Posted on 02/06/2003 2:30:17 AM PST by kattracks
Edited on 05/26/2004 5:11:34 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
February 6, 2003 -- NASA yesterday all but ruled out the possibility that the shuttle Columbia disaster was caused by a chunk of foam insulation that struck the left wing during liftoff.
Agency experts are now focusing on other theories - including the possibility the wing's heat-protecting tiles were damaged by orbiting space junk.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
They knew that there was some amount of damage that could be tolerated.
They knew that there was an amount of damage that , dependent upon location and depth, would possibly doom the re-entry.
They knew that in order to initiate abort (acknowledged to be risky , but safer that re-entry with compromised heat-shielding), the damage would have to be assessed, real-time, pre-orbit.
And finally, I understand they knew that significant damage to the tiles would be indicated by white areas where the hard surface had been shed.
The simple and obvious solution is to place monitoring cameras on the tank-struts, facing the underside of the vehicle, hard-wired to the cockpit, and visible to the ommander and pilot, who can then make the decision to continue to orbit or abort, based upon something better than guess-work and wishful thinking. The determination then rests where it should: with the commander and pilot.
They don't know for certain what brought the thing down; and because of this goof, we may never know.
Can anyone tell me that the solution was beyond the reasonable consideration or discovery of the NASA Brain Trust?
Can anyone tell me that cameras were impossible? I've seen film of launches, taken by just such "fisheye" cameras, that were mounted on the exterior of Saturn rockets, right in the slipstream.
Can anyone tell me that this kind of mistake would have been given a pass by the early NASA pilots?
Bad. Very bad.
With a little foresight, this thing might have been avoided, the crew and vehilce saved, if indeed the tiles were the cause. At least the commander and pilot would have been given a fair shot at recovering themselves.
I don't think it matters a whit what the cause was, with regard to the poor quality of mission ops.
Sprites, elfs, and metiorites are acts of God; the fact that they couldn't assess the space-worthiness of the vehicle--in light of what was known before-hand--is, I think, inexcusable.
One last thing: a few are discounting the force with which 'exfoliated' foam and ice could have on the tiles because of the relative velocity and short distance to the wing. But I want you to think about the last time you were doing 65 on the highway, and a sheet of ice lifted from the hood of your car and smacked the windshield. Very short distance; same relative velocity; big bang, and sometimes a cracked windshield.
So my great-great-grandkids can go on vacation on the Moon or on Mars, dummy!
In case you fail to realize, mankind lost a whole lot of folks developing boats that go to sea; now we think nothing of taking a cruise across the oceans of the world. Mankind lost a whole lot of folks developing planes that fly through th air; now we think nothing of taking a flight across the country for business and vacations in foreign lands.
Thank God for Men and Women like the Shuttle 14.
Yes; and in their memory, we must press the agency to take better care of its flyboys and girls.
150 grain 30-06 at muzzle, 2970 ft/sec has 2938 ft-lb of kinetic energy, and at 400 yards and about 1900 ft/sec, still has 1232 ft-lb of kinetic energy.
But, to be fair, the foam-to-insulation situation is tougher to cipher. Each of the items can lose energy to deformation, or to cutting (sharp edge might slice off a piece of tile rather than crush it), so we have to consider the shape of the impacting object; the angle of impact, relative hardness (in a bullet-to-tissue event, tissue loses, but in a bullet-to-steel plate event, the bullet loses), and many other factors.
I think the indications all point to increased drag on the left wing, and hope that we will someday have information that permits us to have some certainty regarding the cause of this disaster.
I have been reading comparisons between the DynaSoar and the shuttle. The DynaSoar was to have used a "skip/glide" re-entry regimen to dissipate the heat of its return over several additional orbits, as opposed to the shuttle's all-at-once drop to the runway.
Would this skip/glide have been, or can it be, a contingency for heat-shield impaired craft? Does the uncertainty of making it to an adequate runway automatically rule this out? Can a shuttle manage, with any degree of survivability, to perform a ditch in the water at 200mph? (Assuming, of course that THE DUFUSSES WILL PROVIDE FOR ACTUAL ASSESSMENT OF THE VEHICLE.)
Ouch, as mentioned above by another poster, that's the kinetic energy equation, not the force of impact.
Force = mass times acceleration. The total kinetic energy is irrelevant -- only the change in kinetic energy, the acceleration or deceleration, is relevant. That would be highly influenced by strike angle.
You know they haven't ruled out anything yet. Why do you tinfoilers insist on making up lies???
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