BREAKING: NBC News finds Jan 30 NASA Memo showing serious concern about tile damage!

NBC News | February 3, 2003 | Jay Barbree

[Timesink]

Developing. Watch MSNBC for latest. Internal memo shows some engineers believe there was up to a 7 1/2-inch gash from the foam breakoff at launch. Memo was serious enough to go out to all NASA centers two days before disaster.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

See post #77

[al_c]

It is hard for me to believe that shuttles don't carry some sort of tile repair kits where the astronauts can go outside and do repairs, but it appears they don't.

YOu can bet they will in the future.

[TLBSHOW]

The NASA Mentor-Protégé Program

The NASA Mentor-Protégé Program (MPP) is designed to enhance the
capabilities of small, minority, and women-owned businesses to perform
NASA prime contracts and subcontracts. The NASA MPP is an effort on
the part of NASA's Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization
(OSDBU). The OBSDBU is responsible for promoting Agency utilization of small,
minority and women-owned businesses in compliance with Federal laws,
regulations, and policies. It also assists such firms in obtaining contracts
and subcontracts with NASA and its prime contractors.

The goal of the OSDBU is to fully integrate small, small disadvantaged,
and small women-owned businesses that deliver the highest quality of
goods and services at the lowest practicable costs into NASA's competitive
base of contractors, particularly in the high-technology areas.

The defined purpose of the NASA Mentor-Protégé Program is:

To increase the participation of SDB's, WOSB's, and MEI's in high
technology and non-traditional industries critical to the Agency's mission.

To foster long-term business relationships between SDB's, WOSB's, and
MEI's and major NASA prime contractors.

To participate, the mentor must have, or be competing for, a prime
contract with NASA, and the Protégé must be, or be so designated
in a competition, a subcontractor of the mentor.

The Mentor-Protégé Program drives the expansion of resource and technology
exchange and new business opportunities among all businesses: large,
midsize, and small. NASA recognizes that in order for it to continue to remain
a world leader in research and development, science, space and technology,
it must have access to the best products and services that industry has to
order. In order for industry to fill that order, it must use innovative approaches
like this program to the fullest.

The Goldin-Stokes NASA Mentor-Protégé Award

This annual award formally recognizes outstanding performance of prime
contractors participating in the NASA Mentor-Protege Program. It provides
an incentive for NASA prime contractors to perform in a highly effective manner
in accordance with the program objectives and their approved Mentor-Protégé
Agreement. The award is named after NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and
Honorable Louis Stokes, both of whom are proponents of small and minority
owned business enterprise.

Further information, visit NASA at http://hq.nasa.gov/office/codek

[ResistorSister]

I didn't say it was shot down.

I am just wondering if anyone else saw the FULL report...I walked in on the last few seconds.

[al_c]

Too heavy. The other orbiters were made later and lighter but they too had to undergo mods to make them lighter. Plus, the main engines, SRB's and external tank had to be modified in order to reach the orbital inclination of the ISS.

Too heavy? How heavy is the ISL?

[Fitzcarraldo]

And for all you who think Nasa could have done something lets go through possible scenarios....:

Of course NASA could have done something. The fact that it did nothing is tantamount to saying that the leadership of NASA are cold-blooded killers.

I have no doubt that this crew could have sustained life in orbit for up to 30 days until rescue, assuming efforts proceeded apace from the moment they entered orbit.

America does not deserve a manned program and NASA managers mays have thrown the live of seven exceptional individuals on the alter of Baal.

[hopespringseternal]

Why not? Was Columbia not fitted with the right connections or something?

Not only that, they were in two completely different orbits. The shuttle would have needed a lot more fuel than it had to reach the station.

I know it is hard to believe, but the shuttle is specially configured for each mission. Docking collars, MMUs, etc, weigh a lot and take up space, so they are not always brought. Contingency planning is awfully thin in many areas.

After forty years of manned space, our lack of capability is absolutely shameful.

[al_c]

ISL = ISS. Sorry.

[Mo1]

It was not an act of God it was NASA and there was plenty of warnings for years!

And I have warnings everytime I walk across a busy intersection ..

My point being is chill out until ALL the facts are in before you go attacking NASA

[lonestar]

I don't know about you, but that excuse doesn't fly in my book.

Retired astronaut Gene Cernan said last night, it was better they didn't know of a potential problem. They had a good flight, they were happy, and nothing could have been done to repair damage. He also said they could not have hooked up to the space station because they were on a different course.

