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."

[bvw]

We'll save that one as a momument to the folly of "heroically" living with sub-optimal engineering solutions, of not using ALL the skills and kniowledge we're so blessed with to continually, actively, loudly, improve safety, by steps big and small, but none backward.

[r9etb]

Does anyone find a basic flaw in the argument that a spacewalk in ZERO GRAVITY is going to damage tiles?

For one thing, there are no handholds on the bottom of the Shuttle. Lack of a handhold means that there's no way even to put some sort of repair-goo onto the damaged spot. The slightest pressure will send the astronaut tumbling away. (To see how litte forces make for big tumbles, go find the video from the first two INTELSAT capture attempts during STS-49.)

Second, the hard toe of an EVA boot could kick a good-sized hole into the tiles -- making things worse instead of better.

Third, the patching compound itself could well make the surrounding tiles more likely to detach, due to ablation or by preventing them from flexing as they're designed to do.

[r9etb]

Unless there has been a heavier reentry I couldn't find, STS107 was subjected to about 6% more heat load than any other Shuttle in the history of the program. Other Shuttle flights may have been far more tolerant of any tile damage than this one.

I googled Shuttle landing weight. These are not heavier, but close:

STS-99: 225,669
STS-97: 227,780
STS-50: 228,127

[r9etb]

Hey, there's a novel idea. If you can't bring them back in case of emergency then any takeoff that is less than perfect should be aborted immediately.

Aborts are not something you actually want to try. You'd probably kill more crews this way than if you let them go into orbit.

[r9etb]

It works for 747 commercial aircraft designed in the 70's, it should work for the space shuttle.

More to the point, both we and the Russians are perfectly happy to do our unmanned launches using boosters that were originally designed in the '50s and 60s.

[Eva]

The NASA official on Greta VonSustern's show said that this group of Astronauts had no training in this type of space walk and that it would have been impossible anyway without the mechanical arm to anchor them to the spacecraft.

[blackdog]

Thanks for the info. My simplistic "kick the tires, light the fires" pilot attitude shows through.

I always lecture people here at my airport that pre-flighting and knowing your aircraft is essential to your survival. I've seen a mouse nest collapse the nose gear on a King-Air, a craze line in a P-Baron side window cause it to blow out during flight, an overlooked altimeter setting cause a Sundowner to clip the top of a dumptruck traveling at 60 mph at a right angle to final, left on pitot tube covers, tie-downs still attatched to tails, departing with a concrete filled tire hanging from the plane, cylinder separation due to birds nesting in cowlings, an countless more......I guess just because it looks like a plane, I expect it to be used like one and with similar management methods. Assumptions obviously on my part.

[VRWC_minion]

More to the point, both we and the Russians are perfectly happy to do our unmanned launches using boosters that were originally designed in the '50s and 60s.

Not to mention that we launch the shuttle using fire and land it on wheels whose designs have long since lost their copyrights.

[VRWC_minion]

I personally don't see what the training issue has to do with it. If exiting the spacecraft to repair something could have been a factor then I believe that their would have been seven volunteers who would have been more than happy to take step by step instructions from the ground.

The problem was that their was no clue that their was something critical that needed fixing.

[r9etb]

Had someone noticed the impact and realized the implications, the launch could have been aborted by releasing the SRBs and detaching the External Fuel Tank and the shuttle could return to Kennedy Space Center. This option is available up to 3 minutes 45 seconds into the flight.

The "abort when you think you see something" option would be a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

First off, it's extremely difficult to know if you're actually seeing a problem. (In this case, there was no telemetry or visual information anyway, until much later.) Aborts are inherently dangerous. You never want to do an abort unless there are no other options.

The RTLS abort can occur only after a normal SRB burnout. It would be incredibly dangerous to release the SRBs while they're still burning -- the plumes would probably destroy the Shuttle. And, IIRC, for RTLS the chances of the Shuttle actually making a safe landing are something like 75%.

After that a Trans-Atlantic abort could be used.

They'd probably land safely....

When the orbiter has flown too far to land across the Atlantic, then the only choice is Abort to Orbit... but that would require re-entry into the atmosphere to get down... with the catastrophic results we have seen.

Precisely. In most cases the safest place to go is on-orbit.

[jayef]

There's probably a reason why you haven't heard it discussed. It's called nonviability.

