NASA engineer warned of possible shuttle breach, e-mails indicate

Jerusalem Post ^ | Feb. 22, 2003 | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

[yonif]

WASHINGTON - A NASA safety engineer warned days before Columbia broke apart that he feared the shuttle was at risk for a devastating breach near its left wheel, and he suggested people in the U.S. space agency weren't adequately considering the threat.

"We can't imagine why getting information is being treated like the plague," the engineer wrote in one of a number of e-mails released Friday that describe greater concerns about Columbia's safety in the days before its breakup.

Other documents NASA released show that Columbia may have been struck by as many as three large chunks of foam that smashed against delicate insulating tiles as it took off, not just the one previously acknowledged.

Robert Daugherty, an engineer at NASA's Langley research facility, Va., did not indicate that he believed the breach would cause Columbia to break apart during its fiery descent. "No way to know, of course," he wrote.

But Daugherty warned in his e-mail on Jan. 29 about a possible breach near the seal of Columbia's wheel compartment that could have been caused by damage to the shuttle's thermal tiles there. He seemed mostly worried about the risks of pilots struggling to land Columbia with one or more tires damaged by extreme heat.

"It seems to me that if mission operations were to see both tire pressure indicators go to zero during entry, they would sure as hell want to know whether they should land with gear up, try to deploy the gear or go bailout," Daugherty wrote.

Senior NASA officials have steadfastly supported assurances by The Boeing Co., a contractor, since the accident that Columbia was expected to be return safely despite possible tile damage along its left wing. They also have maintained that concerns expressed in e-mails among mid-level engineers such as Daugherty were part of a "what-if" analysis, and that even these engineers were satisfied with Boeing's conclusions.

"During the flight, no one involved in the analysis or the management team or the flight team raised any concerns," NASA spokesman James Hartsfield said Friday.

But the e-mails disclosed in Washington raise important issues about those safety assurances by Boeing, including underlying assumptions about the likelihood of damage from a large chunk of breakaway foam and whether damage to Columbia might have been caused by falling ice.

They also include references by Daugherty and another Langley employee, Mark J. Shuart, about the secrecy within National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the ongoing study of risks to Columbia. Shuart wrote Jan. 28 to two other employees that, "I am advised that the fact that this incident occurred is not being widely discussed."

The e-mails, which never were passed during Columbia's flight to senior mission controllers in Houston, will be turned over to the board investigating the accident, board spokeswoman Laura Brown said. All seven astronauts died in the breakup.

The e-mails were sought since last week by news organizations under the Freedom of Information Act.

Employees at NASA's headquarters here published them Friday with little fanfare on the agency's Web site.

Among the e-mails disclosed Friday were two written after the breakup. Daniel D. Mazanek of the Spacecraft and Sensors Branch at Langley wrote Feb. 7 wrote that the debris that struck Columbia might have been ice, not foam from its external fuel tank.

Boeing had calculated that a chunk of foam weighing 2.67 pounds (1 kilogram) pounds was responsible. But Mazanek estimated that a chunk of ice the same size would have been more damaging because it weighs 63.4 pounds (28.5 kilomgrams) "the equivalent of a 500-pound (225 kilogram) safe hitting the wing at 365 mph (582 kph)

Last week, NASA disclosed a similar e-mail by Daugherty. He wrote two days before Columbia's breakup about risks to the shuttle from "catastrophic" failures caused by tires possibly bursting inside the spacecraft's wheel compartment from extreme heat.

Daugherty was responding in that e-mail to a telephone call Jan. 27 from officials at the Johnson Space Center asking what might happen if Columbia's tires were not inflated when it attempted to land.

Daugherty cautioned in his e-mail disclosed earlier that damage to delicate tiles near Columbia's landing gear door could permit dangerous temperatures causing one or more tires inside to burst, perhaps ending with catastrophic failures that would place the astronauts "in a world of hurt."

[TLBSHOW]

because Nasa is in knee deep with problems and have been warned for years and oh what have they done slammed and fired those giving warnings.

Nasa knows whos fault this disater is its their fault.

[fooman]

Thats right. The more things change the more they stay the same.

Even on a watchdog forum like FReerepublic people are frequently critisized for pointing out anomalies.

[bvw]

Picture Scarface Capone at the Doctor's:

Doctor: "Mr. Capone I have some bad news."
Capone: "Oh, yeah? Wassat?"
Doctor: "Your x-ray shows what I suspect may be malignant tumors in your lungs."
Capone: "Izzat right ... well Doc NOBODY mocks AL CAPONE, nobody. You say I ain't right .... why then say hello to Mister Tommy Gun!"

< < brr-rup, brr-rup, brr-rup, slpat, splat splat > >

Doctor, dying gasps: "But Al, I'm just the trying to help you .... arrghh!"
Capone: "Sure, doc ... here help my big friggin' foot!"
Capone viciously and wildly kicks the fallen Doctor in the body and face ...
Capone's bodyguard: "Great Boss! He was just a Disruptor! He wuzzn't a Team Player! Day ain't nuttin' wrong with Big Al!"
Capone: "Hey Tony, gimme 5!"

[Fulbright]

Top NASA administrators are now claiming these e-mails were never forwarded to them from the lower depths. I think that is probably BS.

This thing is going to be a major scandal. The NASA gag order, issued immediately after the disaster, has already been revealed in the Enquirer.

[Brian Allen]

<< "Great Boss! He was just a Disruptor! He wuzzn't a Team Player! Day ain't nuttin' wrong with Big Al!"

Capone: "Hey Tony, gimme 5!" >>

The Human ego being the enemy it so loves to be and the master it so often is, the Cult of Personality is only ever -- at best -- just waiting around the corner.

[TLBSHOW]

bttt

They were warned...........

[SC DOC]

Could also be:

Need
Another
Seven
Astronauts

[TLBSHOW]

This NASA handout photo, presented during a news conference at the Johnson Space Center in Houston February 25, 2003, shows a single thermal protection system tile from the Space Shuttle Columbia. A piece of tile, thrown off from the doomed shuttle Columbia as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere and recovered in Texas, bears deformations consistent with the kind of hot plasma flow that entered the shuttle through a breach, investigators said. Photo by Nasa/Reuters

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030226/170/3d0hi.html

[Jael]

Thanks for the ping. Keep up the good work.

[TLBSHOW]

:>)