Listen to David McAlary's report (RealAudio) McAlary report - Download 583k (RealAudio)Posted on 02/01/2003 8:02:03 PM PST by Destro
NASA Grounds Shuttle Fleet While Probing Columbia Disaster
David McAlary
Washington
02 Feb 2003, 01:22 UTC
Listen to David McAlary's report (RealAudio) McAlary report - Download 583k (RealAudio)
The U.S. space agency, NASA, is suspending future shuttle flights until it knows what caused the loss of the shuttle Columbia and its seven- member crew. Columbia broke up over Texas Saturday minutes before it was to land in Florida after a 16-day research mission in Earth orbit.
Seven astronauts, including the first from Israel, went down to their deaths in a hail of shuttle debris over Texas. Dramatic videotapes from a Dallas television station show it streaking to Earth in several smoking pieces.
Shuttle officials say the first sign of a problem was the loss of readings from sensors that measure tire pressure and temperature and structural heat on the orbiter's left side as it at headed toward landing at 18 times the speed of sound. Chief flight director Milt Heflin says controllers lost all contact with the shuttle minutes later.
"We lost the data and that's when we clearly began to know that we had a bad day," he said.
News reports tell of shuttle remains strewn across a wide area of east Texas. NASA is sending technicians to Texas to collect it with help from national, state, and local emergency agencies. NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe has established both an internal and independent external review board to investigate the cause of the disaster.
"This is indeed a tragic day for the NASA family, for the families of the astronauts, and likewise tragic for the nation," said Mr. O'Keefe.
The head of the shuttle program, Ron Dittemore, says debris analysis is key to understanding what happened to Columbia. He pledged a non-stop effort to assess it and all related flight data.
"It's going to take us some time to work through the evidence and the analysis to clearly understand what the cause was," he explained. "We will be poring over that data 24 hours a day for the foreseeable future."
Pending the answer, NASA is suspending all space shuttle flights. It has stopped preparing orbiters for flight at the Kennedy Space Center launch site, including the one that was scheduled to exchange crews at the International Space Station in early March.
A Russian supply rocket, set for launch Sunday, is bringing supplies that NASA says will support the station crew through late June.
Seventeen years ago, the shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after launch, but the Columbia disaster is the first time a shuttle has been lost returning from orbit since the program began 113 missions ago in 1981.
At the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, space expert Joan Johnston-Freese notes that takeoff and landings are the most dangerous times for space shuttles.
"That's when the maximum pressure and velocity occur," she said. "The shuttle lands as a large glider and control is always a challenge, but under those conditions of pressure and velocity, the shuttle is so super-heated at that point that it's a very volatile situation under the best of conditions."
As part of NASA's probe, technicians will look for any signs that an unusual launch incident may have damaged critical insulating tiles on the shuttle's left wing, the side of the shuttle where the sensor readings went dead. Insulation from the rocket that helped boost Columbia to orbit flew off and hit the wing during liftoff.
Shuttle manager Dittemore says that after exhaustive analysis early in the mission, flight engineers determined that it probably would have no affect on the flight. But given Columbia's loss, he did not dismiss the potential impact to the wing.
"We're going to go back and see if there is a connection. Is that the smoking gun? It is not. We don't know enough about it. A lot more analysis and evidence needs to come to the table," he emphasized. "It's not fair to represent the tile damage as the source. It's just something we need to go look at."
When the Columbia disaster occurred, NASA administrator O'Keefe was at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida awaiting the shuttle's return with the families and friends of the astronauts. What was to be a happy reunion turned into grief-stricken moments of consolation. Mr. O'Keefe paid tribute to the astronauts, whom he said dedicated their lives to facing scientific challenges for all of us on Earth.
"The loss of this valued crew is something we will never be able to get over and certainly the families of all of them," he said. "We have assured them we will do everything, everything, we can possibly do to guarantee that they work their way through this horrific tragedy."
