BREAKING: NBC News finds Jan 30 NASA Memo showing serious concern about tile damage!

NBC News | February 3, 2003 | Jay Barbree

[Timesink]

Developing. Watch MSNBC for latest. Internal memo shows some engineers believe there was up to a 7 1/2-inch gash from the foam breakoff at launch. Memo was serious enough to go out to all NASA centers two days before disaster.

[TLBSHOW]

I am not in charge but I see major problems at NASA for years!

http://www.nasaproblems.com/

This webpage is an information mechanism for solutions to NASA's human space projects problems. Members of the American aerospace community are encouraged to use this webpage as an instrument to openly express constructive concerns and solutions for the problems at NASA. No names will be used unless requested............. "Speak out... or forever suffer the consequences of remaining silent"
Don A. Nelson, Coordinator ......... Retired NASA Aerospace Engineer
Issues:
International Space Station
Petition to Congress for "No" vote on NASA's Integrated Space Transportation Plan
Petition provides information on why the NASA plan will accelerate the collapse of the human space program.
Space Shuttle Safety
Space Shuttle Safety Moratorium
Requests Presidential executive order for Shuttle flights... Reply... Justifications.
NASA Headquarters Space Shuttle Safety Letters and Replies
Attempts to get crew escape modules on Shuttle... Comments on replies.
"NASA’s gambling, again, with a teacher's safety", By Don A. Nelson
Houston Chronicle article Apr. 19 2002... Comments... Replies.
Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel Annual Report for 2000
ASAP recommends new crew escape system as soon as possible.
NASA Human Space Program Management Solutions
NASA Directives for 21st Century
Based

[al_c]

Sorry... life is not a Bruce Willis movie.

Puh-leeze. I never suggested anything like what hollywierd threw at us in Armageddon.

Let's get back on topic.

[Timesink]

1) we could have sent up Atlantis to get them, which would have been capable of launch...

There's no way another shuttle could have been launched in time. They're not airplanes; you can't just open the hangar door and have them off the ground twenty minutes later. It would have taken weeks.

[TLBSHOW]

7 – Light at the End of the Tunnel?

NASA must change its operating philosophy or that light at the end of the tunnel will be an approaching freight train!

[TLBSHOW]

I copied it and put it on a post here, In case!

[ThinkingMan]

How in the hell...after all these advances in technology, are the insulation tiles *STILL* glued on with silicone?

Why isn't the entire Orbiter's belly ONE PIECE??

So that if one tile is damaged it can be replaced. Can you imagine the budget problems if they had to replace the WHOLE underside of the shuttle after every flight? Also- a cracked tile does not instantly spell death for all aboard. The real problem will be if the crack was determined to be past TOLERANCES. Anyone who has worked on any kind of aircraft can tell you that they fly with missing fasteners, cracked skins, leaking fluid all the time. It is about the tolerances, not the actual defect.

[HairOfTheDog]

Now it may very well turn out that the shuttle disaster could have been readily and resposibly avoided had one of these safety experts been listened to. If so, the parties responsible should suffer stiff consequences. But knee-jerking ourselves to a conclusion at this early stage that the shuttles were made and maintained in a decrepit junkyard by devil-may-care teenagers and delinquents whose last consideration was safety is counterproductive and foolish.

I admire your fair approach, except I would not even dream of punishing the parties yet. A judgment call was made that could have gone either way. There has to be a reasonable man test. Could a reasonable man have weighed the same evidence and made the call they did? - We don't know if that falling foam is even the cause yet. We can't forget that. It might be, it might just be what the media thinks is the cause. NASA is being much more methodical than the media. But then, they have to be right. The media doesn't.

[TLBSHOW]

Russia sent a food ship up yesterday! Did you catch that story?

[Lee'sGhost]

Excellent point.

[Mark Felton]

"How soon did the engineers notice that piece of foam coming off the tank?"

This wan't noticed until launch videos were being screened the day after the launch. The shuttle was already in orbit and beginning experiments.

[Anticommie]

Sadly...even if true, there is almost nothing that could have been done once launched.

