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.

[mabelkitty]

http://63.98.82.51/imppa/nasampp.htm

Read this before somebody yanks it.

Louis Stokes, emboldened by Clinton, referred to NASA as a white boys country club and refused support for it unless then enacted PC/racist policies of giving preference to miority business enterprises, i.e, those who can't cut it in the real world. Read this!

Also, practice still going on of these MBE, who can't meet the terms and conditions of contracting get a back door entry by these racist/PC managers who have risen in rank.

We need to clean it out like we are attempting to do with CIA and FBI. Overhaul.

[hapy]

Dont sound like a liberal, especially this early on a Monday morning.

There was nothing anyone could do. It was an accident, no one is at fault.

let the liberals try and find fault, it will give them sometihng to do today

But this was just a horrible accident.

I do believe NASA new there could be a problem. We don't know that they didn't warn the crew, but again let the liberals use all their energy to blame today. We must morn and move on from this

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Why not? Was Columbia not fitted with the right connections or something?

That is correct. (Among other things.)

[Mo1]

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

They would have to rebuild/redesign the whole shuttle if they did that, wouldn't they??

[MattinNJ]

This is sickning. The same bureaucratic CYA that is going on at the Energy Dept. about the theft of nuclear secrets and at the CIA and FBI about 9-11.

[P-Marlowe]

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.

Then I think NASA should have informed the American public of their concerns and given us the opportunity to pray for that kind of divine intervention. (Unless, of course, those in charge at NASA believe that Apollo 13 was brought back safely merely by their own efforts without divine intervention.) If that were the case, then yes, the astronauts were doomed from the beginning.

[bvw]

From FR Thread posted by RamTek57. Newsday: "NASA Options to Save Doomed Columbia Vary"

Could NASA have sent another shuttle to rescue Columbia's five men and two women?

In theory, yes.

Normally, it takes four months to prepare a shuttle for launch. But in a crisis, shuttle managers say they might be able to put together a launch in less than a week if all testing were thrown out the window and a shuttle were already on the pad.

Columbia had enough fuel and supplies to remain in orbit until Wednesday, and the astronauts could have scrimped to stay up another few days beyond that. With shuttle Atlantis ready to be moved to its pad, it theoretically could have been rushed into service, and Columbia's astronauts could have climbed aboard in a series of spacewalks. If Atlantis flew with the minimum crew of two, it could have accommodated seven more astronauts.

Not suggested here, but also possible is a Russian Soyuz rescue, or even resupply, prior to a shuttle rescue. The Russians just yesterday (IIRC) launched a resupply to the ISS.

[anniegetyourgun]

From all I've read and heard, there was no support to do such a thing. As for Star Trek, heck...even they lose folks from time-to-time. It's part of the script because we know inherently and in our gut that always perfect outcomes are not possible in this life.

[need_a_screen_name]

3) we could have developed a plan to hitch them a ride on the international space station.

Columbia could not have docked with the space station. Being the heaviest shuttle, it never orbited as high as the station, nor is it outfitted with a docking ring.

It is hard for me to believe that shuttles don't carry some sort of tile repair kits where the astronauts can go outside and do repairs, but it appears they don't.

[OldFriend]

THE COLUMBIA HAD NO DOCKING CAPABILITIES

THERE WAS NO REPAIR CAPABILITY

[Chancellor Palpatine]

.

[OXENinFLA]

Or it's an old pic of the MIER.

[Mo1]

It should never of even gone up that is the bottom line. There was warnings before.

ALL space missiosn has it's dangers, I'm not ready to to dump on the space missions

[HairOfTheDog]

I wouldn't go so far as to call it negligence. Even educated, informed people can disagree about whether something is a serious problem or not.

But I, like many others, are frustrated by the "We couldn't fix it so why bother" attitude.

I think you are discounting the decision process they went through to arrive at that conclusion. That was the end decision, after all the options they could think of had been discussed.... that was not the whole discussion.

[Timesink]

Isn't there still the option to abort the flight after launch before the shuttle leaves the earths atmosphere? I know that time is short in that margin but it seems there would be some sort of contingency or emergency procedures that would apply.