Security had been tighter than usual at the landing site because the presence of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon prompted government fears that he might be the target of a terrorist attack. However, NASA says there is no indication that terrorism is involved in the shuttle loss.
Best.
I'm pro space exploration but Mars seems like a total dead end that would siphon off resources from more productive missions.
It's really hard to get anything into orbit. Once we have climbed out of a hole, why would we want to descend into another one?
Yes for pure science. I am all for spending on science and I just think private industry could do a better job of getting us to Mars and back if there was competition for a congressional prize.
I am all for a moonbase too. If we can have scientific camps in the Antartic we can have them on the moon too. My palmpilot has more calculating power than the computers that Apollo used so the Moon is way do-able.
A geosynchronous Atlas launch runs around $120 million; Ariane about $130; Proton about $85 million. To use the shuttle for a Geo launch you'd need to fly an upper stage with the satellite; that'd be probably an extra $20-30 million (I don't know the individual costs of upper stages like the IUS, PAM-D or Centaur; just guessing based on other non-upper stage rocket prices).
Actually, the asteroids are easier/cheaper to reach than Mars. Asteroid missions would ramp up science also. The main advantage to the asteroids is that there is an entire planetary mass worth of pre mined contsruction material that is already in free fall.
If you imagine that humans have a spacefaring future, the asteroid belt is the logical means toward that end. Any Mars mission would just be a diversion.
I repeat from my former post...If Nasa can't get back to focusing on exploration, instead of providing ponies for jockeys, I say shut it down completely.
As for what I dare say this day after the disaster, the thread's subject is the fate of the Shuttle program. I say reduce it and refocus on what we were supposed to do, which is explore. That ride Clinton gave to John Glenn to reward him for playing ball about the technology which should NOT have gone to China...well, that says a whole lot about the Mystique of the Astronaut the the Ride of Reward.
There now, I know that feels better since your true agenda is out there. And I would not insult you about that agenda, disagree maybe, but as I stated, there are two camps on the matter. Sorry you don't think they can coexist.
I also wouldn't argue with you about the Clinton/Glenn payoff ride.
But your earlier comment remains inaccurate and inappropriate. You certainly can't say Dan Golden favored the manned program over unmanned. He complained about it immensely, and he was never an astronaut either.
I want what is done to matter...bring me home some bacon instead of dreams
And better meds, advances in metallurgy, or other sciences don't matter? The development of better fuel cells, solar cell and battery technology, navigation aids, electronics in general, and the jobs and industries that develop out of those don't matter? Just what 'bacon' would make you happy?
I'll repeat it, just in case. Never intended to be cryptic, sorry about that.
Rides were the aim of Nasa because test pilots and their adoring handlers set the agenda. Listen to every astronaut talk about exploration and he only wants to tell you of his dreams of flying. Enough, already. These dreams are not the problem of the taxpayer.
Bacon... for starters, enough of this perennial angst. Three times is plenty. Now the whole program will slow as we investigate all the reasons why it happened, when we could have been sending lots of useful unmanned failures into space.
It's time not to worry about building a better spacecraft. The Russians have decided that question for us.
Let's build a better astronaut.
Why do I know I am arguing with a woman? Hey, your angry, you got to get those 10,000 words out somehow. I'll be the gentleman and let you get the last say. But then I cant argue anyway if you only answer in esoterics.
Esoterics?
Just in the past ten years, since Desert Storm, we've made tremendous strides in robotics. Time to dispose of the frail humans, and build us some astrodroids. Cheaper, less sentimental, and far less corrupt.
The same Congress that cancelled the SST crippled the shuttle.
This disaster has been thirty years in the making. And even more of a disaster than the loss of our heroes is the technological stagnation that has come with STS.
We now must make a huge, huge investment to restart R&D that was abandoned in the 1960s.
Or maybe China will sell it to us?
Are we even capable of building a Saturn V today?
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