NASA: Gases Breached Shuttle Wing in 2000

Associated Press ^ | 7/8/03 | TED BRIDIS

[FReepaholic]

They had "burn-thru" on previous missions.

I recall photographing several over the years from 1988 to 1998 when I worked at the Cape. They were minor, yet they did "slag" the aluminum structure in places.

As I recall, the ones I shot occurred in the gap-filler area of the tiles. Perhaps missing or damaged gap-filler.

[ironman]

"Did nothing?" Did you read the article??

[ironman]

"NASA totally denied any possibility of wing damage after the crash"

I don't believe that is a true statement.

[DoughtyOne]

There's a transcript of the original press conference around here somewhere, in which NASA officials did address the foam problem. They pretty well dismissed it. Then later they even went so far as to float a meteorite hit as an alternative theory.

[1rudeboy]

If NASA "totally denied" the possibility of wing damage, then why are they now focusing on wing damage?

[1rudeboy]

If "they pretty well dismissed it [foam damage]" by saying they will look at all possibilities, then your statement is accurate. In fact, that's the only way your statement is accurate.

[mewzilla]

The Rogers Commission's report should have been papering the walls over there. This is so sad.

[DoughtyOne]

To: DoughtyOne

If "they pretty well dismissed it [foam damage]" by saying they will look at all possibilities, then your statement is accurate. In fact, that's the only way your statement is accurate.
26 posted on 07/08/2003 2:08 PM PDT by 1rudeboy


Well Rudeboy, for your version to be correct NASA officials would have to have been saying, "We thought the foam strike could have resulted in mission failure but didn't do a damned thing about it."  If that's your point of view, you're welcome to it.  I specificly remember them saying, we considered this and dismissed it as a danger to the mission.  That's what I said and I believe it to be accurate.

[1rudeboy]

I'm sorry, I thought you meant after the disaster. Before the disaster, your original statement is correct.

[XBob]

Well, SC, thanks for the ping. it appears that your theory of the Palmdale rebuild problem, and flying w/o crashing, has some proof in some pudding - 1997-2000 vs 1999-2003.

Flying with unknown internal damage.

It seems to me, we don't know what is inside of any of the orbiters, sort of like cancer before the days of the x-ray.

How many more places have plasma leaks eaten up interior componenents?

[max_rpf]

Best summary so far, the only problem with the article is that it neglects to mention that the Vice President (Al - Wolfman - Gore) is in charge of the space program...


Did PC Science Cause Shuttle Disaster?


Friday, February 07, 2003
By Steven Milloy
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77832,00.html

NASA is reconsidering whether tank foam debris caused the Columbia disaster. That’s quite a shift from days earlier when the foam was the "leading candidate" -- an explanation that quickly became embarrassing.

We may never know precisely what happened to Columbia, but one thing should be clear -- NASA should not be in charge of investigating itself.

A chunk of foam insulation broke off the external fuel tank during launch, perhaps damaging Columbia’s heat-protecting tiles. “We’re making the assumption that the external tank was the root cause of the accident,” said shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore in the immediate aftermath.

It seemed a very reasonable assumption based on Columbia’s history.

Until 1997, Columbia’s external fuel tanks were insulated with a Freon-based foam. Freon is a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) supposedly linked with ozone depletion and phased out of widespread use under the international treaty known as the Montreal Protocol.

Despite that the Freon-based foam worked well and that an exemption from the CFC phase-out could have been obtained, NASA succumbed to political correctness. The agency substituted an allegedly more eco-friendly foam for the Freon-based foam.

PC-foam was an immediate problem.

The first mission with PC-foam resulted in 11 times more damaged thermal tiles on Columbia than the previous mission with the Freon-based foam.

A Dec. 23, 1997, diary entry on the NASA Web site reported: “308 hits were counted during the inspection, 132 were greater than 1-inch. Some of the hits measured 15 inches long, with depths measuring up to 1.5 inches. Considering that the depth of a tile is 2 inches, a 75 percent penetration depth had been reached.”

More than 100 tiles were damaged beyond repair, well over the normal count of 40. Flaking PC-foam was the chief suspect.

In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency exempted NASA from the CFC phase-out. Even assuming for the sake of argument that widespread use of CFCs might significantly damage the ozone layer, the relatively small amount used by NASA would have no measurable impact. The bulk of CFC use, after all, was in consumer products such as air conditioners, refrigerators and aerosol cans.

