit since the program began 113 missions ago in 1981.

At the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, space expert Joan Johnston-Freese notes that takeoff and landings are the most dangerous times for space shuttles.

"That's when the maximum pressure and velocity occur," she said. "The shuttle lands as a large glider and control is always a challenge, but under those conditions of pressure and velocity, the shuttle is so super-heated at that point that it's a very volatile situation under the best of conditions."

As part of NASA's probe, technicians will look for any signs that an unusual launch incident may have damaged critical insulating tiles on the shuttle's left wing, the side of the shuttle where the sensor readings went dead. Insulation from the rocket that helped boost Columbia to orbit flew off and hit the wing during liftoff.

Shuttle manager Dittemore says that after exhaustive analysis early in the mission, flight engineers determined that it probably would have no affect on the flight. But given Columbia's loss, he did not dismiss the potential impact to the wing.

"We're going to go back and see if there is a connection. Is that the smoking gun? It is not. We don't know enough about it. A lot more analysis and evidence needs to come to the table," he emphasized. "It's not fair to represent the tile damage as the source. It's just something we need to go look at."

When the Columbia disaster occurred, NASA administrator O'Keefe was at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida awaiting the shuttle's return with the families and friends of the astronauts. What was to be a happy reunion turned into grief-stricken moments of consolation. Mr. O'Keefe paid tribute to the astronauts, whom he said dedicated their lives to facing scientific challenges for all of us on Earth.

"The loss of this valued crew is something we will never be able to get over and certainly the families of all of them," he said. "We have assured them we will do everything, everything, we can possibly do to guarantee that they work their way through this horrific tragedy."

Security had been tighter than usual at the landing site because the presence of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon prompted government fears that he might be the target of a terrorist attack. However, NASA says there is no indication that terrorism is involved in the shuttle loss.

IMHO, they need to do something about SPACE DEBRIS. There's all kinds of junk flying around up there that would wreak havoc if it collided with an 18,000 MHP space shuttle. It might already have.

Space junk is an ongoing problem. Most of the bits big enough to bring down the shuttle are tracked by radar.

Most of it is orbiting in the same direction, so the relative speed is not 18,000 mph. You could really hurt someone by launching a bucket of bolts against the earth's spin. Remember that when the alien invaders come.

>>we have had two catastrophic failures now in around hundred flights (suggesting a catstrophic failure rate probability o!��5{��50), and have now lost 40% of our five-vehicle fleet<<

And what is the engineering and production plan to deal with a loss rate of 1:50 flights?

The mission concepts of STS presumed a loss rate of 1:100,000 flights, not 1:50. There are no plans to produce a new orbiter every fifty flights-there are no plans to produce orbiters at all.

And there is no engineering program for a replacement.

Fly 'em until they're all gone, then leave space to the Chinese.

Is that really the plan?

>>If the shuttle program is canceled, the space program will die<<

Then the space program (the American one) is dead, because the shuttle will never fly again.

Most of the bits big enough to bring down the shuttle are tracked by radar. I disagree. MOST of the junk up there is TOO SMALL to be tracked by radar, let alone be seen by an approaching vessel (even though they wouldn't have time to do anything about it) which is thus the crux of the problem.

I stand partially corrected on the relative velocities in this regard: there are different orbit heights and at some point one gets to geosynchronous which isn't moving wrt the Earth. Thus, any debris from a geosynchronous deployment would yield the same result as collision with a stationary object, ie relative 18,000 mph if impacted by a shuttle.

...there are no plans to produce orbiters at all.

I thought I heard that each orbiter had a life expectancy of 100 flights. With a 5 vessel fleet and approx 5 launches per year (107 launches in 20 years), the Space Shuttle program was good for 100 years...or until something better comes along.

>> I thought I heard that each orbiter had a life expectancy of 100 flights<<

You and I have heard a lot of things.

The actual catastrophic failure rate is 1/50. With four orbiters, that means 200 trips and it's over.

And the losses are of course losses of irreplaceable heroes and explorers, not merely billions of dollars of steel and silicon.

The mission concepts and the lack of alternatives or followon vehicles are simply not consistent with a failure rate of 1:50.

....spend hundreds of millions of dollars (or lives....

How many millions of lives have been save by advances brought forth by the space program? These people volunteer for this fairly dangerous duty in order to advance mankind's agenda. For their sake and ours, let's not wimp out now. Get back on the horse and ride....if you need a volunteer....sign me up.

>> I thought I heard that each orbiter had a life expectancy of 100 flights<< You and I have heard a lot of things. The actual catastrophic failure rate is 1/50. With four orbiters, that means 200 trips and it's over.

