Posted on 04/18/2003 6:01:28 PM PDT by TLBSHOW
Shuttle Doomed at Takeoff
Telltale Heat Spike Was Recorded After Debris Strike
April 18 — Investigators now have the strongest evidence yet that the space shuttle Columbia's left wing was critically punctured during liftoff, when falling debris started the fatal chain of events that led to the breakup of the shuttle when it re-entered Earth's atmosphere, ABCNEWS has learned.
The evidence comes from an old magnetic tape recorder that is part of the Orbiter Experiment Support System, sources said.
It shows an unusual temperature increase in a key sensor just behind the leading edge of the left wing near the spot where foam that fell from the shuttle's external fuel tank is suspected of striking the shuttle, just 81 seconds into the flight.
The temperature spike happens within the next 40 seconds. Usually during this phase of flight, the temperature would be decreasing or holding steady, sources said.
"All the evidence is pointing there," a knowledgeable source told ABCNEWS. "It's kind of like the lady in California. Everybody knows it's her, but they just can't officially say it yet." The data comes from a temperature sensor behind the front spar of the left wing near a shuttle's protective thermal panels known as reinforced carbon carbon panels, or RCC. These panels are supposed to protect the shuttle from the heat of re-entry.
This video image released by NASA shows the likely catastrophic debris strike approximately 81 seconds after liftoff. Pieces of debris are observed ahead of the left wing. (NASA, HO/AP Photo)
Investigators say it was a breach in the left wing near the leading edge that led to the breakup of Columbia on Feb. 1 when it plunged back into the Earth's atmosphere at more than 20,000 mph. All seven astronauts on board perished.
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board is still trying to piece together the puzzle of the shuttle disaster — but they have already recommended that NASA do a much better job of inspecting RCC panels for any weaknesses prior to liftoff.
The board is concerned that as the shuttle fleet ages, the RCC panels may be more susceptible to failure — and that Columbia's age may have been a factor in the shuttle accident. Columbia flew its first mission in 1981, making it the oldest shuttle in the fleet.
The board will hear from more experts at another public hearing next week. Members will start to write their report at the end of May and hope to issue it sometime in June.
None of the information from the recorder could have helped save the doomed shuttle. It was not available to ground control at launch, and controllers would not have noticed the spike until the shuttle landed and, weeks later, analyzed the data.
And even if they had known, it is open to debate what could have been done.
"If they suspected the damage, could they have done something? Probably not," a source said. "But you never want to say there was nothing that could have been done, because you never know what 1,000 people all working on one problem might come up with."
Going into space for the sake of being the justification for one of human history's most massive jobs program is.
That is -- going into space with maximized expense is very very dangerous.
Cheaper is safer. Much cheaper -- very safe.
But then we wouldn't have the congresscritter franchised techno-socialist government-enforced massive wealth transfers and cushy lifetime high G level jobs for the pensionaire class.
And less fancy, grand and overindulgent national mourning galas for dead "heros".
1. Lockheed Martin will go back to the older, more durable foam insulation material for the external tank.
2. There will now be very strict procedures on launch commit based on weather conditions.
3. It's likely the protective tiles will be replaced by new ones that use newer-technology materials that are less susceptible to foreign-object damage (FOD). NASA had been studying switching to the newer-material tiles but never got the funding to actually implement it originally.
4. There will be lots of very strict safety procedures added in place to make sure the new tiles are in proper shape and the external tank insulation is also in proper shape before liftoff.
Precisely.
Ahhh ... this was not a failure of the tiles this time ...
Precisely.
Welcome to manned prototypes ...
It appears this was data that was considered to be of secondary value - valuable to a select few engineers/analysts after the flight but considered to be non-essential for normal flight.
It sounds like a bunch of sensor data was processed in a very basic form and simply 'laid onto magnetic tape' - there are special 'data recorders' that will take simple voltage data from, say, a 'thermistor' (used as a simple temperature sensor) or strain guage and simply record it for later review ...
Manned prototypes - man is more adaptable (like fixing the formerly hobbled Hubble telescope) than 'dumb' machines simply fired into space ... otherwise - beats me.
What looks like a common housefly sure looks awfully big in that one corner ...
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