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Columbia

Roadtoad said:
The Columbia has been lost.

Shalom.
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Is that supposed to be funny or clever? I ask, because you've failed on both counts.

There are at least three separate threads going on about this event, and you start a top level thread with no new information, no links to new reports, not even any speculation about the cause of the disaster. Why?

What's your damned point?
 
Re: Re: Columbia

Hazelip said:


Is that supposed to be funny or clever? I ask, because you've failed on both counts.

There are at least three separate threads going on about this event, and you start a top level thread with no new information, no links to new reports, not even any speculation about the cause of the disaster. Why?

What's your damned point?
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It was neither. I was opening the thread. That's all. Frankly, I'm out of words on this one.

For current info:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?cid=34&tmpl=fc&in=Science&cat=Space_Shuttle
 
This is what the shuttle was doing on its last mission.

http://spaceresearch.nasa.gov/sts-107/

In spite of what some might be saying, my suspicion, (given my time with things mechanical), is that something simply wore out. That was all. Nothing to back it at this point. No one is showing anything about this yet.
 
Spoke too soon. From CNN/Time:

"Seven astronauts, including the first Israeli in space, were lost Saturday when the space shuttle Columbia broke apart in the skies of Texas. The incident occurred at an altitude of some 200,000 feet, shortly after reentry and 15 minutes before Columbia had been scheduled to land at Cape Canaveral. TIME science correspondent Jeffrey Kluger explains some of the possible causes and consequences of the accident:

TIME.com: What are the possible scenarios that could have caused this disastrous accident on the shuttle's reentry into the Earth's atmosphere?

Jeffrey Kluger: There are three possible scenarios that explain this event. The first, which I believe is the likeliest explanation, would be an aerodynamic structural breakup of the shuttle caused by it rolling at the wrong angle. Remember, after reentry, the shuttle is descending without power, which means astronauts at the controls can't compensate for a loss of attitude by using the engines, they can only do so using the flaps. And that's extremely hard. Astronauts describe piloting the shuttle on reentry as like trying to fly a brick with wings. It's very difficult to operate, and even more so to correct any problems.

A second explanation might be a loss of tiles leading to a burn-through. (The shuttle is covered with heat-resistant tiles to protect the craft and those inside it from burning up in the scorching temperatures caused by the friction of reentry.) But I think that explanation is unlikely, because the tile-loss would have had to have been quite substantial for that to become possible. You'll hear a lot in the next few days about things falling off the shuttle during liftoff. But it often happens that they lose a few tiles, and I'd be surprised if it happened on a scale that could make an accident of this type possible.

The last option is some kind of engine failure leading to fuel ignition. Although the main tanks are mostly empty, there should still be fuel left in the maneuvering tanks. But probably not enough for an explosion that could have caused this breakup.

And just in case anybody was wondering, you can almost certainly rule out terrorism as a cause. This incident occurred well above the range of shoulder-fired missiles. And it would probably be easier to sneak a bomb onto Air Force One than to get one onto the shuttle."
 
My theory:

The insulation that struck the wing removed protective tiles. The wing was burned off, causing the lift from the other wing to spin the shuttle in a corkscrew fashion. This exposed the unprotected sections of the hull to atmospheric friction. Rocket fuel tanks possibly mixed igniting in chemical combustion as they are designed to do, thusly lighting the whole thing into a mach 16 fireball.

I honestly do not know what it was, but with the information I have gathered to date, that is the best I can figure.

You need to think how better to start a thread.
 
Hazelip said:
My theory:

The insulation that struck the wing removed protective tiles. The wing was burned off, causing the lift from the other wing to spin the shuttle in a corkscrew fashion. This exposed the unprotected sections of the hull to atmospheric friction. Rocket fuel tanks possibly mixed igniting in chemical combustion as they are designed to do, thusly lighting the whole thing into a mach 16 fireball.

I honestly do not know what it was, but with the information I have gathered to date, that is the best I can figure.

You need to think how better to start a thread.
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You're right. I apologize. I was acting on impulse, out of shock. There's too much going on at once right now.

As an FYI, if you're interested in this, Fox News' link:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77253,00.html

Reading the Fox News story almost came across as a "Just Seen Elvis" tale. Lots of stuff from witnesses, but nothing that CNN didn't already have.
 
This is the latest from Reuters:

NASA Statement on Space Shuttle Columbia
Sat February 1, 2003 01:00 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The following is the text of a statement issued by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on loss of communications with space shuttle Columbia:
"A Space Shuttle contingency has been declared in Mission Control, Houston, as a result of the loss of communication with the Space Shuttle Columbia at approximately 9 a.m. EST Saturday as it descended toward a landing at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla. It was scheduled to touchdown at 9:16 a.m. EST.

