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Posted on 02/02/2003 2:54:30 PM PST by NormsRevenge
NASA: Shuttle Temperature Rose Suddenly
By PAUL RECER, AP Science Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -
NASA (news - web sites) officials said Sunday that space shuttle Columbia experienced a sudden and extreme rise in temperature on the fuselage moments before the craft broke apart.
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NASA space shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore said the temperature rise — 60 degrees over five minutes in the mid-fuselage — was followed by an increased sign of drag that caused the shuttle's computerized flight control system to try to make an adjustment to the flight pattern.
Dittemore cautioned that the evidence was still preliminary, but that one of the possibilities was that there been damage or a loss of thermal tiles that protect the shuttle from burning up during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
"We are making progress," Dittemore said, adding that the combination of new engineering data and an observer who reported seeing debris from the shuttle while it was still passing over California may create "a path that may lead us to the cause."
The shuttle broke up shortly before landing Saturday, killing all seven astronauts. Most of its debris landed in eastern Texas and Louisiana.
Earlier Sunday, NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe named a former Navy admiral to oversee an independent review of the accident, and said investigators initially would focus on whether a broken-off piece of insulation from the big external fuel tank caused damage to the shuttle during liftoff Jan. 16 that ultimately doomed the flight 16 days later.
"It's one of the areas we're looking at first, early, to make sure that the investigative team is concentrating on that theory," O'Keefe said.
The insulation is believed to have struck a section of the shuttle's left side.
Dittemore said the engineering data showed a temperature rise in the left wheel well of the shuttle about seven minutes before communication was lost with the spacecraft. One minute later, there was an even more significant temperature rise in the middle to left side of the fuselage.
The drag on the left wing began a short while later, causing the shuttle's automated flight system to start to make adjustments.
"There may be some significance to the wheel well. We've got some more detective work," Dittemore said.
The manufacturer of the fuel tank disclosed Sunday that NASA used an older version of the tank, which the space agency began phasing out in 2000. NASA's preflight press information stated the shuttle was using one of the newer super-lightweight fuel tanks.
Harry Wadsworth, a spokesman for Lockheed, the tank maker, said most shuttle launches use the "super-lightweight" tank and the older version is no longer made. Wadsworth said he did not know if there was a difference in how insulation was installed on the two types of tanks.
Wadsworth said the tank used aboard the Columbia mission was manufactured in November 2000 and delivered to NASA the next month. Only one more of the older tanks is left, he said.
O'Keefe emphasized that the space agency was being careful not to lock onto any one theory too soon. He vowed to "leave absolutely no stone unturned."
For a second day, searchers scoured forests and rural areas over 500 square miles of East Texas and western Louisiana for bits of metal, ceramic tile, computer chips and insulation from the shattered spacecraft.
State and federal officials, treating the investigation like a multi-county crime scene, were protecting the debris until it can be catalogued, carefully collected and then trucked to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.
The effort to reconstruct what is left of Columbia into a rough outline of the shuttle will be tedious and painstaking.
When a shuttle piece was located this weekend, searchers left it in place until a precise global position satellite reading could be taken. Each shuttle part is numbered; NASA officials say experts hope to trace the falling path of each recovered piece.
The goal is to establish a sequence of how parts were ripped off Columbia as it endured the intense heat and pressure of the high-speed re-entry into the atmosphere.
At least 20 engineers from United Space Alliance, a key NASA contractor for the shuttle program, were dispatched to Barksdale for what is expected to be a round-the-clock investigation.
Other experts, including metallurgists and forensic medicine specialists, are expected to join the investigation. Their focus will be on a microscopic examination of debris and remains that could elicit clues such as how hot the metal became, how it twisted and which parts flew off first.
In addition to NASA's investigation, O'Keefe named an independent panel to be headed by retired Navy admiral Harold W. Gehman Jr., who previously helped investigate the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole (news - web sites).
Gehman's panel will also examine the Columbia wreckage, and come to its own conclusions about what happened. O'Keefe described Gehman as "well-versed in understanding exactly how to look about the forensics in these cases and coming up with the causal effects of what could occur."
