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.

[Poohbah]

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.

More than one, and they've already said it.

[NormsRevenge]

Good points. One of the many great things that FRee Republic can do is inform and educate the masses, if they are willing.

This tragic event is an opportunity for less technical folks to gain some insight into the technologies involved in space flight and the inherent risks. I have tried to post informative and not inflammatory threads. Some use this occurrence to advance their own agendas.

We can pound the heck out of NASA, second guess their decision making process, but remember who decides what gets funded and who held the purse strings when the shuttle program began and as it matured (or did it mature?).

You can have the best scientists and pilots in the world, but if you don't have a solid, well-thought out approach with contingency plans in case of potential failures, all is for naught.

Apollo 1 was an eye-opener. 35 years later, this happens.

Those quick to judge yesterday and today, will you be so quick to judge when the final conclusions are drawn after all the data and debris is analyzed?

My bet is it won't matter to some. But that won;t stop me and others from continuing to educate and inform, rather then point fingers and whine or make light of our shortcomings as we struggle to reach for the stars.

[js1138]

You guys just aren't reading. I started this by saying the problem was speed.

[Kozak]

The attitude that We, the People, should just shut up and let an elite group of others -- even when they are, genuinely, experts -- make ALL the decisions on our behalf, is a poison to Liberty, and a prelude, if not an admission of a socialist or fascist mindset

When you fly do you grab the controls from the pilot since you, the Passenger, know where you want to go?

[You Dirty Rats]

Wait until the facts are out?

You'll never be a network analyst!

The rule on this thread seems to be - attack first, think later if at all.

Anyone who really knows anything about this disaster -- really knows -- is too busy working on investigating this tragedy and doesn't have time to post to this thread.

There have been so many stupid posts on this thread that I fear we will never be able to criticize Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Mars) for her total ignorance of space.

The mindless attacks on NASA and its employees -- before all the facts are in -- doesn't reflect well on this board. Everyone should try to remember that all of NASA, while working diligently to understand exactly what happened, are heartsick and no doubt feeling horribly about the loss of seven of their very best.

Of course, if it makes you feel better to just believe all government employees are corrupt and NASA bureaucrats are indifferent to death, then by all means go ahead. After all, everyone knows that all NASA administrators were black helicopter pilots earlier in their careers.

Thank you, Mo1, for a sliver of sanity on this ridiculous thread. (Most of the preceding comments were directed at the armchair rocket scientists, not you!)

[Chad Fairbanks]

It wasn't aimed at you, so much as it was aimed at the 50 people or so who will come along after and ask that very same question ;0)

[js1138]

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.

Your screen name is well suited to this kind of mission.

[tobiasjodter]

I fear your sentiments are correct. Has anyone ever considered that perhaps NASA actually did think that the damage was insignificant and that is why no "fixes" were attempted?

[stuartcr]

I figured, but I didn't read all the replies...freepers are pretty predictable.

[tacticalogic]

You seem pretty knowlegable about the physics involved, do you think their chances would have been substantially better if they had left the payload in orbit, and brought the shuttle back down empty?

[Poohbah]

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.

Launching Atlantis 30 days early would have involved short-cutting a gazillion safety checks, and we PROBABLY would have lost Atlantis for our trouble.

The problem is that we had only four shuttles; to make the pace of missions that NASA wanted, we'd need about 40 of the suckers.

[You Dirty Rats]

"Do SOMETHING, Spock!"

"Dr. McCoy, logically there is nothing we can do. What do you suggest we do?"

"I don't know, Spock, but do something!"

[Poohbah]

You seem pretty knowlegable about the physics involved, do you think their chances would have been substantially better if they had left the payload in orbit, and brought the shuttle back down empty?

You mind telling me how they would get the damn spacelab module out of the Shuttle? It's not designed to be jettisoned...

[Trust but Verify]

Good one. Can't wait to see the response!

[VadeRetro]

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

Yer asken me about speling?

