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 ...
Huh. Have you called NASA with YOUR solution then?
BTW, if you had watched the press conference today you'd know that after all their testing and brainstorming, they decided it was NOTHING that was detrimental to the shuttle.
How dare you insinuate that the people at NASA didn't care enough about their own astronauts. Because that IS what you're doing.
They DO NOT know "when it happens".
There are video cameras and there are high-speed film cameras. The film cameras have to be offloaded and the film processed at the lab. Then the engineers have to look at EACH one FRAME BY FRAME (picture by picture for the laymen out there).
When I worked there as a engineering/documentary photographer, I counted over 120 cameras we had on one launch alone.
Film cameras run anywhere from 96 frames per second to over 400 frames per second. The long range tracking telescopes usually had film cameras running at 96 fps (at least when I worked there)(They also had video cameras but your're not going to get the "motion-stopping" ability with standard video which runs at 30fps or 60 fields per second).
The debris event in this mission occured about 70 seconds into the flight. That means that an engineer had to look through 6912 frames of film from just ONE CAMERA to get to this event. There are several long range tracking sites at the Cape.
Launch pad cameras cannot be accessed for several hours after launch until the pad has been safed. Then it takes another several hours to access all the cameras in their blast-proof housings, download the film and take it to the labs. It takes hours to process the film.
It's NOT instantaneous folks.
good point, demlosers.
in my industry, the choices are: good, fast and cheap.
you get to choose only two.
think about it.
The truth is that the Space Station and the Shuttle are just massive job producers. They're doing very little of real importance. It's time to close down NASA and put the Air Force in charge.
Sadly, I agree. Space travel remains risky. The astronauts and their families knew the risks going in - they chose the more dangerous, but adventurous and rewarding path in life.
I doubt if there was much of anything that could have been done, even with perfect knowledge. And frankly, this launch debris, while probably the top suspect, may well prove to NOT be the initiating cause.
Its a disaster any way we look at it. I feel bad for the crew, and moreso for their families. I'm just not ready to go around pointing fingers just yet. Let the pieces of the puzzle come together - let them gather the best information they can get so that they can work to improve the design and fly again. Such is the way of science.
I certainly did.
Even if it was ice, it wasn't but 20" long, and would be more like the stuff on the inside of your freezer that hasn't been defrosted, or maybe like a moderately packed snowball made from fairly wet snow, not all that rigid or strong, like the ice cubes in that freezer or ice on a lake. Furthermore even if the shuttle is going that fast, so is the debris when it falls off the tank or strut. So it only falls a few 10s of feet relative to the shuttle, albeit in an effect gravity field of 2-3 gees, because when the ice or whatever broke free, it started accellerating down at 1 g, while the shuttle was accellerating up. Lets assume 3 g and 10 meters ( 30 feet) : the debris would be going 14.14 meters/sec or 46.4 ft/sec relative to the shuttle or just over 30 mph, a far cry from 1000 mph. That's slow compared to a .45 ACP pistol bullet at 870 ft/sec muzzle velocity. And even slow compared to a BB gun or paint ball gun, the latter on the order of 250 fps. The slushy ice might not be much stronger structurally than that paint ball either, as evidenced by the way it went "splat" when it hit the wing.
You are correct. But it still sux and is a bitter pill to swallow.
This wasn't just a glancing blow.
In time perhaps NASA will be able to answer all this. And I may sign off on it later.
We had seven people and an orbiter lost. Whether you like it, I like it or anyone likes it, NASA is in the hot seat and deservedly so.
Until this investigation is concluded, they are going to be held to account. That's the way it ought to be.
Imagine what they could get away with if we all just signed off and said okay when something like this happened.
These people don't hold elective office. Back off and let the questions flow.
Now, Jael, I know for a fact that you have been told by a person on this thread who works for NASA that that statement is NOT true. This very day.
Which makes me wonder why you keep saying it.
I heard from a former mucky muck at NASA that Atlantis could be outfitted and ready to fly in one week, if they really wanted to do it. Do you have different information?
Do you think NASA knew this was going to happen and decided to keep the crew in the dark? Or do you think they underestimated the problem? If its the former, then it is unforgivable. If the latter, then it is understandable.
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