Another Shuttle Disaster?

[Botch.]

:cry: :cry: :cry:

[Rim]

My prayers go out to the astronauts and their families. It is a tragic loss. I'm getting tired of the "Special Report" screen on TV - it's been nothing but bad news recently. Saw it for 9/11, DC sniper shooting and now this. I actually thought it was about the US being officialy at war. Why can't the "Special Report" be something positive like finding the cure for cancer or AIDS and then have continuing coverage about how great a discovery it is and how many people it will help? Wishfull thinking I guess... george castanza, I agree with you how some folks just do not have respect or just don't realize the magnitude and seriousness of something like this. Unfortunately, even for 9/11, there were plenty of crank e-mails I received that was making the rounds on the Internet. It is very sad that there are people like that out there.

[ECBRules]

[url=http://www.eastcoastbands.com/mp3/Self_Inflicted-Excuse_Me-The_Atmosphere.MP3]Self Inflicted - the Atmosphere[/url] It's all about the brave ones who dare to go places where people were never intended to go. [url=http://www.nasa.gov]Nasa Website[/url] :cry: :cry:

[D_dup3]

[quote]Originally posted by sign: [b]...I understand there has been something wrong with the angle of coming into the atmosphere.[/b][/quote]Interestingly (or so it seems---it may not in fact be significant), the break up seems to have occurred as they began switching some of the flight controls over to pilot control from the computer system.

[jeeper]

This one hit close to home for me. I'm in edge of the debris field path. The local weather radar was showing it several hours afterwards. Much of the heavy debris feel west of me here and what the radar showed was the light stuff that took some time to float down. I do not know what could have been done about it but there's talk about something impacting the orbitor at lift off. There were no EVAs nor cameras to see the underside of the orbitor after launch so any heat tile damage was not seen. Face it, it's time NASA retired these birds that have served well. Either replace them or discontinue maned launches with them. There recently was talk of line problems that had to be repaired. I'm sure that after all the physical and thermal stresses placed on those birds they can not be in great shape anymore. Who knows what hidden damages they may have like structural fatigue.

[Rim]

When Buzz Aldrin was being interviewed over the phone on TV, he mentioned his company had been developing an escape pod for the shuttle which can be used throughout its flight (take off, landing, while in space) to jettison the astronauts into safety for rescue. But he did say, it would be very expensive to retrofit his design into exisiting shuttles but more feasible to include it in an updated model. If it's scientifically feasible, it's a good idea.

[D_dup3]

They've said they have a system for this (though not as a pod-unit, IIRC) but at speeds of 10,000 mph+ it's a bit hard on the crew! It also, apparently, only functioned when the craft was in "controlled, level flight". :rolleyes:

[Dave Pierce]

Damn. I guess I've been in "news isolation" this morning. The first of heard of this was seeing this thread. Terrible. My prayers go out to the families of these guys. A doubly sad day for me -- in an hour and a half I'll be attending a memorial service for a good friend. :( --Dave

[Cowbell]

Well, my parent friend lives in Plano TX, down the road from me, and his neighborhood is in lockdown. Can't go anywhere until the right people show up. The issue about prank calling irritates me too. Just wondering,but do they get these numbers in the phonebook? Sorry if it seems like a stupid question. Another thing that irritates me is how all the newscasters clutter their desks with papers and telephones,making it seem like they've been working all hard when only the other people have,not them.

[Midimonk]

This is truly a sad day indeed :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: My prayers go out to the Familiy and friends of our fallen.

[Wrave]

I was listening to NPR this AM when they broke in with the initial report. This is sad news. But it has been about 18 years since the last shuttle disaster. I guess that's why the title of this thread bothered me. "Another Shuttle DIsaster?" makes it sound like we have them often and that our astronauts are martyrs to some sort of cause. It's just not so. There is no human endeavor that is more risky than the exploration of space. Space is not a hostile environment, it is a deadly environment. Every successful mission ought to be celebrated as a triumph. Every astronaught is tuely a hero. But we grow blase about space flight and the only time our interest is renewed is when there is a disaster. It's a sign of the times. Why else would Fox News be tittilating us with hints that this might be terrorist related? I am one who believes that we as a race can move off of this planet and make space ours. In fact, I believe we must! One of my favorite authors, Robert Heinlein said in one of his books, "The earth is just too small a basket for Life to keep all of her eggs in." I am afraid that our "Another Shuttle Disaster?" attitude will cause many to use this as an excuse to cut funding for further exploration. I sincerely hope not as we must continue to go where no man has gone before. It is a part of human nature to ask questions and discover. One of the qualities that makes mankind what we are. Yes, it's a disaster but I doubt that one of those astronauts would have given up their seat on this trip. They all know the risks but they are explorers and adventurers and sometimes the adventure is worth the risk. The astronauts and their survivors will be in my prayers. But I will also keep praying that we try again and again. We really must do this. It is our destiny.