Yes, liftoffs can be aborted up to a certain point:

Space Shuttle Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) Sites
FS-2001-05-012-KSC

Planning for each Space Shuttle mission includes provisions for an unscheduled landing at contingency landing sites in the U.S. and overseas. Several unscheduled landing scenarios are possible, ranging from adverse weather conditions at the primary and secondary landing sites to mechanical problems during the ascent and mission phases that would require emergency return of the orbiter and its crew. The Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) is one mode of unscheduled landing. The orbiter would have to make an unscheduled landing if one or more of its three main engines failed during ascent into orbit, or if a failure of a major orbiter system, such as the cooling or cabin pressurization systems, precluded satisfactory continuation of the mission.

Several unscheduled landing scenarios are possible with about modes available that include: Return to Launch Site (RTLS); East Coast Abort Landing (ECAL) Site; Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL); Abort Once Around (AOA); and Abort to Orbit (ATO). The abort mode would depend on when in the ascent phase an abort became necessary.

The TAL abort mode was developed to improve the options available if failure occurred after the last opportunity for a safe Return To Launch Site (RTLS) or East Coast Abort Landing (ECAL), but before the Abort Once Around (AOA) option became available. A TAL would be declared between roughly T+2:30 minutes (liftoff plus 2 minutes, 30 seconds) and Main Engine Cutoff (MECO), about T+8:30 minutes, with the exact time depending on the payload and mission profile.

A TAL would be made at one of four designated sites, two in Africa and two in Spain: Ben Guerir Air Base, Morocco; Banjul International Airport, The Gambia; Zaragoza Air Base, Spain, and Moron Air Base, Spain.

Each TAL site is covered by a separate international agreement. The TAL sites are referred to as augmented sites because they are equipped with Shuttle-unique landing aids and are staffed with NASA, contractor and Department of Defense personnel during a launch and contingency landing.

Space Shuttles are launched eastward over the Atlantic Ocean from KSC for insertion into equatorial orbits. Depending on mission requirements, an orbiter follows and orbital insertion inclination between 28.5 degrees (low) and 57.0 degrees (high) to the equator. The lower inclination launch allows for a higher maximum payload weight.

High or low inclination launches require different contingency landing sites, with three of the four landing sites staffed to ensure there is acceptable weather for a safe landing at a TAL site.

During a TAL abort, the orbiter continues on a trajectory across the Atlantic to a predetermined runway at one of the TAL sites. The four sites NASA has designated as TAL sites have been chosen in part because they are near the nominal ascent ground track of the orbiter, which would allow the most efficient use of main engine propellant and cross-range steering capability.

So it would appear they would have had plenty of time to land somewhere, but the question is: How soon did the engineers notice that piece of foam coming off the tank? And if they did see it in time, did they realize the seriousness of it soon enough, or did they think it was just a routine piece of ice falling off or somesuch?

[RCW2001]

Not to mention that Russia just sent a supply ship to the space station yesterday.

If repair materials had been needed, they could have been sent on that mission...

[Dave S]

The non-military people could have been evacuated. They could have squeezed them into the space station.

The Shuttle could did not have fuel to get to the Space Station and even if it had there was no way to dock with the Space Station. The Shuttle is too big and they didnt have the thether so they couldnt do a space walk to the ISS. If A Russian or American rescue flight was sent up, there again would be no way to get the crew from one vehicle to the other. Also under the best of conditions it would have taken at least a week to launch a rescue Shuttle and that would have put the other shuttle crew at risk.

[Mamzelle]

re: *What* pray tell, do we suppose they were talking about when they were meeting on the risk and effects of possible damage? )))

First, take better pictures. Taking better pictures of the possible damage is most certainly doable.

[ResistorSister]

I must have walked into the report REALLY late...because what I saw were two glowing objects travelling through the black sky.

On my TV it looked as if the second glowing object was about one inch (on the tv screen) behind the first glowing object...when suddenly the second glowing object looked as if it had an explosion and a contrail appeared.

Is that the same thing you are talking about?

[Fitzcarraldo]

Sadly...even if true, there is almost nothing that could have been done once launched. I hope we can learn for the future.

I reject this fatalism. If you had been mission director of Apollo 13, no doubt you would recommended the crew take their suicide pills (assuming they had them).

If NASA had decided to take action immediately after Columbia reached orbit, there would have been at least 21 days for a rescue attempt.