From NASA engineering film: Sequential pix of debris hitting Columbia's wing

NASA via CNN Online & Yahoo News ^ | 2/3/03 | Wolfstar

[Wolfstar]

Released Monday morning, a high-speed NASA engineering film shows a piece of debris falling from the large external tank on the space shuttle Columbia's liftoff and hitting the orbiter's left wing. Bear in mind that these are extreme close-ups of a high-speed event. In the top couple of photos, you see only the top of the broken-off piece. Most of it is in the shadows. Depending on which clip you see and how slowly it is run, to the uninitiated person's eye, it can look either like the debris strikes the wing hard enough to pulverize the debris, or the debris strikes a glancing blow and bounces off in the direction of the main and booster engine exhaust.

[Wolfstar]

"...and slip the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."

NASA did not know of this debris incident until the day AFTER launch, when they completed a routine frame-by-frame review of their high-speed film of the launch. By then, even if they determined that the incident was a threat to the shuttle, THERE WAS NOTHING THEY COULD DO. Columbia was not outfitted with a means to dock with the ISS. This mission was scheduled for a short duration, so there were not enough supplies on board to wait for another shuttle.

IF

[zingzang]

THERE WAS NOTHING THEY COULD DO

Excellent point. I hope everyone can see past the talking heads and the finger pointers out there and realize that despite all of the technology involved, there are still accidents that can and do happen.

[tazman3]

ping

[P-Marlowe]

But they could have assumed that this was serious and prepared the Atlantis Shuttle for a possible rescue mission. They have the capabilities of getting Atlantis ready for such a mission in a week. They had the time. They could have rescued all but the pilot of the Columbia before they attempted to bring it back to earth.

If they thought this was serious they should have done something. Let's hope that they truly didn't think it was a big deal. Let's hope that they didn't deliberately risk the lives of those seven people. Lets hope they didn't know this was going to happen when they had time to try to save them.

[SarahW]

They would have weeks more if they had visualised the damage right away. I won't accept there was nothing they could or would have tried, either.

If there was nothing they could do in this kind of event. maybe we *should* have managed to go for a few years without the spiders in space while they figure out how to develop a backup plan.

[xzins]

Why is not every mission equipped with the ability to dock with the ISS and why is not every mission required to have an additional shuttle in backup role in case of the need to rescue a crew. That would limit the crews to about 4 persons so that any rescue ship would return with a crew of 8....4+4.

[Jael]

NASA did not know of this debris incident until the day AFTER launch, when they completed a routine frame-by-frame review of their high-speed film of the launch.

During Columbia's launching Jan. 16, long-range tracking cameras showed a relatively large piece of foam debris falling away from the shuttle's external tank and striking the underside of the orbiter's left wing. The debris is believed to have measured about 20 inches in its longest dimension. http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030203analysis/

You folks have to remember that ever aspect of the flight is monitored. There isn't any kind of "looking at the tapes the next day" except to re look. They are watching it when it happens. They know when it happens.

That having been said, I do not think that what they saw was abort worthy. And that's the bad part. They had become accustomed to the foam falling off the tanks. But they did see it when it happened.

http://ltp.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/journals/katnik/sts87-12-23.html

"Damage numbering up to forty tiles is considered normal on each mission due to ice dropping off of the external tank (ET) and plume re-circulation causing this debris to impact with the tiles. But the extent of damage at the conclusion of this mission was not "normal." The pattern of hits did not follow aerodynamic expectations, and the number, size and severity of hits were abnormal. Three hundred and eight hits were counted during the inspection, one-hundred and thirty two (132) were greater than one inch. Some of the hits measured fifteen (15) inches long with depths measuring up to one and one-half (1 1/2) inches. Considering that the depth of the tile is two (2) inches, a 75% penetration depth had been reached. Over one hundred (100) tiles have been removed from the Columbia because they were irreparable.

During the STS-87 mission, there was a change made on the external tank. Because of NASA's goal to use environmentally friendly products, a new method of "foaming" the external tank had been used for this mission and the STS-86 mission.
It is suspected that large amounts of foam separated from the external tank and impacted the orbiter. This caused significant damage to the protective tiles of the orbiter."

http://www.arnold.af.mil/aedc/newsreleases/1999/99-041.htm

"According to NASA, during several previous Space Shuttle flights, including the shuttle launched Nov. 29, 1998, the shuttle external tank experienced a significant loss of foam from the intertank. The material lost caused damage to the thermal protection high-temperature tiles on the lower surface of the shuttle orbiter.