[Dwarf]

[quote]Originally posted by wrave: [b]I was listening to NPR this AM when they broke in with the initial report. This is sad news. But it has been about 18 years since the last shuttle disaster. I guess that's why the title of this thread bothered me. "Another Shuttle DIsaster?" makes it sound like we have them often and that our astronauts are martyrs to some sort of cause. It's just not so. [/b][/quote]I entitled it as I did because we were just talking about the "other" shuttle disaster the other day. It was fresh in my mind. -- Rob

[Henchman]

Is it me, or is it jsut stuouid they didn't do any spacewalks to determine the damage. And why didn't they mention a piece flying off and hitting the shuttle untill now? I mean these things re-enter at somehting like 10 times the speed of osund. If you were driving down the street, and a piece of you're car fell of and hit impacted you're car. Wouldn't you stop to assess the damage? It sounds like the whole thing may have been ttreated a bit cavalier. If they had siscovered a serious problem during a spacewalk inspection, thjey could have probably docked with the space station. Repaired the shuttle. Or just dumped it, and get picked up by another shuttle. Or maybe that was considered too expensive.

[Gulliver]

Sad... terrible news. My deepest sympathy goes to families of the victims.

[michael saulnier]

Like everyone, my prayers go out to the lost crew, their families and friends. A loss like this will be another "I remember where I was the day... the Columbia disaster happened." Man, we've had too many of these lately. It will be interesting to see what's next for the shuttle program. We now have only three shuttles left and no plan or budget to build any more. We haven't got a substitute vehicle in the works, and I assume the future of the remaining three will in part be settled once we know what happened in this case. If it turns out that it was premature metal fatigue... ouch. We may be forced to ground the remaining shuttles. If it turns out to be damage from the take-off... or some other "one time" cause, it would ironically be "better" news, (if ANY news about a disaster could be viewed as better)... because it means that the other shuttles could be operational without major changes that could take years, if possible at all. The astronauts up in the space station can get home in the Russian ship that's docked there, but the Russians don't have a vehicle that's as suitable to continuing to bring up pieces to the space station. The pieces have all been designed to fit on a shuttle. No shuttles... No space station. Earth will become a space faring planet someday, imho. We crave knowledge, adventure and so on. There's too much "out there" to keep us "down here". Compared to the chances of the guys who originally sailed the oceans when that was the new frontier... our space explorers have much better prospects for a safe journey. The loss of life has been exceptionally low considering the nature of the challenges and the ramifications of even minor failure in critical systems. I know one thing. If I was selected to be a passenger on a future shuttle mission... I'd go in a heartbeat... and I'm sure the actual NASA and international astronaut folks feel the same way. guitplayer

[KenElevenShadows]

:cry:

[Salyphus]

As awful as this is, I still envy the astronauts that get to go on such an amazing voyage. If I had the chance I'd go in a heartbeat, with full knowledge of the risks. There are far more mundane ways to die, alas. I really hope this accident was unavoidable and not caused by negligence.

[Botch.]

Sorry, double post.

[Botch.]

[quote]Originally posted by Henchman: [b]Is it me, or is it jsut stuouid they didn't do any spacewalks to determine the damage. And why didn't they mention a piece flying off and hitting the shuttle untill now? I mean these things re-enter at somehting like 10 times the speed of osund. If you were driving down the street, and a piece of you're car fell of and hit impacted you're car. Wouldn't you stop to assess the damage? It sounds like the whole thing may have been ttreated a bit cavalier. If they had siscovered a serious problem during a spacewalk inspection, thjey could have probably docked with the space station. Repaired the shuttle. Or just dumped it, and get picked up by another shuttle. Or maybe that was considered too expensive.[/b][/quote]Henchman, since this was a scientific, stand-alone flight the Columbia astronauts probably did not even have spacewalk suits along with them, it would have been too much excess weight. As far as the chunk falling off during takeoff, did they discover that after takeoff or today, during subsequent film analysis? The thin but obvious whisp of smoke we saw from Challenger's boosters wasn't found until two days after the disaster; the film footage showing the separating insulation today is much less clear, I've seen it three times now and still can't see the debris. We'll know in a day or two. The shuttle has little fuel once it reaches orbit, it most certainly did not have enough fuel to reach the space station, and that's even assuming it was in a close enough orbit to reach it at all (it probably wasn't). Having worked with NASA as a safety engineer for two years, I can assure you that they no longer take "a bit cavalier" attitude about anything except Budgets. One thing that strikes me about the disasters that have befallen our space program from the beginning is that every single fatality has occurred right there in front of us, filmed and ready to be replayed [i]ad infinitum[/i] . You wouldn't expect that from "space" flight... :cry:

[Mark Zeger]

Please say it isn't so: there are fragments already on eBay. I can't go there to look. Too depressing.