Perhaps nothing could be done to save the shuttle, but the crew could be saved by joining the orbiting space station.

[YaYa123]

Are you possibly over-reacting based onwhat we know so far?

According to NBC flight expert Robert Hager, the memo now being discussed, did NOT state that there was a 2 1/2 foot gash in the tiles. Hager states that the the group of engineers who were asked to study the take-off problem, sent their memo back to NASA two days before re-entry, and the memo states there could be damage to the heat tiles of that size. Hager says the The memo states the damage "COULD POSSIBLY be that large. That's the information NASA had.

I'm not splitting hairs, but at times like this, it's typical of the media...in this case, MSNBC, to hype the known information into conspiratorial, intentional, misdeeds on the part of NASA.

I urge restraint. Especially since NASA commissioned the outside engineering group to study the ramifications of the take-off problem on re-entry safety. They weren't ignoring a possibly serious problem. And it's not as if they had the information right after take-off and callously allowed the flight to continue knowing the astronauts might die upon re-entry.

And we certainly don't know information was withheld from the astronauts.

I watched Jay Barbree restate what he had found out this morning, about the memo. What Barbree said and what MSNBC anchors (and IMUS), imply by their questions, are two different things.

[BureaucratusMaximus]

Okay Maximus, with nothing they could do to save the astronauts, did you want NASA to tell them immediately it was a one way trip thus putting a damper over the trip of a lifetime for many of the crew.

They could have saved the astronauts by fixing a known problem before the shuttle taken off, that is negligence.

With no purpose for telling them, I think NASA did the right thing to withhold the information.

I feel so much better knowing that...don't you? Wonder what would happen if a nuclear/biological attack was immenant..say in your area...and you could have taken measures to preserve your life and the life of your family, but YOU weren't provided any information? Oh...thats right, you wouldn't know the difference anyway...cause you'd be dead.

[Mark Felton]

So what are you implying? Be explicit.

[Timesink]

My ongoing question is this: If the tiles were damaged on take-off, and if the damage and its severity were known within moments of take-off, and if there were no in-flight method of repair to the damaged shuttle, would there have been a reasonable abort option during the take-off?

Yes. See my post #75 in this thread. Assuming all those "ifs" proved true, particularly "if they recognized the severity in time," they may have had up to 8 1/2 minutes after liftoff to abort, depending on the particularities of this individual mission.

[Mo1]

There's no way another shuttle could have been launched in time. They're not airplanes; you can't just open the hangar door and have them off the ground twenty minutes later. It would have taken weeks.

EXACTLY!!

[Fitzcarraldo]

just in general would have required NASA to be granted a level of divine luck a couple of orders of magnitude above what it took to save Apollo XIII.

I respectfully disagree.

There is a huge amount that could have been done.

Clearly apologists for the fatalist attitude are now taking to the airwaves lending support to the eventual "official conclusion" to be taken by NASA.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

I am sorry if I offended you, but what exactly did I say that was so bad.

Becky

[Dave S]

Dock at the space station and return on the Soyuz capsule

The Columbia is physically incapable of docking at the space station. The Columbia is too heavy. Second, the Columbia was at a lower orbit and didnt have enough fuel to take it up to the higher level and catch the ISS (this isnt Star Trek). Third, the escape pod on the ISS only carries three and one of those would have to be the Russian on board the station who can pilot it. Astronauts who have been on board the ISS have quipped it would have to be one hell of an emergency for them to risk return using the escape pod. They dont trust it.

[TLBSHOW]

NASA veteran warned of disaster

Feb. 2 — What NASA did and didn’t do is the question that has been worrying many space agency insiders since long before Saturday’s disaster. That growing chorus of concern has a loud voice in Houston. Don Nelson was at NASA for 36 years, part of the team for shuttle’s initial design and upgrades until he retired in 1999. His major concern has been that as the shuttle fleet aged, and the possibility of a disaster grew stronger, NASA still hadn’t designed a way for those aboard to safely escape. NBC’s Stone Phillips spoke to Nelson.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/867888.asp?0cv=CA01