Communication and tracking of the shuttle was lost at 9 a.m. EST at an altitude of about 203,000 feet in the area above north central Texas. At the time communications were lost, the shuttle was traveling approximately 12,500 miles per hour (Mach 18). No communication and tracking information were received in Mission Control after that time.

Search and rescue teams in the Dallas-Fort Worth and in portions of East Texas have been alerted. Any debris that is located in the area that may be related to the Space Shuttle contingency should be avoided and may be hazardous as a result of toxic propellants used aboard the shuttle. The location of any possible debris should immediately be reported to local authorities.

Flight controllers in Mission Control have secured all information, notes and data pertinent to today's entry and landing by Space Shuttle Columbia and continue to methodically proceed through contingency plans.

News media covering the Space Shuttle should stay tuned to NASA Television, which is broadcast on AMC-2, transponder 9C, C-Band, located at 85 degrees West longitude. The frequency is 3880.0 MHz. Polarization is vertical and audio is monaural at 6.8 MHz. Reporters can also go to any NASA center newsroom to monitor the situation."


I've a few questions here:

(1.) At Mach 18, and at 203,000 ft, there was as near as I could tell no chance that anyone could have bailed out of the Columbia, nor could any ejection system have worked. Am I right about this?

(2.) If, as has been suggested on another thread, there had been a rupture of any sort, deforming part of the shuttle, is it possible that it caused damage to the wing, therefore disrupting airflow and causing the situation described by Time's reporter?

(3.) If there had been a tear or a break in the surface, at Mach 18, wouldn't this have been a cause of a midair breakup? (To take Hazelip's scenario, with lost tiles.)

I'm not a pilot or an engineer, but I am interested in hearing more from those who are.
 
There are reports from NBC News that a large chunk of ice may have dislodged from the external fuel tank and struck the shuttle itself. The possible line of investigation here is that they believe it may have knocked loose several tiles from the heat shielding.

At present, this is just a preliminary investigation. However, it's one possibility. According to NBC, this is one area that engineers are examining. Richard Houck, from NASA, is saying it's unlikely ice did that sort of damage.

Alan Bean (Apollo 12) is saying we need to simply get back to work, build another shuttle, and get back to work.
 
I see emotions are running high on the JREF board, maybe even more than usual. Usually this happens more on the R&P board more than the Science board but stranger things have happened...

I think it's appropriate to have a thread in Science on the disaster, and thank Roadtoad for starting one.

Having said that, I think it's most possible that we will never know for sure what happened. Maybe, there will be a few good dueling theories but we may never know. I am interested in hearing the various theories debated here although I am not qualified to participate.
 
Thanks, Denise. I'm more concerned with another point, which I've mentioned on the thread on P&CE: I'm concerned that this will become another time for the Luddites to decry the notion of people actually going into space.

How can we conduct science (and I realize, I'm not the most scientific of individuals here) if we don't actually go into space? We have an obligation to go, if for no other reason than simply because it is there, and we've demonstrated we can get there. The effects of space on the human body, the potential in medicine, manufacturing, and the like, is incredible.

Alan Bean said that we ought to be putting guys like Bill Gates and Richard Branson into space, and let them get a feel for it; see what they could do with space flight and get business involved. If this advances the cause of scientific exploration of space, I'm all for it.
 
Hazelip said:
My theory:

The insulation that struck the wing removed protective tiles. The wing was burned off, causing the lift from the other wing to spin the shuttle in a corkscrew fashion. This exposed the unprotected sections of the hull to atmospheric friction. Rocket fuel tanks possibly mixed igniting in chemical combustion as they are designed to do, thusly lighting the whole thing into a mach 16 fireball.
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Sounds like you may be onto something. From the AP:

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Investigators trying to figure out what destroyed space shuttle Columbia immediately focused on the left wing and the possibility that its thermal tiles were damaged far more seriously than NASA realized by a piece of debris during liftoff.

Just a little over a minute into Columbia's launch Jan. 16, a chunk of insulating foam peeled away from the external fuel tank and smacked into the ship's left wing.

On Saturday, that same wing started exhibiting sensor failures and other problems 23 minutes before Columbia was scheduled to touch down. With just 16 minutes remaining before landing, the shuttle disintegrated over Texas.

Just the day before, on Friday, NASA's lead flight director, Leroy Cain, had declared the launch-day incident to be absolutely no safety threat. And an extensive engineering analysis had concluded that any damage to Columbia's thermal tiles would be minor.

"As we look at that now in hindsight, we can't discount that there might be a connection," shuttle manager Ron Dittemore said on Saturday, hours after the tragedy. "But we have to caution that we can't rush to judgment, because a lot of things in this business that look like the smoking gun but turn out not to be close."