Shields within shields would be great except for the weight penalty. My dream would be a separate "emergency module" within the shuttle which has good enough armor to survive re-entry itself. That and you routinely do a pre-reentry EVA to check for tile damage on the outer shuttle. If you find enough to scare you, you re-enter in your pristine "little shuttle."

The only problem is that the whole assembly carrying all of this is probably too big to lift off.

[js1138]

Has anyone ever considered that perhaps NASA actually did think that the damage was insignificant and that is why no "fixes" were attempted?

Nah! That was their official position on Saturday. They've already said they had a meeting to discuss this very thing, came to the conclusion that it was similar to events in previous missions, and that it wasn't serious.

Since that was their official statement, it's obvious it should be disregarded. ;^)

[mewzilla]

This guy isn't the first to talk about sending up a rescue shuttle. It could have been done. The week turn around time would have made the operation horribly risky, but look at the alternative. The internal made it pretty clear that they knew what they could be dealing with. Which also makes me wonder why they chose not to get any pics, which they could have done. Instead they chose to take a chance with a ship that had been hit with a 15 sq ft chunk of foam weighing over a hundred pounds, that had probably done some serious damage. Yup, makes perfect sense to me.

Why didn't Dittemore dislcose the existence of the memo? Anyone else like to know?

[tacticalogic]

You mind telling me how they would get the damn spacelab module out of the Shuttle? It's not designed to be jettisoned...

Don't know. Maybe it should be. I'm not trying to second-guess NASA, I'm just kind of wondering out loud. I watched the pre-flight interviews of the astronauts, and one of them mentioned that this would be the heaviest shuttle that ever attempted a landing. I wondered how significant that might be.

[Dave S]

We know that the shuttle could not have reached the ISS. But does the ISS escape soluz (sp) have enough fuel to reach the shuttle?

The escape soyuz has enough of a burn to set the direction toward an earth landing. It only burns for seconds. It cant fly anywhere. It can only determine direction. Assuming they roundevouzed with the Shuttle, there was no way to get the 7 shuttle member crew into the 3 person soyuz escape pod. Additionally, there is no way to get the soyuz back to the Space Station.

Russia just this weekend launched a resupply ship to the ISS. Could it have resupplied the stranded shuttle instead?

The Russian resupply ship is unmanned. Assuming it could be reprogrammed to roundevouz with the shuttle, how is the Shuttle crew going to get the supplies from the Russian ship. They cant dock and they cant space walk. They dont have rocket packs to guide them through space.

Everyone claims there is absolutely no way that Atlantis could have been ready in time. But much of the delay in a shuttle's schedule is because the cargo isn't checked yet or pending flight investigations. If the word came down "You must launch by XX date", could the crew have had an unloaded shuttle by then? If they knew that lives depended on it?

If they through caution to the wind and placed another couple astronauts lives in jeopardy they might have been able to launch in seven days if there were no problems. Problem is that the shuttle crew would have run out of Oxygen in four days.

Even if absolutely nothing could be done other than reenter and hope for the best, NASA could at least have given the astronauts additional time with their loved ones

Thats questionable as it would have given the crew and the families more time to agonize over something that might not have happened.

[ThinkingMan]

You seem to be rather knowledgable in the arena, and please forgive me if this question has been answered (I just can't bring myself to read 400+ posts asking why they didn't just go to the space station and have a cup of coffee while the shuttle was repaired)

The video shown on Fox looks like the shuttle went sideways, with the port side leading. IF the cracked tile was at fault, AND the wing heats rapidly, do you think the heating would cause the distortion of the leading edge of the wing? If this is the case, if the wing thins out slightly, the right wing would have more resistance, causing the shuttle to turn portside forward. If the distortion caused the leading edge to flatten out, the computer may have tried to overcompensate to the increased drag causing the portside slide.

Just wondering your opinion of the theory- I will wait for NASA's explanation of the physics.