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.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Couldn't they have changed their flight plans and gone to the space station, docked, had someone with a suit go out and perform a more thorough analysis, and, although extreme, if determined to be damaged enough, release the Columbia into space and all 10 wait for another shuttle to get them?

*SIGH*

[GOPrincess]

Heard a good interview with Miles O'Brien on KRLA radio this a.m. He said that replacing tiles was impossible for many reasons. He said they are like "27,000 different snowflakes," each one is different and you couldn't carry a replacement for each into space...and the complicated process of applying the tiles *is* "rocket science," he gave a little detail about how complex the process is, and he said attempting it in the void of space was an impossibility.

[js1138]

The altitude and lack of oxygen will kill you just as fast.

People have jumped from balloons at 100,000 feet. Yes, you need a protective suit. It make no difference in the case of the shuttle.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Show me a balloon that goes as fast as a shuttle on reentry...

[JCEccles]

This thread is a troubling reflection of the new American psyche in terms of apprehending and dealing with danger and risk inherent in national undertakings. We are more than simply conditioned to expect deathless high-risk national endeavors--we have come to demand them. We simply will not tolerate loss of life, regardless of the issue. In a month, maybe two, we will likely begin a military attack of Iraq. How many deaths will be tolerated before a panicked public starts demanding withdrawal of American forces and the punishment of all elected officials and military leaders involved? Not many, I suspect. The anti-war forces, liberal and faux conservative alike, are already preparing for the event. How many FReepers will join them? Most of them posting on this thread, I suspect.

The loss of the Columbia crew was very sad and unfortunate. Our reponse to it tells us much about our own risk aversion as it does anything else.

[Desdemona]

People have jumped from balloons at 100,000 feet.

Yes, but this was 200,000 at Mach 18, not practically at a stand-still.

[myrabach]

Where in what I said leads you to believe that I think nothing was being done? I am sure that there was more being done than is being speculated here. There is just too much at stake for me to believe otherwise. The people at NASA value human life and value the lives of our astronauts. Too much is at stake for NASA to feel otherwise.

All of a sudden everyone wants to know just what was going on... and maybe, just maybe... there was a lot more going on than you think. I seriously doubt that anyone at NASA just threw up their hands and said "oh well, let it crash-- nothing we can do now."

[Poohbah]

Couldn't they have changed their flight plans and gone to the space station, docked, had someone with a suit go out and perform a more thorough analysis, and, although extreme, if determined to be damaged enough, release the Columbia into space and all 10 wait for another shuttle to get them?

No. The Space Station was in a higher orbit, and in a different orbital plane. It would be akin to trying to arrange a rendevous between a vehicle on I-40 and another vehicle on I-70.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Deja Vu

[Alberta's Child]

Something else to consider here is that we are discussing all of the possible things that could be done in the event something like this happens again.

But this was only one of many, many things that could have gone wrong. In order to be prepared for every possible contingency on a shuttle mission, or even for every possible contingency that might happen on more than one out of every 1,000 launches, we would be launching shuttles the size of warehouses, with extra tiles, engine parts, engines, wings, escape pods, 5 years worth of oxygen, Florida ballots in case the crew is trapped up there past the next election day, etc.

At times like this it is hard to accept that it is necessary to be clinical about these things, but there are paratical considerations to be made. That's why the speed limit isn't 10 miles per hour on interstate highways.

[BureaucratusMaximus]

In the spirit of not attacking you .. I think I will wait untill all the facts are out I have my opinions of what happened .. unfortunately I don't believe they could have fixed these tiles out in the middle of space

Fair enough.

[stuartcr]

That should clear up a lot...a bunch of freepers sitting at their computers, figuring out what NASA should have done. Probablt at least one will say it was God's will because our country is straying from the faith, and another that it has to do with our govts stance on abortion.

[deport]

Mark..... In your circle, what is the take on the picture that has been posted from the Israeli paper showing proported cracks in the wing? Is there any indications of validity, even possibility of taking from that angle, who took the picture, where was the camera located, etc.? It would seem that something like this can be easily debunked or validated as NASA should know where all cameras are and who has them and any transmissions from the Shuttle....

Yonif, I've asked you these questions a couple of times on your thread but you've ignored them. Why? You're so sure of yourself as an 18 yr old that has lived in four countries and is bilingual, so you must know... Please tell us and take the mystery out of it.

[js1138]

Maybe you need the precious payload up at the leading edge, like on the old space rockets.

Or an umbrella that would deflect falling stuff, then slough off. (Did I spell that right? I hate that word.)

[GOPrincess]

"But this was only one of many, many things that could have gone wrong. In order to be prepared for every possible contingency on a shuttle mission, or even for every possible contingency that might happen on more than one out of every 1,000 launches, we would be launching shuttles the size of warehouses, with extra tiles, engine parts, engines, wings, escape pods, 5 years worth of oxygen..."

This is a good point which Miles O'Brien (CNN's space expert) addressed in a KRLA radio interview this morning. He said there are literally thousands of parts on the shuttle which can cause a catastrophic failure -- if just one of them goes bad.

I think maybe it would be a good thing to consider how *amazing* U.S. engineering is, that we have flown these shuttles so many times with no problems, when there are always thousands of possibilities of things going wrong.

[Chad Fairbanks]

That should clear up a lot...a bunch of freepers sitting at their computers, figuring out what NASA should have done. Probablt at least one will say it was God's will because our country is straying from the faith, and another that it has to do with our govts stance on abortion.

You are late - that happened within hours of the tragedy...

[Willie Green]

How do you have a "tile repair kit" under such circumstances?

Red Green (no relation) would suggest using duct tape,
but perhaps a little Bondo would work as well.
(according to the tinfoil fix-it freaks anyway.)
Maybe the media talking-heads should get Tim Allen's opinion on the subject.

[Axenolith]

I'm taking heavy FLaK on another thread on the same subject, I can't believe the # of people who assume this was hopeless from the git go. Crap, something could have been tried, even if the odds were long...

[Rockitz]

I have come to believe that it is not so much the foam as they report, rather it was ice that forms on the cryogenic tank walls that finally detached at altitude. Ice could do far more damage to the tiles than the SOFI (spray on foam insulation).

[Fitzcarraldo]

There is a huge amount that could have been done.

Define "huge amount" and then itemize what their options were. Oh by the way using the teleporter to transport to the surface is not an option.

As astronaut just voiced his opinion (interviewed live on KFI-AM, Los Angeles) that because of the current state of preparation of Atlantis, it could have been launched to rescue the crew within a week and that the crew could have been passed from one spacecraft to the other in the "beachball" rescue suits.