But contrary to the exercise of common sense, NASA didn’t return to the safer Freon-based foam. Instead, NASA knowingly continued to risk tile damage -- and disaster -- with reformulated PC-foam.

This is obviously a potentially embarrassing situation for NASA.

In what smacks of an effort to avoid blame, NASA is now claiming the disintegration of Columbia has turned into a scientific mystery.

NASA says computer modeling fails to show how foam insulation striking the thermal tiles could do enough damage to cause catastrophe -- apparently ignoring that flaking foam substantially penetrated thermal tiles on an earlier flight.

NASA has even offered up the ultimate exculpatory theory -- that space junk or even a meteor could have hit the wing and damage the thermal tiles.

It’s certainly possible that a force majeure could have caused the disaster. But I’d like to see qualified independent experts come to that improbable conclusion.

Instead, NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe has activated the Space Shuttle Mishap Interagency Investigation Board. The board is a standing panel created by NASA in the mid-1990s. Its members are generals and other senior bureaucrats from the Department of Transportation -- except that no one from the National Transportation Safety Board is on the panel.

The appearance of independence is lacking. The board is a NASA creation. Its senior government bureaucrats may be reluctant to blame fellow senior bureaucrats. I also wonder whether the panel members personally possess the requisite technical expertise to investigate the accident.

The combination of NASA’s “lone meteor theory” and self-anointed commission strikes me as eerily similar to the Warren Commission and its controversial, if not dubious “lone gunman theory” for the assassination of President Kennedy.

Further, NASA previously dismantled its supposedly “independent” Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel after it questioned the agency’s long-term plans for safety.

NASA is not above pulling the wool over the public’s eyes for its own benefit.

Facing significant budget cuts in 1997, NASA produced the “Mars rock” -- a softball-sized meteorite found in Antarctica in 1984 containing complex organic molecules. Hoping to boost interest in the agency’s mission -- and its budget -- NASA boasted the rock was “evidence of primitive life on early Mars.”

Mars rock soon turned out to be Mars crock. Independent scientists arrived at a much more plausible Earth-bound explanation for the presence of the organic molecules.

NASA is an agency under pressure -- its mission is unclear and its budget demands are high. The last thing NASA needs is for its political correctness or other avoidable errors on the part of the agency to be the cause of the Columbia disaster.

The investigation into what happened to Columbia needs to be turned over to a truly independent and qualified commission -- and before the evidentiary trail starts to disappear.

[Paleo Conservative]

This is the first I've heard of this. This is BAD! This means NASA safety knew about this hazard, and did nothing.

It also means they don't seem to have a database of all incidents that is quickly searchable. This type of information should have been quickly accessable by any of the astronauts and engineers responsible for the safety of the shuttles.

[Destro]

The shuttle is a death trap.

[Erik Latranyi]

NASA director denied any possible link on the day of the accident stating that it was looked at and ruled impossible.

I even remember him stating that it was only a 2lb chunk of foam, so it could not cause any damage, etc.

[F. dAnconia]

This has been a CYA effort since the first moments after the shuttle broke up. That first news conference sealed NASA's fate for me.

Give DoughtyOne a prize. He (or She) has hit this issue directly on the head. NASA's immediate denial that the foam caused the accident was the most unscientific statement I have ever heard. The fact that it came from an agency devoted to science tells you that politicians are firmly in charge of this organization (probably always were).

In short...NASA suffers from having no clear-cut goals and is stagnating as a result. The time has come to privatize space exploration and introduce a new goal. PROFIT! The heights we will soar to (physically and economically) will be unimaginable.

[Resolute]

We musn't forget the top guy (O'Keefe) with his dismissive reference to "foamologists."

[ironman]

First of all I don't think the NASA Director made any such statements the day of the disaster. The Shuttle Flight Director was highly skeptical that the foam incident was the "root cause." But I think you will find that the analysis that was done did indicate some damage was likely to have ocurred.

[DoughtyOne]

Well after the guy during the first interview stated you couldn't rescue the astronauts, so they didn't even consider it, it was O'Keef that said that wasn't true.

That first guy was hanging out on a number of issues that day.

[DoughtyOne]

I'll try to look into this later. There seems to be some conflicting memories of that and I'm not always dead on, so I'll take another look.

[eno_]

Ever since Challenger, the Shuttle should have been used only for military missions. Risking lives for "science" missions where many of the "experiments" would be considered lame in a 7th grade science fair is criminal.