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."

[strela]

Any time (Titanic buff here) ;)

[Trust but Verify]

If you and I watched the same show, I believe O'Reilly tried to talk to Goldin, whose wife told him he was in mourning and in no mood to talk to the press at this time.

[Trust but Verify]

You are correct, TLBSHOW is wrong. Again.

[Mamzelle]

"Failure is the only option."

[Trust but Verify]

There's two of us who say it was Goldin's house. If you have it on tape, you can go back and check it.

[Mamzelle]

re: America would have tried something...

Agreed. And why not call on the Russians for help? I'm not too proud, by a longshot! I'm told that they (Russians) couldn't even have *supplied* a stranded Columbia with air to buy more time. How can this be true? Surely we could have come up with something. I smell fatalism, and if we're fatalistic we'd better shut down and go back to hoeing corn.

[Fred Mertz]

MR. FLEISCHER: It appears that that [Don Nelson] letter was dealt with at the staff level.

Too bad it wasn't elevated. At least they have a fall guy now in Marburger.

[MrConfettiMan]

I am aware they didn't know the foam had fallen off until they reviewed the film the next day.

You don't really believe that, do you? That's their fig leaf for now, and too many freepers are buying it.

Hey, Fred, your starting to bug me now. :) I never said NASA didn't realize the foam had fallen off until the next day.

[verity]

You are as bad as the media ghouls. Give it a rest!

[Fred Mertz]

That was addressed to Balata. However, I expressed my doubts about the "full disclosure" that should be forthcoming from NASA.

In other words, I don't believe the launch foam mishap was found 24 hours later. Maybe it was confirmed 24 hours later.

[Publius6961]

BUMP

[MrConfettiMan]

It was addressed to me, too! I understand that the first part was meant for Balata and the second was for me. :)

[supercat]

You are as bad as the media ghouls. Give it a rest!

I'm not suggesting they SHOULD have built such a shield for this mission, but noting that if they've identified a problem (tile failure from miscellaneous junk impacts) it may be worthwhile to provide the tiles with expendable protection on future missions. Admittedly, I have no idea of the cost, nor of the relative protection provided by such an approach, but it's just an idea...

[TLBSHOW]

BTTT

[I_dmc]

The Space Shuttle is a money hog.

Yes.  It was designed to be.  In a Democrat controlled Congress, the most important question is, "How many votes does this buy us?"  The Democrat base doesn't place space exploration very highly on a list of priorities.  To the contrary, the highest priority is to send more government checks to more people, in order that they have a vested interest in keeping Democrats in power.

In this environment, designing and building the shuttle, as envisioned, could not be funded.

 

[chaosagent]

"The question I have is once the drag on the left wing started to cause the yaw thrusters to fire at alarming rates, why couldn't the control surface on the right wing be used to create a counterbalancing drag?"

My first thought would be that at that altitude the control surfaces didn't have enough air to get a grip on.

[CWOJackson]

Today we pay tribute to seven brave people. These seven people were combat pilots, aeronautical engineers, scientists…astronauts. Many of them had been with the space program for years, for others this was the culmination of their dreams.

Within hours of this terrible disaster there were some on FR claiming that the disaster was the result of NASA’s incompetence, that the disaster was avoidable and that the cover up had already began. They have offered up memo’s, doctored photos and wild rumor as evidence.

In order to be true than we must also assume that the seven astronauts who died were fools or somehow duplicitous in their own deaths. Are we expected to believe that the knowledge of a few rumor mongers on the internet is greater then that of those who flew on Challenger?

Are we to believe that these seven astronauts were not aware of the foam problems on the shuttle program or the effects of budget cuts on the program? Are we to believe that they were foolish enough to fly a platform into space that was doomed from the beginning as some on FR claim?

If we accept their speculation then we must also assume that their fellow astronauts, walking the woodlands of east Texas looking for their remains, will not seek to discover the real cause of their deaths, but will work to cover up for NASA. Do you really believe this?

Is this what we’ve come to on FR? This doesn’t just smear NASA, it smears the seven brave people we honor today.

[John Jamieson]

"you jettison and leave the Space lab in orbit."

About 10%, it's the one thing that probably would have really helped.

The reentry path is already minimum heating one.

Thanks, John

[Swordmaker]

Is your attitude that we shouldn't stop sending up shuttles untill we lose every dang one of them? Hell, we shouldn't even bother looking into this minor mishap, there's nothing we could do about it. Let's go! Fire 'em up, keep on space trucking while we can. We still have two more to lose!

Actually, there are three more.

[_Jim]

The question I have is once the drag on the left wing started to cause the yaw thrusters to fire at alarming rates, why couldn't the control surface on the right wing be used to create a counterbalancing drag?

Well, it (the control surface on the left wing, the Elevon) *was* (as indicated by NASA) calling for more 'countering action' to control/correct-for the propensity of the shuttle to 'roll', as were the thrusters, apparently, to correct for a steadily developing amount, or tendency, to yaw -

- but just calling for more (or less) Elevon deflection "wasn't cutting it" so to speak, so the application of the thrusters was called for by the flight computer system (that's my read/understanding at this time) -

- and at some point, if the left wing -

(as seemingly observed in the newly found video from Arizona and Nevada and the still photos from CA show)

- was being lost -

(as hinted at by/indicated by the anomolous and high temp readings in the left wing and on the left side of the craft, notably, the left bond-line)

- quickly at about the 7:55 AM CDT (approx.) time frame -

(as shown on the Arizona tape, assuming their time-stamp was accurate)

- then *no* amount of Elevon or thruster action was going to correct for the change in drag by the left wing ...

At the 7:55 AM CDT time frame telemetry and voice comms with the shuttle were still intact, yet, we observed, via this newly found video, quite literally "flaming debris" being cast off by the shuttle ...

(Reference/background post this subject: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/834556/posts?page=258#258)