Very close-up, slo-mo of the Columbia launch debris.

Florida Today ^ | 02/01/03

[eno_]

"why didn't they do a walk to check the condition of the wing?"

There are no handholds outside the cargo bay. The robot arm might have been able to "look" back there, but it was not on this mission. Their options for diagnosing tile issues were ground-based telescopes or a flyby of the ISS, and they may not have had the maneuvering fuel to get to the same orbit as the ISS.

[FReepaholic]

>>...used ground based telescopes to takes photo of the shuttle in orbit to check for damage..<<<

Yes, they've used ground based 'scopes in the past. Air Force telescopes in Hawaii. I've heard the results were inconclusive.

[FReepaholic]

I've now seen a clearer version of this video clip. You can clearly see the debris pass under the left wing and see the spray of fine particles exit from under the wing.

Obviously impacting tiles underneath the wing.

[Amerigomag]

Post crash analysis will determine that the flight was doomed when it left the atmosphere.

The saftey panel will further determine that the only survivable course would have been seperation of Columbia from it's supplemental fuel tank just after the tile damage occured. This mission abort process would have allowed Columbia to return to earth in a controlled fashion without the excessive heat of reentry.

But alas this same board will also conclude that not enough information is avaliable at that stage of the flight to warrant such an economically expensive decision and therefore the accident was unavoidable without a complete redesign of the mission vehicles.

[b4its2late]

I figured that they probably couldn't dock at the ISS, but it was just a thought. I find it hard to believe that insulation from the tank could've caused damage. Unless, the insulation that they are talking about is a hard insulation. When I think insulation, I'm thinking styrofoam type or something pliable, but I don't know much about it.

To me, it looked like a piece of ice that hit the wing, not insulation. If it were ice, it could most probably damage the tiles.

[Republic of Texas]

Columbia was too heavy to get to the ISS, too heavy to dock with it, and didn't have the fuel. The ISS doesn't have engines to get to them. It simply wasn't possible to "park" it and wait for Bruce Willis to come to the rescue.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[DoughtyOne]

A space walk was mentioned yesterday during the press conference. There is no capacity for the crew to execute a space walk outside the payload bay according to the NASA official. In the design phase they determined that tile failure would be catastophic and unable to be repaired in space.

I kid you not, this was the logic presented. My jaw dropped when I heard it.

This was the policy for the Columbia. I do not know if it was the same for the others. The Columbia didn't have a cargo arm in the back.

I didn't see the debris hit the wing. What could have happened, is the debris broke the seal of some tiles from the wing, but they didn't fall off. They were dislodged from the surface of the wing, but stayed in place perhaps held on by each other. Upon reentry this section of dislodged tiles fell off in unison leaving an exposed section of wing and failure resulted.

[FReepaholic]

>>...I find it hard to believe that insulation from the tank could've caused damage...<<

The vehicle was moving at Mach 2 to Mach 4 so the insulation hit the vehicle at that speed. The tiles are very delicate.

[Mark Felton]

Debris Photos (post them here)

[blackie]

Thanks Bob!

[null and void]

Didn't look like much of anything. Obviously fairly soft as it puffed into a cloud of frost(?) powder.

On the other hand, I'm the guy who thought Dale Ernhardt's crash didn't look that bad.

All I had to go on was the slowmo video on this thread, I din't realize from it that the shuttle was so far down range. I thought it was closer to the pad and slower.

I agree that the "frost cloud" could just as likely been ceramic powder.

[null and void]

They should have made the shuttle out of titanium like I understand the original plans called for. If some estimates about what failed today are correct having titanium in lieu of aluminum would certainly have been a major plus if the failure was caused by heat spiking into the hull.

Jimmy Carter vetoed titanium as a cost savings measure.

[blackie]

Great link spunkets, thanks!

Be Well - Be Armed - Be Safe - Molon Labe!

[null and void]

What art of engineering allows incidents of debris to be incorporated into an acceptable design?

All mechanical engineeering. Your car hits pebbles all the time, and has an air filter. No farm equipment would work if it couldn't tolerate dirt...

[null and void]

How fast; we'll find out soon, as NASA will be agonizing over their "ok" no harm done descison.

I saw the engineer who made the final decision. Looking at him I won't be surprised if he kills himself soon.

[b4its2late]

Oh. I thought it happened just as it was leaving the pad.

[ffusco]

what is an ohm engine?

[Jesse]

I was thinking about that. While the velocity of attached foam would have been the same as the shuttle, detached foam might lose its relative velocity very fast at 6000 mph, making the relative velocity of the foam hitting the shuttle much greater than, say, a piece of ice or even metal which would have greater mass and might maintain its velocity better.

[ironman]

I agree the debris was decellerating (fast) while the shuttle powered on up. But the sequence takes place clearly over at least a second. So let's estimate it traveled (relative to the orbiter) its entire length (122 ft) in 1 sec. This equates to around 80 mph. Just a WAG. But this clearly might have indeed done the fatal damage.