Hail Columbia. 10 Years After Her Last Flight.

[Feathers268]

http://news.yahoo.com/space-shuttle-doomed-tell-crew-144338380.html

This caught my attention. 10 years ago, not long after getting my first email from Jen, I was saddened with the news of the Columbia burning up on reentry over Texas killing the team of astronauts on board. This story is a report on that accident and mistakes and assumptions made by NASA about the cause and dissmisal of the problem at the time.

What struck me was the idea that NASA could have recieved additional pictures from military sattelites but had already classified the foam strike as not critical. After Columbia burned up, they concluded that nothing probably could have been done and the crew was better off not knowing. My question is, would you want to know? The former director said that he advises future controlers move Heaven and Earth to do anything and everything possible to try to get them home.

In 2003, nothing might have been able to be done to save Columbia but I wish they would have realize the damage and tried. I would have rather known and given the chance to come to terms with the situation. Besides, who knows, Apollo 13 also was damaged in space and was cast into a dire situation. The nation was able to mobilize then and got them home.

[Doug]

Yeah I could not believe the way the program was managed then. It was a complete departure from the old NASA we grew up respecting. Heck maybe the Russians would have mobilized a rescue. A person needs the chance to try or die doing so.

 

I can't believe as frigile as those ceramic tiles were that they did not have some kind of repair kit on board. Of course I got a lady all mad at me one time because I critisized our decision to build that system in the first place. We had better options IMO. It was the least expensive low risk approach and just looked too too fragile to me. This was just a few months before the first event when pressuring a launch in the freezing icy cold, and a new crew taking over the maintenance.

 

They were managing like a truck company.

 

Still I miss the program down in Houston and all the little special parts we made for this or that mission.

[Feathers268]

I saw a documentary on those tiles. They were an amazing bit of work that at the time was the only way to make it reusable. I was in 7th grade when they launched for the first time and got up before 5am 3 days in a row before they got off the ground. I was a senior when Challenger happened. I loved that thing. I is incredable it worked at all. My problem was the fact that NASA had to scrap the Saturn rockets to make way for it. Without the lifting capability of the Saturn V, Ifeel we stepped backward a little.

[Dennis143]

I saw a documentary on those tiles. They were an amazing bit of work that at the time was the only way to make it reusable. I was in 7th grade when they launched for the first time and got up before 5am 3 days in a row before they got off the ground. I was a senior when Challenger happened. I loved that thing. I is incredable it worked at all. My problem was the fact that NASA had to scrap the Saturn rockets to make way for it. Without the lifting capability of the Saturn V, Ifeel we stepped backward a little.

Funny Jim, I remember at 9 years old getting up really early to watch Allen Shephard blast straight up and then straight down in a Mercury rocket.

[Feathers268]

 

I saw a documentary on those tiles. They were an amazing bit of work that at the time was the only way to make it reusable. I was in 7th grade when they launched for the first time and got up before 5am 3 days in a row before they got off the ground. I was a senior when Challenger happened. I loved that thing. I is incredable it worked at all. My problem was the fact that NASA had to scrap the Saturn rockets to make way for it. Without the lifting capability of the Saturn V, Ifeel we stepped backward a little.

Funny Jim, I remember at 9 years old getting up really early to watch Allen Shephard blast straight up and then straight down in a Mercury rocket.

Every morning I say Shepard's prayer, "Oh Loard, please don't let me F**K UP!"

Edited February 2, 2013 by Feathers268 (see edit history)

[Feathers268]

http://news.yahoo.com/untold-story-columbia-shuttle-disaster-mysterious-day-2-135349666.html

Here is another report on an object the military unknowingly tracked on day 2 of the mission. Looks like more evidence of what happened and could have been a warning of the problem. Fortunatly, NASA did learn from this and implimented better tracking procedures for the remaining shuttle flights. Hopeully this will continue with Orion.

[Urkidding]

http://i356.photobucket.com/albums/oo3/djaquiambao/sts107-crew.jpg

 

 

http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab70/richm0/2010-April%20Washington%20DC/20100405_WashingtonDC_0331.jpg

Edited February 3, 2013 by Urkidding (see edit history)

[Doug]

Carbon Carbon is on the leading edge and is the nose cap. It has a ceramic coating giving it the gray look, which wears off but overall gave it another 50 cycles of use with a total of 100 rentries, as I recall. The black or white tiles are ceramic, as I recall. But carbon-carbon takes a long time to make and was done there at Vought, when I worked there. Since I used to hot press ceramic in graphite & carbon composite machines we built at Fansteel/VR Wesson, I used to go down to the nasty building there at LTV just to take a look and smell similar smells that come from this high temp dirty work. Unlike the ceramic tiles this stuff can take higher heat and is loosly based on the fact that you can't burn burnt toast. I think the guys running that at Vought bought all the equipment away and formed their own company.

 

Now days the new Mach 50 birds from Lockheed use carbon-carbon as a complete shell for the vehicle, and I think they determined some of it came off causing it to burn up earlier than expected in the first flight test.

 

CC causes us to be able to make hyper velocity missiles started at Vought also, BECAUSE you can now burn hotter to accelerate quicker and go faster. We used to have the steel reinforced concrete wall they shot a hole in with no warhead, just velocity.

 

CC good stuff, but it is brittle and it seems some kind of epoxy patch that will take one reentry could have been developed for those shuttles but ..... it was a different NASA. My gosh I had a carbon glue I used in our furnaces that reached 3000F. It baked out but held up for awhile. Many decisions were made by NASA, that would not have been, in the early days to get to space & the moon.

Edited February 3, 2013 by Doug (see edit history)

[Doug]

I've got to jump back in here and say more.

 

It is the job of everyone in aerospace to think, what could go wrong, with every little piece of work you do. There usually are no options for a pilot, so you, and everyone you work with, thinks about possible failures.

 

I understand a vendor not used to aerospace thinking another way. But for NASA, going into the violent arena of space, just .......... I want to say borders on crimminal neglect and in some cases criminal acts by decisions made. We had other vehicle designs that were more suited for reuse and serve as a truck to space than the lower tech iron butterfly we chose to develop. Sure they would have cost more time and experimentation, but certainly achievable. Frankly I waited for them to blow up. I would have never gone up in those things, if qualified.

 

Just my opinion and hope I am not being political in critisizing the design chosen for the application.

[Feathers268]

 

Just my opinion and hope I am not being political in critisizing the design chosen for the application.

I would not think so Doug. You made some valid points about the program and NASA does deserve some criticism for the direction they chose. I think they were drawn into the glamour of a space plane. You have to admit as a vehicle, it looks pretty cool. I'm sure there were better ideas out there. I can't wait to see Orion.

[Doug]

Well a space plane is possible IMHO. We have gone down the path just to cancel it for cost.

 

One way was to have a stand alone vehicle launch and land on runway, cancelled due to expense and trouble with fuel tank.

 

One proposal was to take off from a runway and land at one.

 

If something more advanced and we had trouble, then I feel it is not lost in vain. Of course I am talking 2 different things earlier. There is the vehicle design and one, and the attitude of management as the other. And you don't change maintenance companies every year or so. Ok enough,