Joining Gehman on the commission are four other military officers and two federal aviation safety officials.
Officials used horses and four-wheel-drive vehicles to find and recover the shuttle pieces. Divers were being called in to search the floor of Toledo Bend Reservoir, on the Texas-Louisiana line, for a car-sized piece seen slamming into the water.
Some body parts from the seven-member astronaut crew have been recovered and are being sent to a military morgue in Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
Columbia came apart 200,000 feet over Texas while it was streaking at more than 12,000 miles an hour toward the Kennedy Space Center (news - web sites). A long vapor trail across the sky marked the rain of debris.
Here ya go.
Ah - ha!
That's not the lone, sole selling point is it now!?
What was the largest payload ever brought *back* from space before the shuttle? (This would include all experiment materials, notes and tapes made by the experimenter.)
I agree. One UNMANNED vehicle to launch the payload. One smaller vehicle to launch the astronauts.
In the wake of Challenger, when NASA officials were fielding questions about various emergency procedures and abort scenarios, one reporter asked:
"In this accident, we saw a failure of a solid rocket booster. What is the contingency if say, one SRB fails to ignite?"
Answer:
"All of our abort scenarios assume that we have two good SRBs"
In other words: They die!
The Shuttle design exposes the astronauts to mortality without recourse more than earlier launch systems. The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space capsules all had escape rockets that were designed to pull the capsule away from an exploding booster. The G forces might seriously injure the astronauts but at least there was a hope of survival. Some anonomous group in NASA decided that a similar approch wasn't worth the trouble with the shuttle.
The Challenger commission turned up many examples of single point of failure vulnerabilities in the shuttle. Engineering studies show that the all the main gear tires could fail catastrophically if the shuttle ever had to land with something as big as a TDRSS satellite that had failed to deploy. Again someone in NASA made these engineering decisions and they are anonymous. The folks who signed off on the clevis joint design of the SRBs were as guilty as the officials who pressed for launch in spite of warnings from lower level engineers. The SRBs that were recovered post launch often had evidence of blowby and sometimes there was extensive erosion of the secondary O rings. Challenger like events almost happened earlier and people ignored the warnings.
Fact: The tiles are delicate. Fact: Huge chunks of ice slough off the external tank during each launch.
What's wrong with this picture? If this isn't the cause of this calamity. It could easily be a cause in the future.
Even if the most recent loss has nothing to do with the tiles. It gives me pause to learn that there are no contingencies to deal with tile damage. It's been known for a long time that damage to certain tiles can lead to loss of the vehicle.
There is a betrayal of the public trust here even if Columbia was struck by a meteor during re-entry.
Left wing problem is prime suspect
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/shuttle/5087890.htm
I think that these are probably the most reliable component of the entire shuttle ... these are ridiculously simple in construction and once lit - stay lit.
The SOB gets paid without having to learn the facts.
So why should he confuse himself with facts, or waste the time to learn them?
Typical media reporting.
I'm watching Whoraldo, and he's showing a close up from one of yesterday's videos, and am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?
It's a seemingly clear shape, and it sure looks to me like the shuttle is completely sideways in it's trajectory, viewed from the back. The left wing/side is the leading edge. The camera zooms back, the image becomes fuzzy, and then it looks like the other videos as the glow breaks up.
Am I (and Whoraldo) seeing things? Has anyone else seen this? I've got to be wrong...it seems so obvious. Is the shuttle completely sideways? Is it a trick of the video, or what?
I thought it was rather near sighted to put all eggs in the one space shuttle basket a few years ago when almost all sat launches were scheduled exclusively for the shuttle ... we damn near ran out of fully operational NWS GOES birds at the equator for that decision too ...
Geez!
This has already been discredited here on FR!
THIS is a lens anomoly!
We saw this on Dallas televsion stations ALL DAY YESTERDAY!
Fer cryin out loud!
Especially since debris from the shuttle tank have been hitting the tiles routinely on previous flights.
What leads you to believe 'something internal to the shuttle' failed first?
And I'll TAKE that wager. I wager they won't.
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