[DoughtyOne]

Please tell me how NASA could assume a 5 to 10' brick hitting the shuttle moving in excess of 1000 mph would do no damage. I'd like to hear the parse on that.

[agincourt1415]

You need to understand, at 12,000 miles per hour, if only one tile had been hit and damaged other tiles on reentry would have peeled off, the damage on the ascent wouldn't have set off any alarm bells, because the Shuttle has landed before with tiles missing, it was a chain of circumstances, unfortunate and now we learn that tiles are not a safe skin to have on the Shuttle.

They will probably have to reopen the National Aerospace Plane Program, and severly limit the number of astronauts on the the Shuttle.

[DoughtyOne]

The shuttle has been in service for twenty years, but NASA would have us to believe that no contingency plan has ever been drawn up that would see the next launch put under a crash plan to save seven lives. Either they are lying or they are the most incompetent agency known to man.

[P-Marlowe]

If they knew that, they had an obligation to do everything they could, including a rush launch of Atlantis, to get those guys down safely. It could have been done. There is nothing we as Americans can't accomplish if Union rules are suspended.

[jpthomas]

To my untrained eye, in the second image the piece of insulation appears to be about to impact the underside of the shuttle wing in an edge-on configuration. If this is the case, the energy of the impact might have been concentrated over a fairly small surface area of the wing. The potential for significant localized damage would seem to be much greater with an edge-on impact. I wonder what assumptions the NASA engineers made regarding the orientation of the insulation at the impact point when they simulated its effect on the tiles. I'm sure they'll be looking at this more carefully.

[Howlin]

Thanks for this.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

I disagree that nothing could have been done. The shedding of debris during takeoffs was a known issue for years. NASA just didn't see the need to pursue it seriously until they finally got hit with an orbiter loss and have to deal with 7 dead people, their familes, and a public asking what the hell happened.

I have just one question for Dan Goldin: Now that 7 of your astronauts are dead and you're ass is in the hotseat, do you think it was a good idea to fire 5 of your 9 safety board members (and 2 consultants) that had the guts and integrity to voice grave concerns over safety problems?

Dan Goldin should be in prison.

[DoughtyOne]

One very valid reason is that not all shuttle missions fly in a parallel orbit with the ISS. Thus the shuttle would have to not only change direction, but altitude as well. It simply isn't possible to always plan for a docking. I back NASA on that.

[Wolfstar]

Yes, sadly. But that's life — especially life in the exceedingly fast lane of space flight.

This year is the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' flight at Kitty Hawk. Just think where humankind has come with powered flight in just a century. And consider the many thousands of people who have died in aviation accidents in that time, including some of the most famous people of their time. Think back to the men and women who died in the early attempts to fly cross the country, the Atlantic, and other geographic spans around the globe, as well as to circumnavigate the globe, etc.

Even though we try to learn as much as possible after each accident in an attempt to prevent it from happening again, the very nature of powered flight is inherently dangerous. The wonder is not that we've lost the Challenger and Columbia, but that there have been so few fatal accidents in our still-priimitive attempts at space flight.

Far from wallowing in the usual recriminations, we should analyze what went wrong, fix it, and keep moving forward into space.

[TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!]

Did you miss this sentence?

THERE WAS NOTHING THEY COULD DO.

There is no rightious, questionable, debate of thoughts even, when...

THERE WAS NOTHING THEY COULD DO.

[DoughtyOne]

I won't go quite that far, but these guys who walk away with a big smile and a reputation that deflects bullets, should be outed for the SOBs they are, when their policies cost lives.

[southland]

Maybe they could have waited until next trip to take the spiders. Spiders that I have know would not have cared one way or another.

[yonif]

"THERE WAS NOTHING THEY COULD "

They could have tried then cross their fingers on reentry. Nothing is impossible. Rescue is always possible. Just like they worked to get Apollo 13 back, they could have spent time working on getting them back as well.