Columbia Was Beyond Any Help, Officials Say

New York Times ^ | 2/03/03 | KENNETH CHANG

[kattracks]

OUSTON, Feb. 3 — Even if flight controllers had known for certain that protective heat tiles on the underside of the space shuttle had sustained severe damage at launching, little or nothing could have been done to address the problem, NASA officials say.

Virtually since the hour Columbia went down, the space agency has been peppered with possible options for repairing the damage or getting the crew down safely. But in each case, officials here and at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida say, the proposed solution would not have worked.

The simplest would have been to abort the mission the moment the damage was discovered. In case of an engine malfunction or other serious problem at launching, a space shuttle can jettison its solid rocket boosters and the external fuel tank, shut down its own engines and glide back down, either returning to the Kennedy Space Center or an emergency landing site in Spain or Morocco.

But no one even knew that a piece of insulation from the external tank had hit the orbiter until a frame-by-frame review of videotape of the launching was undertaken the next day. By then, Columbia was already in orbit, and re-entry would have posed the same danger that it did 16 days later.

Four other possibilities have been discussed at briefings or in interviews since the loss of Columbia, and rejected one by one by NASA officials.

First, repairing the damaged tiles. The crew had no tools for such a repair. At a news conference on Sunday, Ron D. Dittemore, the shuttle program manager, said that early in the shuttle program, NASA considered developing a tile repair kit, but that "we just didn't believe it was feasible at the time." He added that a crew member climbing along the underside of the shuttle could cause even more damage to the tiles.

Another idea, widely circulated on the Internet in the last few days, was that the shuttle could have docked with the International Space Station once the damage was discovered. But without the external fuel tank, dropped as usual after launching, Columbia had no fuel for its main engines and thus no way it could propel itself to the station, which circles the earth on a different orbit at a higher altitude.

"We have nowhere near the fuel needed to get there," said Bruce Buckingham, a spokesman at the Kennedy Space Center.

Another shuttle, Atlantis, was scheduled for launching on March 1 to carry supplies and a new crew to the space station, and it is possible to imagine a Hollywood-type series of events in which NASA rushed Atlantis to the launching pad, sent it up with a minimal crew of two, had it rendezvous with Columbia in space and brought everyone down safely.

But Atlantis is still in its hangar, and to rush it to launching would have required NASA to circumvent most of its safety measures. "It takes about three weeks, at our best effort, to prepare the shuttle for launch once we're at the pad," Mr. Buckingham said, "and we're not even at the pad." Further, Columbia had enough oxygen, supplies and fuel (for its thrusters only) to remain in orbit for only five more days, said Patrick Ryan, a spokesman at the Johnson Space Center here.

Finally, there is the notion that Columbia's re-entry might have been altered in some way to protect its damaged area. But Mr. Dittemore said the shuttle's descent path was already designed to keep temperatures as low as possible. "Because I'm reusing this vehicle over and over again, so I'm trying to send it through an environment that minimizes the wear and tear on the structure and the tile," he said at his news conference on Sunday.

Today he added that he did not know of a way for the shuttle to re-enter so that most of the heat would be absorbed by tiles that were not damaged, on its right wing. "I'm not aware of any other scenarios, any other techniques, that would have allowed me to favor one wing over the other," he said.

Even if that had been possible, it would probably have damaged the shuttle beyond repair and made it impossible to land, requiring the crew to parachute out at high speed and at high altitude. He said there was no way managers could have gotten information about the damaged tiles that would have warranted so drastic a move.

Gene Kranz, the flight director who orchestrated the rescue of astronauts aboard the crippled Apollo 13 in 1970, said that from what he knew about the suspected tile damage, there was probably nothing that could have been done to save the flight. "The options," he said in a telephone interview, "were just nonexistent."

[bonesmccoy]

Easy for you to say with 20/20 hindsight.

The reality is that there was no photographic data on the impact.

If the orbiter TPS was significantly damaged and stripped away due to the ET insulation hit, the orbiter temperature sensors might have detected fluctuations on orbit. JSC MOCR would have had that kind of data, but I doubt the data actually shows such a fluctuation.

The original essay suggested that NASA could have performed a TAL abort trajectory upon realizing that the vehicle had been damaged at T+80. The reality is that the heating may be GREATER on the vehicle during a TAL trajectory because the vehicle pancakes through a greater amount of the atmosphere in flying across the Atlantic rather than punching up and out of the atmosphere on an Abort-to-orbit or Abort-once-around trajectory.

[strela]

The undeniable fact is the Astronauts have a one in fifty chance of being blown to bits.

You have a better chance of getting squished on the interstate by a rock hauler driving to work. And, if asked, I would ride the next orbiter into space tomorrow.

