Posted on 02/03/2003 4:43:52 PM PST by Wolfstar
Edited on 04/29/2004 2:02:01 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Released Monday morning, a high-speed NASA engineering film shows a piece of debris falling from the large external tank on the space shuttle Columbia's liftoff and hitting the orbiter's left wing. Bear in mind that these are extreme close-ups of a high-speed event. In the top couple of photos, you see only the top of the broken-off piece. Most of it is in the shadows. Depending on which clip you see and how slowly it is run, to the uninitiated person's eye, it can look either like the debris strikes the wing hard enough to pulverize the debris, or the debris strikes a glancing blow and bounces off in the direction of the main and booster engine exhaust.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
How could it damage a large area of tile?
Unless, the tile were not properly attached for reasons like bad glue etc.
This is what irks me. I would be looking into all these things. I would test areas of the tile recovered that had been recently replaced to see if they screwed up some how.
Have you ever worked with epoxies? They are extremely finicky. Sometimes a mix just does not work properly.
I also considered the possibility that it was in fact, ICE. I considered that if the resulting mush was forced into the gaps between the tiles that if it froze in space it may have loosened the tile. Epoxies sometimes have little shear strength, nor does a ceramic.
Just food for thought.
Columbia was fitted with a different tile arrangement on the trailing edges of the wings near the elev-ons, both inboard and outboard. The rest of the shuttles had a thicker higher temp tile installed in these areas due to plasma flows. Columbia was the only one that did not. Probably due to weight considerations as it was the first and heaviest.
I wonder if this is significant? This fact might have made Columbia more susceptible to heating in the controlling areas. It may have contributed to the failure by causing the elev-ons to malfunction or stick. This would cause a gradual loss of control from over corrections due to the drag on the left wing and cause the sides of the orbiter to be exposed to too much heat from attempting to execute the roll program. Automated systems will continue to input until the requested result occurs. If the elev-on was compromised, it would continue to input. Perhaps the elev-on moved suddenly causing a tragic snap roll or other dangerous movement.
A stuck elev-on would result in heating of the hydraulics, but it would be gradual.
Still looking for the missing link.
Astronaut-Senator Misplaces Blame for NASA Budget Cuts By Jeff Johnson CNSNews.com Congressional Bureau Chief February 03, 2003
Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com)- A Senate Democrat - who flew a mission aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1986 when he was a member of the U.S. House - complained Monday that both Republican and Democratic administrations have failed to provide necessary funding for the nation's space exploration program. But government records prove that only President Clinton reduced funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
"The last two administrations have been starving NASA of money, and because it didn't have enough to do everything it wanted to do along with its cost overruns on the space station, it was delaying the safety upgrades," said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) on ABC's Good Morning America program. "And there's no excuse for that."
Nelson, whose January 1986 flight aboard the Columbia took place two weeks before the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger, said members of Congress could not help but consider what impact budget cuts might have had on safety after the apparent explosion that killed one Israeli and six American astronauts Saturday.
"Inevitably, there will be a discussion out of this about how much NASA should be funded, should there be another orbiter built?" Nelson said. "Has it been so poorly funded in recent years that maybe, just maybe it wasn't as safe as it should be?" he asked.
Both Bush Administrations Increased NASA's Budget During a briefing on President Bush's fiscal year 2004 budget Monday, White House Budget Director Mitch Daniels disputed Nelson's claim.
"This administration has increased funding for NASA, increased funding for the shuttle and increased funding for the shuttle maintenance account after a decade of cuts and flat spending," Daniels said. "NASA has been an important priority, and the shuttle specifically, for this president"
Budget records obtained from the Government Printing Office (GPO) support Daniels' claim. According to the documents, President Clinton initially increased the agency's funding by $259 million in 1993, but then cut $715 million from the agency his second year in office. He did not restore the largest portion of the money, $652 million, until three months before he left office in 2001. Clinton's cuts reduced NASA's budget by an aggregate total of $56 million over the course of his eight-year term.
George W. Bush has increased NASA's funding in each of his three submitted budgets since taking office. Those increases have totaled $1.216 billion. Bush's father, George H.W. Bush - who was president prior to Clinton - increased NASA expenditures by more than $3.437 billion during his single term from 1989 until January of 1993.
NASA budgets since fiscal year 1992: 1993 $14.309 billion, existing NASA budget when Clinton took office; 1994 $14.568 billion, $259 million increase, first Clinton budget; 1995 $13.853 billion, $715 million decrease; 1996 $13.885 billion, $32 million increase; 1997 $13.709 billion, $176 million decrease; 1998 $13.648 billion, $61 million decrease; 1999 $13.654 billion, $6 million increase; 2000 $13.601 billion, $53 million decrease; 2001 $14.253 billion, $652 million increase; 2002 $14.892 billion, $639 million increase, first Bush budget; 2003 $15.000 billion, $108 million increase (estimated); 2004 $15.469 billion, $469 million increase (proposed);
Nelson, a member of the Senate Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee, was quick to clarify his statements, which some saw as blaming the alleged budget cuts for the apparent explosion that killed Columbia's crew.
"Let's hasten to add that this tragedy doesn't appear to be connected with the delay of any of those safety upgrades," Nelson said.
