From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Thu Feb 06 2003 - 21:09:21 MST
I hope this helps to satisfy some of the questions which have come up.
(the following paragraphs are from a friend in Houston and contain bits from
several emails)
The day after Columbia's launch, engineers reviewed videotapes of the
shuttle's ascent and spotted the foam breaking off. An engineering analysis
developed during the flight, based on similar incidents in the past,
suggested that the foam could have damaged tiles on the left wing. Mission
managers judged that such damage would not pose a serious risk.
NASA says Columbia didn't have the equipment to dock with the space station.
In addition, Columbia was flying in an orbit that was about 100 miles (160
kilometers) lower than the station, with a different orbital inclination (39
degrees vs. 51 degrees for the space station). The shuttle was not carrying
enough fuel to make what would have been a tortuous journey to the station.
Even for shuttle missions that are designed to include a space
station stopover, the orbital mechanics are so precise that the launch
window is limited to five minutes or less. For these reasons, it would have
been virtually impossible for the shuttle to get to the space station.
Even if it were possible, it would be difficult to construct a
scenario for an in-orbit repair operation or a rescue. If NASA knew there
was a problem, Columbia could have stayed in orbit for an extra few days -
perhaps long enough for the emergency launch of another shuttle, Atlantis.
In a series of spacewalks, Columbia's crew members could have been
transferred over to the other shuttle. The operation would have required
NASA to throw out its rule book, involving extraordinary risks.
It's questionable whether the crew or anyone on the ground could have gotten
a direct view of the tile damage. Since Columbia was not being used for
spacewalks for this mission, the robot arm was not aboard the shuttle this
time around. A camera mounted on the robot arm might have been beneficial
for doing an inspection; a spacewalk would have been far riskier and less
useful.
Two of the shuttle's astronauts, Michael Anderson and David Brown,
had been trained to do an emergency spacewalk if necessary - and their EVA
suits were aboard Columbia. But they had no equipment or safe procedure for
inspecting the tiles beneath the wing for damage.
In the past, NASA has used military satellite imagery to look for
damage to the shuttle's tiles, but shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore
said the images "were not very useful to us."
Even if tile damage had been detected, Dittemore said, "we couldn't
do anything about it." In the early years of the shuttle program, NASA had
looked into developing a tile-patching kit that was basically a caulking
gun. But the gunk undermined the performance of the tiles and never flew.
The piece of foam came off the tank about 80 seconds after launch. If NASA
mission managers had spotted the potential problem in real time and
determined that it posed an unacceptable risk, they would have had several
options for aborting Columbia's flight.
In the first two and a half minutes after launch, the shuttle would
have returned to a Kennedy Space Center landing strip or a backup strip
along North America's east coast. After that, the shuttle would have had
another two and a half minutes to head for a landing at emergency runways in
Spain, Morocco or Gambia. There are also emergency procedures for putting
the shuttle into a lower-than-normal orbit.
It's important to remember, however, that NASA did not regard the
foam break-off as a mission-ending emergency - even when it was spotted
after the fact.
The only alternative would have been to bring the orbiter in at a different
angle of decent. Since the optimum decent is the one normally chosen, (for
the amount of heat and preservation of the shuttle), changing the decent
pattern might have saved the shuttle crew, but likely would have caused
major structural damage to the orbiter rendering it useless for future
missions, though permitting it to land. A long shot, but it was his only
suggestion.
Obviously this would have been a choice of last resort, and might have
changed the tragic results. But this is assuming one knew that there was a
major flaw on the left side of the orbiter. But who knows what is what at
this point.
Temperature readings jumped 60 degrees on the left side as opposed to 15
degrees on the right side. It appears the orbiter was experiencing some sort
of drag on the left side and the computers on board were struggling to level
the shuttle just prior to the disaster. Apparently there is 32 seconds of
computer data that was received after voice contact was lost, but it will
have to be uncoded by hand as it is garbled data, but hopefully it will
provide some further insight into those final moments.
(end)
Quarterbacking after the game is always an attractive past time, with many
people saying they should have done this or they knew about that. It is
however a useless endeavor and we all know that the rest of the astronauts
will climb on board the next flight knowing the risks. Is that the
definition of a hero, one who knows the risk and takes it not out of glory
but because it is their job? If it is there are a lot more heroes out there
than we give credit to. We do give thanks to many more of them today than we
did a few short years ago. We celebrate the heroism of our firemen and
police after 9/11 than we did previous to that day. We hold out armed
servicemen in higher regard today than we did just a few short years ago. We
still don't pay any of them what they are worth, nor the teachers in our
schools.
The military astronauts loose their separate rations pay while on board,
they do however receive flight pay. Is it still an additional $50 a month?
Has anyone else caught any of the CNN bloopers on the shuttle disaster. My
favorite was when they announced the shuttle was traveling at 15 times the
speed of light. I don't know who it was that first said something like the
following. science is good. Journalism is good. Put them together and
nothing good comes of it.
Several of the people I have been exchanging emails with live in or near the
Johnson Space Center or Kennedy Space port many of them were friends or
worked with these fine folks and will miss them all.
Keep 'em Flying
I really mean it...
Rob Hommel
-- Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com > Alternate: < fortean1@msn.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Vietnam veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]
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