[blackdog]

Obviously, decisions are made on mission profile, equipment, and assets based on a limited menu. Perhaps that is the 900 lb. gorilla we are wrestling? These experiments or these space suits......This animal test or this remote camera to scan the outer hull.......This extra crew member or ten more days of oxygen and supplies......

We are used to being prepared for anything in this country based on our technical ability. The thought of not having seatbelts if we want anti-lock braking, or no back seat if we want a trunk, or no air conditioning if we want a radio is the train of NASA reality. I did not realize that a program of thirty years still had such narrow parameters such as those that existed. Remember all that duct tape and baling twine off the cuff survival methods we used on that Soviet Space Station we were sharing with the soviets? I remember fires, computer failures, air supply failures, ice coating the interior, toilets not working, and we came, we saw, we conquered, and we survived.

I guess I realize that each new space launch poses a completely different table of variabilities. I guess I am learning a lot.

I know we loathe CNN here on FR, but I really do miss that guy John Halderman who passed away a few years back. A good guy who posessed a lot of knowledge as a reporter and he really loved explaining space missions to us. A big loss to us as well.

[strela]

There's probably a reason why you haven't heard it discussed. It's called nonviability.

Bet you waited all day to post that, didn't you? Congratulations.

[capitan_refugio]

Thanks for the reply. Oberg had an interesting quote in the papers Monday.

"Still, as James Oberg, a former shuttle flight controller and author who has been bombarded by Armageddon-type resuce ideas via e-mail, said Sunday, 'They may be implausible, but not by much.' He added: 'There's always to question of miracles.'" I very much enjoyed his Soviet disasters book from the early/mid-80's.

In the same article, the author concluded with:

"In theory, NASA could have had the shuttle descend through the atmosphere at a much shallower angle of entry in hopes of relieving the heat on the ship. But that could have had life-threatening dangers too. That kind of flight profile almost certainly would have had the shuttle coming in too fast to make a safe landing."

Since you are very much an expert in this field, what is the maximum landing speed of the shuttle? I saw it come in to Edwards a couple or times. That final flare seemed to burn off some speed. Could a shuttle hold that flare from a higher altitude if it was coming in "hot"? Was it ever contemplated what would happen if the gears could not be lowered and the shuttle pancaked in on a dry lake?

[Eva]

No, you're wrong, the problem was that even with training the walk would have been impossible without the mechanical arm to anchor the astronaut to the underside of the space craft. The arm was not on board because the tests that they were performing did not involve going outside the spacecraft.

It was also impossible to hook up with the space station because they were in an entirely different orbit. And the idea of sending up a second craft would have been nearly impossible because they did not have a second craft near ready to launch and even if they did they do not have the capabilities to control two vehicles at once. The NASA said that despite all this, they probably would have tried if they had known the extent of the damage to the Columbia.

[Mamzelle]

If the shuttle wasn't ready, perhaps the Russians could have been, at least enough to send in some life support...as for what Nasa knew, I'd like to know what pictures they tried to take from the ground/satellite with the military capability.

[DoughtyOne]

I find that you have posted his about ten times across the forum. Evidently embarassing yourself on just one thread wasn't bad enough. Here's what I said to you on the other posts.

I'm just curious if you also think it's an insult to homicide, robbery, or assault victims when their family and friends exercise their God given talents to investigate who
carried out those crimes, when the police are unable to asertain who did it?  In this instance we have an agency that has two vested interests, full disclosure and the
welfare of the agency itself.  Why it would be an insult to the astronauts to make sure they weren't short-changed in the process, is beyond me.

I have seen the product of your logic before.  It's generally interesting, but seldom very sound.  Don't give up.

[1rudeboy]

That's what they said about Apollo 13, and they proved themselves wrong.

If the Columbia broke apart because of a heat-shield problem, then a heat-shield problem would have doomed Apollo 13 as well. In other words, simply because you have two "incidents" that occur in space, that does not make them related.

[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.

You find this embarassing? This is the product of your logic? I do feel sorry for you.

[VRWC_minion]

No, you're wrong

Sorry, you are wrong because you misread what I wrote. My objection went soley to the excuse that the astronaunts had no training in extra vehicular. That is not relevant because if training were the sole factor it could have been overcome either via ground based instructions or having seven shots at getting it right.

If you want to make the case that it was physically impossible due to lack of equipment or materials for repair then fine but lack of training is no reason to avoid an attempt.