Well, do the math.

They expected the airframes to last 100 missions. But since the original estimate was that we'd lose a shuttle once every 75 missions, there was a 33% chance that any of them would last the 100 missions to begin with.

Space is dangerous. But we need to keep going. And we need a new fleet, with boosters for heavy lift and smaller space planes or capsules for manned flight. The shuttle is too complex and tries to do too many things and costs too much to fly. We need better vehicles.

The obvious problem with the grounding is that it will be many months, if not years before we can 'safely' fly again.

No vehicles are "safe". There are only degress of safety.

NASA and the astronaut corps have always known the danger. And they know it's worth going even if some crews draw the short straw.

"...the shuttle will never fly again."

I sincerely hope you are wrong. If not, we had best teach our children to speak Chinese so they can help the next great world power. I say this because, I don't think the US will retain the political will and interest for a period long enough to design and develop a replacement for the shuttle, if their is no manned space program in the interim.

>> say this because, I don't think the US will retain the political will and interest for a period long enough to design and develop a replacement for the shuttle, if their is no manned space program in the interim<<

We have not had the will for a long, long time.

That is pure garbage. The shuttle makes satellite placement what 100 -- 200 percent more expensive than disposable rockets?

For what mission? All these things are mission design dependent. The Shuttle did not come out of thin air because it was thought to be a nice toy. Reusability has its benefits. And the 100 to 200 percent price tag increase is ludicrous. The shuttle is multimissioned. You talk about pure garbage, you're the one adding nothing to the equation.

Please note 'safely' was in quotes, meaning as safe as can reasonably be conducted.

To those that say 'keep flying', I am not arguing that spirit at all. What I am saying is that in this and other dangerous businesses, its not smart to simply take chances, and professionals don't. We DO take calculated risks, fully understand the problems, and mitigate the dangers to the fullest extent. This is prudent and necessary. Up until Saturday, NASA was taking calculated risks. To continue now, without an investigation, is rolling a dice.

In aviation, the rules are written in blood. To not stop and learn those lessons is just as much letting the crew die in vain as to stop flying alltogether.

To those that say 'keep flying', I am not arguing that spirit at all. What I am saying is that in this and other dangerous businesses, its not smart to simply take chances, and professionals don't. We DO take calculated risks, fully understand the problems, and mitigate the dangers to the fullest extent. This is prudent and necessary. Up until Saturday, NASA was taking calculated risks. To continue now, without an investigation, is rolling a dice.

In aviation, the rules are written in blood. To not stop and learn those lessons is just as much letting the crew die in vain as to stop flying alltogether.

And after a thorough investigation, I also would volunteer.

You'd think that in 20+ years, NASA could have come up with something less "Iffy" than Heat Tiles to cover the underbelly of the ship...Maybe a teflon shield, like the old capsules had?

What I am saying is that in this and other dangerous businesses, its not smart to simply take chances, and professionals don't. We DO take calculated risks, fully understand the problems, and mitigate the dangers to the fullest extent. This is prudent and necessary.

We could save more lives than were lost on the shuttle every single day by lowering the highway speed limit to 20 mph. And by outlawing motorcycles and bicycles. And private aircraft.

Why so much concern with saving lives just on the shuttle? I'd like to know how many qualified astronauts have died in car wrecks or other "preventable" accidents over the course of the space program. We've now lost 17 astronauts. Are you so sure that we haven't killed more astronauts by not enacting more stringent vehicular safety laws for vehicles they use other than the shuttle?

NASA Grounds Shuttle Fleet

OK, somebody help me out here. The "fleet" is, what, three ships now? As far as I can tell there are only Endeavor, Discovery, and Atlantis. And Discovery hasn't flown since 8/01? Anybody know why? I did a quick look around the NASA site and could find no missions scheuled for Discover.

The Americans should have turned the craft around after all the booster separations. Doesn't anyone find it curious that an agency will delay launch, after launch, due to backup water lines leaking, or light winds, or etc, but will continue a mission after seeing the wing become damaged?

I believe some heads will roll after this decision.

Your arguing with the wrong person. I am a strong supporter of manned space. I am telling you the pragmatic reality of the business. NASA will have to do a thorough investigation, and likely congress will do an 'independent' one before the shuttle flies again. This will be a long pocess whether you or I like it or not. As always, I simply try to provide the rationale, not argue with those who have different or otherwise informed opinions.

Just because I understand the enemy doesn't mean I agree with him. Likewise, it doesn't mean I ignore him lest I walk into my own undoing.

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