FY 2004 Bush Budget Holds $469 Million Increase for NASA As Nelson made his comments, the Government Printing Office was preparing to release President George W. Bush's budget for fiscal year 2004. That budget includes a $469 million increase in the NASA budget, bringing the total to nearly $15.5 billion.
According to bullet points heading the 2004 fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2003 - Sept. 30, 2004) budget chapter on NASA, President Bush's proposal, "Invests in space launch improvements to extend the Space Shuttle's life, to develop technologies for next generation launch systems, and to design a crew transport backup to the Space Shuttle, which would provide an emergency crew return from the Space Station and improve astronaut flight safety."
The text of the chapter explains the president's new approach to managing costs at the space agency:
"In the past, research was cut back rather than reducing unneeded infrastructure, or containing costs on large programs like the Space Station and the Shuttle," the document states. "To maintain robust research efforts, the president's budget aggressively implements reforms to control Space Station costs and invests in activities to improve flight safety and extend the life of the Space Shuttle."
A performance assessment of the shuttle program referenced in the budget rated it as "moderately successful." The evaluation determined that "Shuttle operations are well managed, but investments to improve the shuttle suffer from inadequate planning and poor cost management." The probe recommended that NASA track the impact of investments on the shuttle's "operational life, flight safety and facilities conditions," and that the agency should do a better job controlling costs.
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Monday afternoon that the administration would not rule out increasing the NASA budget even more, if necessary. He cautioned, however, that two days is not enough time after the shuttle catastrophe to make such determinations.
"I don't think anybody can reach any conclusions about funding levels and the disaster; the effect on the Columbia," Fleischer said. "Everything needs to be looked into in order to make determinations, but no one can make any conclusions this quickly after the disaster."
Multiple calls to the office of Senator Nelson were not returned before the publication of this story.
I just explained it to you in post #64.
You've obviously already made up your mind and don't want to let facts get in the way of your conspiracy theory.
IMO .. I think unfortunately they underestimated the problem
From what I have read and been able to understand, it is not uncommon for ice/foam to fall and hit the shuttle .. just as it not uncommon for some tiles to fall off.
IMO and I am no expert, but I tend to think that yes a few tiles came off but not enough to cause major concern at the time.
But one question I have, is it possible that many more tiles could have been loosened .. but not be a problem until they re-entered the orbit at that high rate of speed and tempature? .. that might explain what the astronomer in California saw??
That's absolutely untrue. Even if the Atlantis were on the pad, there is too much work to be done to launch within one week. Just the final launch countdown takes four days. Prior to that is Hypergol Load, Pyro installation, and a bunch of other tests that are necessary for safe flight. It normally takes about a month on the pad before launch.
NASA has no procedures for an "emergency launch", anyway, although they should have, IMO.
This shedding foam insulation on lift-off has been accepted as "normal." Losing tiles during re-entry is "normal." What isn't normal is Americans living with BogusTech for 20 years. In WWII, after the Martin B-26 killed pilots and aircrews, it was fixed. In months. Of course, hazards in space flight are "normal," and every one who gets in the shuttle and straps in knows that.
What I find abnormal for American engineers is the attitude toward big, dumb problems, like the whole heat tile concept. They have been a pain in the posterior from Day 1. There has got to be a better way. We have had over 20 years to find it. Also, I have always wondered why the shuttle is built from rather ordinary Aluminum alloys. Why isn't it built with Titanium, as in the SR 71? Surely amortized over 100 flights, and considering the expense of refitting these bogus "tiles" over 20 years, the costs of a more expensive alloy up front might make more sense.
Considering aviation history, there are not a hell of a lot of people at risk in these flights, broadly speaking. Perhaps that has made NASA careless.
I would like some informed technical freepers to inform me on one other issue:
In re: The "Science." I frankly often think of the whole NASA thing is getting more and more like some sort of Amusement Park Ride and international prestige wank, rather than a serious scientific endeavor. What was the purpose of the trip? I also thought that by now, we would have a moon base and actually be on Mars. What happened?
NASA Could have aborted the flight before it reached orbit!
I never said that. No offense taken, just be careful next time with your electronic scissors and glue. :)
Yeah. and the tiles are sufficiently fragile 300mph raindrops have enough energy to blow them away. The same raindrops are accelerated by the flow around the airframe. This has happened at least twice in the history of the program. Each time they were sure the borosilicate glass coated tiles and the carbon-carbon tiles, both used in the areas of highest heat, would fare ok. Didn't happen.
The whole scheme operates at the knife edge of engineering risk in many areas because of the energies involved. Every cost tradeoff includes the acceptance of risk, and sometimes they don't get it right. Sad when all your eggs are in one basket.
People who say there is no effective bailout at mach 18 are ignoring the issue. The shuttle engineering is intended to return shuttle, payload, and crew, at a comfortable acceleration. Payload and crew safety are on opposite sides of the balance. If you give up shuttle, payload, and comfort, I think you will find some solutions have already been posed and ignored in the history of NASA. I would accept 10g acceleration loads and a 10% chance, for example, if I knew the alternative was 100% likely to come down in pieces. Which is the absolute consequence when the shuttle starts to tumble at mach 18.
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