[TLBSHOW]

Because if this is the finale story that it was doomed from the start then Don Nelsons letter is all the more important and the events that have been going on at NASA are all the more important. And then the letter isn't a liberal issue at all but a safety issue about NASA. And it is not a Bush bashing issue either, it has to do with who read the letter and it wasn't the President but someone else that dismissed it. Hell he wasn't even in DC in August. But someone else was and that someone needs to explain just why he took it on himself to make the decision to dismiss it.

[Howlin]

And, if asked, I would ride the next orbiter into space tomorrow.

I have noticed that every single NASA person -- in fact, anybody -- who has been on TV has said the exact same thing.

The Last Frontier.

[altair]

The shuttle is already cost ineffective at putting things into orbit. Adding the kinds of emergency supplies you suggest would only make the problem worse. For example, with the same money we used with the shuttle to get the Hubble space telescope functional, we could have built and launched (unmanned) three new ones.

[Mr_Magoo]

If tiles failed, excessive heat would build in the wing. The crew would have no indication of this happening. The alum. wing assembly and the alum. wing struts melt at about 300 degrees. At 12,500 mph, a wing starting to melt would get soft and the forces from the airstream would tear off the wing suddenly.

Loss of 1 wing results in an aircraft tumbling. If you tumble out of control at 12,500 mph, the craft tears itself apart real quick like.

[Jhoffa_]

We could probably get in cheap now, don't you think?

Can we change the name to "NASA_X"

?

[Diddle E. Squat]

I just love your Freep name...

[Southflanknorthpawsis]

Martha Stewart gave me a hot tip on it weeks ago

That's good enough for me. ; *)

[Howlin]

LOL........I imagine so!

[Chad Fairbanks]

I'd like to give Martha Stewart a hot tip...

[strela]

The next ride will likely be the safest in the history of the program. I play the odds ;)

[Howlin]

We're all going to jail!

[Howlin]

Oh, I see now. I watch NASA TV......what IS that feeling?

[strela]

I'd like to give Martha Stewart a hot tip

Get in line, bruddah.

[woofie]

We're all going to jail!

not me...Mark Geragos is my friend

[Doohickey]

False. The initial HST cost 1.5 billion. It costs about 470 million to launch a shuttle.

[bonesmccoy]

I appreciate your sentiment, but truly there were no options for the crew.

An orbital fuel source is unworkable because the long-term storage of hypergolic fuels is difficult. More importantly, the orbital trajectories would be unlikely to match the trajectory. On the other hand, having an expendable rocket with rescue supplies might be another solution.

Having a rescue vehicle on the launch pad during all LEO missions could be a solution. However, this scenario would require construction of a new launch pad, a new vehicle, and new procedures for emergent launches and crew transfers.

I have always thought that it would be safest to have a rescue vehicle always available during any LEO manned space presence.

Soyuz became that capability for ISS.

Now, Soyuz is the only flight capable manned space vehicle on Earth.

[Light Speed]

Yes...the last wink of telemetry.

They would have sensor relay from tail section...multiple.

They would have last cycling info on computer systems...heat info...termination of signal values on sensors.
.... my gut instinct says catastrophic event which terminates electrical feed.
A computer cascade event?
Columbia sent into a angle which termiantes com transmission ability in ionization.....inverted?...sideways[Shearing]?...tumbling?
Columbias computer suite is said to have redundant back up to adjust in descent if profile angle is off...they have time to correct.

Did they?
Where they trying..except ionization prevent com link with Houston.
Unless a cascade event occure with computer..even if Columbia was out of descent profile..you still have cockpit awareness...telemetry with Houston..and com link.
Com link drops out..yet Columbias profile is nominal as per Nasa's breifing to us.

Something unrecoverable occured.

[TLBSHOW]

Since 1999 the launch system has experienced the following potential disastrous occurrences:

July 1999 - Space Shuttle Columbia delayed by hydrogen leak.

December 1999 - Space Shuttle Discovery was grounded with damaged wiring, contaminated engine, dented fuel line, and paper work errors.

January 2000 - Space Shuttle Endeavor is delayed because of wiring and computer failures.

March 2000 - Space Shuttle Atlantis main engine must be replaced because of paperwork errors.

August 2000 - Inspection of Space Shuttle Columbia reveals 3,500 defects in wiring. Wiring defects plague entire fleet.

October 2000 - The 100th flight of the space shuttle was delayed because of a misplaced safety pin and concerns with the external tank.

April 2001 - NASA failed to keep adequate watch on safety operations of a major contractor.

July 2002 - The inspector general reports that space shuttle safety program not properly managed.

April 2002 - Hydrogen leak forces scrub of the Atlantis flight.

August 2002 - Shuttle launch system grounded after fuel line cracks are discovered in all the fleet!

Dec. 12, 2002 another Shuttle propellant leak found!