NASA’s Space Shuttle Columbia: Quick Facts
and Issues for Congress
Marcia S. Smith
Specialist in Aerospace and Telecommunications Policy
http://www.iwar.org.uk/news-archive/crs/20245.pdf
Corrosion Suggested in Shuttle Crash
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3077582/#.VqpKGM_2Yu4
The Untold Story: Columbia Shuttle Disaster and Mysterious ‘Day 2 Object’
http://news.yahoo.com/untold-story-columbia-shuttle-disaster-mysterious-day-2-135349666.html
Timeline
http://www.iasa-intl.com/folders/shuttle/RCCdegTimeline.htm
Dynamic Impact Tolerance of Shuttle RCC Leading Edge
Panels Using LS-DYNA
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20050220706.pdf
Materials Analysis: A Key to Unlocking the Mystery of the Columbia Tragedy
Brian M. Mayeaux, Thomas E. Collins, Gregory A. Jerman, Steven J. McDanels, Robert S. Piascik, Richard W. Russell, and Sandeep R. Shah
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0402/Mayeaux-0402.html
Test and Analysis Correlation of Form Impact onto
Space Shuttle Wing Leading Edge RCC Panel 8
http://www.cs.odu.edu/~mln/ltrs-pdfs/NASA-2004-8lsdyna-elf.pdf
CASE STUDY: AXIOMATIC DESIGN OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE WING – LEADING
EDGE
http://www.axiomaticdesign.com/technology/icad/icad2004/icad-2004-35.pdf
One of those authors was the JSC customer that we visited about the weakened RCC leading edge.
I am a busy guy with a business to run. However, I still have my notes archived including the notes from that meeting.
Someday, I will write a book about what I know.
By the way, if anyone has a geiger counter, I was told that there is a nuke reactor buried under the old runway at the Downey plant.
One day in 1983 or so, I was chatting with one of the old timers from North American.
He said, “I think everyone else on the team is dead now. I am probably the only one who knows.”
“What?” I asked.
He then told me, “Back in the late 40s, every aircraft company wanted to have a nuclear reactor. We got a contract from the government and set up a small reactor. When the government suddenly canceled the program in 1949, we dug a hole under the runway and buried it in concrete. Almost nobody knew because the program was classified”.
I think it is a car sales lot now. This would be South of Stewart & Gray and East of Lakewood in Downey. The old runways ran diagonal across the back of the lot. They used to build and fly Consolidated Vultee aircraft out of there as well as North American aircraft later.
I have a geiger counter but no time to go search for it.
The land belonged to the USAF before it got deeded to the City of Downey, IIRC.
I guess that now I am the Old Timer, hah!