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.

[KeepUSfree]

Now I'm REALLY upset....I'm in total agreement with Dane!!!!

[Chad Fairbanks]

You should change your tag line to read, "Beware the fury of a man who has to keep repeating himself" ;0)

[BureaucratusMaximus]

Oh Please.

[KineticKitty]

BUMP

[Poohbah]

Yes and at mach 18. ROTWFL. At two or three times the speed of sound, pilots that eject get broken bones and beat up pretty badly by the ejection. Just think what would happen to them if they ejected at 18 times the speed of sound. They would be torn apart.

But...but...I saw it in a movie once </media talking head stupidity mode>

[js1138]

parachute out ???.. ABC said that??

Actually it's not the distance, but the speed.

[Mo1]

Actually it's not the distance, but the speed.

Either way, it's not possible

[Dave S]

Columbia is too heavy for the amount of thrust the Shuttle stack provides.

Many dont seem to understand that the Columbia is a glider, not a jet plane. It has some rocket pack for course correction but not for jetting around the neighborhood. In fact, the Shuttles have only one shot at landing. They cant turn around and try another approach to the runway. They are not powered. They are free falling from space.

[Desdemona]

Actually it's not the distance, but the speed.

The altitude and lack of oxygen will kill you just as fast.

[Dave S]

this isn't a hatchet job its NASA that did NOT do their lob and 7 people are dead!

First the Lott fiasco and now this. Your wife must be deaf to put up with the stupidities that you so easily espouse.

[ThinkingMan]

I would think that the weight added by another set of tiles would be extremely restrictive.

The space program is not without it's inherent risks. It is a testimony to the brilliance of our scientists and engineers that this type of thing does not happen more frequently. Think about the apathy that this country normally has regarding space flight. (This from a nation that thinks Survivor and Joe Millionaire is exciting.) It shows that those involved with NASA have reduced the risks to the point that it is no longer "exciting" for most people.

Yes this is a tragedy, but it can also be a valuable learning experience for NASA. A lot of safety regulation is unfortunately written in blood. We cannot stop exploring because "someone might get hurt". All that we can do is learn our lesson, put it to use, and move on to a bolder and brighter future in space.

[VadeRetro]

this isn't a hatchet job its NASA that did NOT do their job and 7 people are dead!

Once a table-thumper, always a table-thumper, eh, TLB?

If the damage to the tiles came when we think it did, it was when the shuttle was roaring to get to orbital velocity. The problem has to be detected within minutes at best if some kind of abort in the atmosphere is to be done. That's all the time you have at best before the shuttle and crew are above the atmosphere, in space, flying about Mach 25, and looking at a re-entry situation, the same problem that actually occurred.

The problem was noticed after the shuttle was in orbit. A reasonable guess is that they were "Spam in a can," in Chuck Yeager's memorable phrase, and didn't know it. If any of them suspected, if anyone on the ground did, there was nothing to be done in any event by that time.

It's all trade-offs. You can scream that the tile design is no good, but another approach will have its own problems. There's no safe way to be a space pioneer.

One thing they should look at in the next design is the current positioning of the shuttle on the booster. It's catching anything that comes loose from the forward parts of the booster during the acceleration into space. Maybe you need the precious payload up at the leading edge, like on the old space rockets.

[time4good]

Someone just told me this morning that they didn't bring any space suits nor the extending arm on this trip. Also, that 'experts' with binoculars did a visual from the ground at the wing to evaluate and make their decision.

Question (don't say it's whacko, compared to 7 lives lost...): Couldn't they have changed their flight plans and gone to the space station, docked, had someone with a suit go out and perform a more thorough analysis, and, although extreme, if determined to be damaged enough, release the Columbia into space and all 10 wait for another shuttle to get them?

Before you call that stupid, what other alternative could there be, other than calling them just plain doomed to die... ?

[SarahW]

That's not what I've been reading - loss of leading edge tiles have always put the ship at risk of catastophic failure, and they had no way to fix it, and no plan b to work around it, and didn't even want to see it, because there was nothing to be done about it.

Reminds me of something I read in an unrelated piece recently = if you don't have a hammer, you don't want anything to look like a nail.

I'm not ashamed to Monday-morning quarterback. If I had understood that "give up" and "no point in looking" was the plan in this sort of event, I would have been friday afternoon quarterbacking, too.

And for ***sakes, why don't they have a maneuverable tethered webcam to visualize all areas of the ship? It's 2003, not 1983. Robot arm, smobot arm. There were low weight, lower tech solutions to in-slight ship inspection.

The heat shield has always had an unacceptable high risk level. It was an achilles heel and everyone at NASA knew that, if I didn't.

And it is going to have to be redesigned and reengineered.

[Man of the Right]

I'm only a layperson, but that's what I've read.

Risk is minimized in any dangerous undertaking through doctrine, thorough training and equipment, in that order.

When you try to do something that is extremely dangerous without any of the above, the odds are people will die. You might get lucky and summit K-2 and return safely on a whim, but the odds are against it.

I speculate that if NASA had learned Columbia re-entry was unsurvivable early, political pressure for an ad hoc rescue attempt would have been incredible. Bush has the character to resist it. But he would have been crucified for either a rescue fiasco, or for allowing the astronauts to succumb without one.

[Mo1]

In the spirit of not personally attacking you...if you really believe all the facts, including negligence on the part of NASA (or any other ABC agency involved for that matter) will be publically disclosed; then I believe you to be willfully naive.

In the spirit of not attacking you .. I think I will wait untill all the facts are out

I have my opinions of what happened .. unfortunately I don't believe they could have fixed these tiles out in the middle of space

[Desdemona]

No. Read the rest of this thread. I'm not repeating it.

[bootyist-monk]

Al,

Didn't mean it as a crack at you, just at the situation. No offense intended.

Bootyist

[Cincinatus]

They couldn't get to ISS -- different orbital inclinations and not enough fuel to rendezvous.

[time4good]

Sorry if I didn't bother to read your post - I just asked almost the same question...