The shuttle's more than 20,000 thermal tiles protect it from the extreme heat of re-entry into the atmosphere.

He said that the disaster could have also been caused by a structural failure of some sort.

As for other possibilities, however, NASA said that until the problems with the wing were noticed, everything else appeared to be working fine.

Dittemore said there was nothing that the astronauts could have done in orbit to fix damaged thermal tiles and nothing that flight controllers could have done to safely bring home a severely scarred shuttle, given the extreme temperatures of re-entry.

The shuttle broke apart while being exposed to the peak temperature of 3,000 degrees on the leading edge of the wings, while traveling at 12,500 mph, or 18 times the speed of sound.

Dittemore said that even if the astronauts had gone out on an emergency spacewalk, there was no way a spacewalker could have safely checked under the wings, which bear the brunt of heat re-entry and have reinforced protection.

Even if they did find damage, there was nothing the crew could have done to fix it, he said.

"There's nothing that we can do about tile damage once we get to orbit," Dittemore said. "We can't minimize the heating to the point that it would somehow not require a tile. So once you get to orbit, you're there and you have your tile insulation and that's all you have for protection on the way home from the extreme thermal heating during re-entry."

The shuttle was not equipped with its 50-foot robot arm because it was not needed during this laboratory research mission, and so the astronauts did not have the option of using the arm's cameras to get a look at the damage.

NASA did not request help in trying to observe the damaged area with ground telescopes or satellites, in part because it did not believe the pictures would be useful, Dittemore.

Long-distance pictures did not help flight controllers when they wanted to see the tail of space shuttle Discovery during John Glenn's flight in 1998; the door for the drag-chute compartment had fallen off seconds after liftoff.

It was the second time in just four months that a piece of fuel-tank foam came off during a shuttle liftoff. In October, Atlantis lost a piece of foam that ended up striking the aft skirt of one of its solid-fuel booster rockets. At the time, the damage was thought to be superficial.

Dittemore said this second occurrence "is certainly a signal to our team that something has changed."


My question would be "Why couldn't the astronauts have made repairs, and can some sort of fix be created now that we know a little more about this sort of thing?" Perhaps some form of epoxy could have been created for use in space, and appropriate replacement tiles set up for a fast fix in space. Or, if nothing else, perhaps they could have rendevouzed with the space station, and another shuttle sent up with the means of repair, and to bring other astronauts home. Any thoughts?
 
Roadtoad said:
My question would be "Why couldn't the astronauts have made repairs, and can some sort of fix be created now that we know a little more about this sort of thing?" Perhaps some form of epoxy could have been created for use in space, and appropriate replacement tiles set up for a fast fix in space. Or, if nothing else, perhaps they could have rendevouzed with the space station, and another shuttle sent up with the means of repair, and to bring other astronauts home. Any thoughts?
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Well, I don't know about an epoxy that would work without oxygen, but I can tell you one thing. The underside of the shuttle has no hand-holds for a space walk. With no robot arm attached for this mission, I'm unsure how any such epoxy would have even been applied.

Basically, NASA needs one more contingency plan. Measure twice, cut once as it were...

I also want to apologize for how hard I came down on you. I'm not a religious person and I may have misinterpreted your initial post as sarcasm. That was my mistake, not yours. I'm sorry for any possible confusion on my part.
 
Hazelip said:


Well, I don't know about an epoxy that would work without oxygen, but I can tell you one thing. The underside of the shuttle has no hand-holds for a space walk. With no robot arm attached for this mission, I'm unsure how any such epoxy would have even been applied.

Basically, NASA needs one more contingency plan. Measure twice, cut once as it were...

I also want to apologize for how hard I came down on you. I'm not a religious person and I may have misinterpreted your initial post as sarcasm. That was my mistake, not yours. I'm sorry for any possible confusion on my part.
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Gratefully accepted.
 
What can be achieved by manned space missions that cannot be achieved by unmanned missions and at greatly reduced cost?

As for business as usual, the families of the astronauts may not quite see it this way right at the moment.
 
BillyJoe said:
What can be achieved by manned space missions that cannot be achieved by unmanned missions and at greatly reduced cost?
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The knowledge and skills to take humans beyond our solar system in the future?
 
The Moon missions wouldn't have meant squat to us if they had all been unmanned. We would have finished the space program with nothing more than a whole trunkful of robot-snapped photos of Moon landscapes and "The-Earth-Seen-from-Space", which would have had about the same emotional value as the trunkful of gift shop postcards that you bring back from your once-in-a-lifetime vacation to Antarctica.

But it's that one photo you took yourself, that brings it all back. You were there. You were really, really--there.






























A008.jpg
 
At this time, all I can say is summed up on another memorial.
"Ad Astra Per Aspera"
(A rough road leads to the stars)
 
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