[ResistorSister]

OK...thanks. I hadn't seen the video with the pitch black sky yet...that is why I was curious as to what it was all about.

[HairOfTheDog]

Taking better pictures of the possible damage is most certainly doable.

Was it? - They said they couldn't get pictures of it. I would think they would know.

[HairOfTheDog]

It was not an act of God it was NASA and there was plenty of warnings for years!

Good grief. And putting you in charge would have gotten us to space how many times?

[steve in DC]

My ongoing question is this:
If the tiles were damaged on take-off, and if the damage and its severity were known within moments of take-off, and if there were no in-flight method of repair to the damaged shuttle, would there have been a reasonable abort option during the take-off?

Or would there have necessarily been a boost to orbit and a reentry which was unsurvivable in any case?

[Kevin Curry]

The question isn't whether safety is important in the shuttle program. Of course it is important. The money spent on saftey considerations is staggering. But space travel is inherently very risky and dangerous, and there are humbling technological limitations to how much of the risk and danger can be designed out. At some point, so much money can be allocated to safety considerations that you no longer have a viable space program. You just shut it down.

When the shuttle program was first designed, it was estimated that we would lose one shuttle for every 50 launches. We're still ahead of that figure. I wish we were still far, far ahead of that figure. But it is important to keep these initial risk evaluations in mind to keep the tragedies in perspective.

For that matter, look over the history of our space program and add up the deaths of all NASA employees, contractors, and associated personnel from program and work-related accidents of all kinds. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that the shuttle crew component is a smaller or at least an unremarkable fraction of the total. We don't get excited about those other deaths, however, because they are not highlighted and displayed in the same spectacular fashion as the deaths of the shuttle crewmembers--as tragic as those deaths are.

For that matter, compute the space-travel mortality rate of all astronauts who have flown into space and compare it to the assassination mortality rate of all US presidents, or the accident mortality rate of all NASCAR drivers. Which are the riskier occupations? I don't know the actual figures, but common sense tells me the differences will not be that dramatic.

Now it may very well turn out that the shuttle disaster could have been readily and resposibly avoided had one of these safety experts been listened to. If so, the parties responsible should suffer stiff consequences. But knee-jerking ourselves to a conclusion at this early stage that the shuttles were made and maintained in a decrepit junkyard by devil-may-care teenagers and delinquents whose last consideration was safety is counterproductive and foolish.

[Mo1]

It is hard for me to believe that shuttles don't carry some sort of tile repair kits where the astronauts can go outside and do repairs, but it appears they don't.

They are out in the middle of SPACE .. it's not like they changing a tire on the side of the road

There is no Triple A in space

[bootyist-monk]

Sorry... life is not a Bruce Willis movie. From all I've read, they were doomed from the start if the insulation caused the damage to the wing. Left with no alternatives, I'm sure they were hoping it would hold together. Unfortunately, fate was not on their side.

It seems to me that we have gotten so used to seeing the Space Shuttle fly that we think it can manuever like a plane. It can't. And launching one isn't just a matter of gas and go.

Hopefully, they'll learn what went wrong and be able to prevent it in the future.

[Fitzcarraldo]

This may sound like a very stupid question, and I don't believe blame can/should be put on anyone. Things happen.

I can't believe what I'm reading here this morning. This kind of attitude will ultimately doom us, if it has propagated into the white management towers of NASA.

[alisasny]

I don't agree with you. This is not a Hollywood movie set.

Some likely scenarios from the NY Post

[Dave S]

1) we could have sent up Atlantis to get them, which would have been capable of launch, 2) we could have kept them up there an additional week or so until a contingency plan was developed, or 3) we could have developed a plan to hitch them a ride on the international space station.

It would have taken a week minimum to launch a rescue mission and cutting the pre-launch countdown like that would have put another crew at risk. Do you know the Shuttle had enough life support (Oxygen for example) to stay up another week? How do you get the astronauts from one vehicle to the other? The Columbia didnt have the teether arm in their cargo bay and who knows if the other Shuttle on launch pad had it installed. They couldnt have gone to the International Space Station because they were in a lower orbit and didnt have fuel to take them there. Again if they got there by some miracle, they could not dock with the ISS because the two are incompatible. Without the teether there would be no way to get there. You seem to want to trade no chance for the small chance they may have had reentering.

You seem to forget that on John Glenn's reentry they thought there was a good chance his capsule would burn up because they believed the heat shield was damaged. They didnt tell him because he had some chance returning and there was nothing he or anyone else could do.