[Jazzman]

Henchman stated the same thing I was thinking....aand even a reporter asked the same question. I say take a space walk. They commented that the shuttle bay arm was not on the mission, and they were not trained to go around external to the ship. Just trained to go in the cargo bay area. That made me sick to hear that. I think they will need to re-think this out from now on. Airplanes on the ground are always looked over by the pilot before each flight. They need to do the same thing in space to make sure the shuttle is looked over for any specific anomolies. I think they should have stated to the crew what had happened, the crew should have been trained so at least one person can look the shuttle over. Don't know if that would make any sense. The space station can have cameras on it too. The folks on the shuttle could have looked over the shuttle. Didn't these people make space walks to put the station together? Well I just can't see why it is a matter of fact from the NASA ground team that they assesed that the chunk of insulation the size of a hatch was deemed not to be a problem. Especially if they even admit that they could not see what it hit!They may have been right, but you would think they would start having a space-walker on board trained to kick the tires and review all of the external components, probes, shields and some mechanics that they will not be able to see on re-entry flight back. Hid site is always 20/20 but they need to buy a digital for the shuttle that is space worthey that can download the damage or concerns back to the engineers on Earth. Just a beef after what I heard on TV. Jazzman :cool:

[audiofreek]

Even though,as President Bush stated,"These astronauts knew the risks." It is very sad to see the bravest and the brightest parish in a sudden flash os light. NASA,having only two disasters in 113 missions,seems to serve to remind every generation how dangerous these missions really are,and how brilliant the NASA engineers and scientists,as well as how brave these astronauts are. It looks as though Columbia lost a tile on the launch,and that caused the burn-up in re-entry. Perhaps in the future inspections,and repairs on the shuttles' hull may be able to take place while it is still in orbit,preventing trageties like this one in the future. My heart goes out to the Astronauts families,friends and co-workers.

[Salyphus]

Anyone else remember [b] [url=http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/nuclear_power_030117.html]this news[/url] [/b] from last week about '[b]Project Prometheus[/b]', the current administration's multi-billon dollar push for [b]nuclear powered space vehicles[/b]? I wonder what the situation would be like in Texas right now had we been using such a program? :eek:

[Philip OKeefe]

I got up late this morning (after an all night / early morning session last night) and the first thing I saw when logging on to MSN to check my email was the news of the Columbia... and the first thought I had was that they were talking about the anniversary of the Challenger disaster - we were just talking about that the other day right here on the forums, weren't we? :confused: Anyway, as soon as I realized my error, I just said "aaw SHIT!" I rarely cuss, but MAN! This just tears me up. :( My sincere condolances to the families and friends of those brave pioneers. Space is a dangerous place, but I agree with the President - we need to keep going back, and I'm proud to be a citizen of a country that is willing to continue to take the risks so that we can continue to explore, grow and learn.

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by george costanza: [b]One screen shows a huge, unchanging, graph; anyone know what that represents?[/b][/quote]It's an overlay of an orbit on a flat projected mercator map. Think about the game _Asteroids_; when you fly off the top right edge of the screen you appear again at the bottom left, etc... The result is a sinusoidal graph, moving if the orbit changes in incination/declination. The shuttle loses tiles everytime it goes up. It's an amazing bit of cold-war engineering, but a ridiculously complicated kludge as well. I think there's something like well over 10,000 *uniquely shaped* tiles on a shuttle, each get hand-glued and recorded in a log separately. They couldn't do an EVA. The shuttle isn't equipped to enable someone to go outside, underneath the shuttle. It wouldn't serve any point; even if tiles were seen missing, it's beyond the scope of repair in orbit. As I said, each one is a *uniquely* shaped piece, there's a special glue used to attach them, and it no doubt has to set up and cure for a certain amount of time. They would have to take up an entire shuttle's worth of tile. Why not try to "patch" it? I can speculate that if one did come up with an adhesive that would work in the vacuum of space at near absolute zero to boiling temperatures, you would still have the problem of aerodynamic stresses possibly causing the repair itself to do more damage by taking other pieces of tile with it as it inevitably fails. Each piece has a unique shape because it has to conform to the aerodynamic shape of the shuttle; a tile being mis-aligned by some small portion of a millimeter can cause enough stress for it to sheer off, much less a "generic" tile patch. I don't think we have any current technology that would "smooth over" a patch well enough that would withstand even the initial stage of re-entry, so that would be a moot point. When I was a kid I used to think hypothetically "if offered the chance, would I take a ride in the shuttle?". I would always think about those tiles, and the insane abuse they have to take: at maximum reentry speed the heat is greater than an acetylene torch applied over the entire craft, combined with the air pressure of 12,000 mph... "Hot knife through butter" doesn't even match that. Maybe "hot knife through air". It could have been just a *crack* in one single tile; imagine a blowtorch cutting through a wing while it flew across the Pacific. It lost hydraulic pressure in the left wing; then "tire pressure"; something was cutting through the wing, severed hydraulic lines, temperature built up - tire exploded. Telemetry stops, so one could imagine the tire taking out a section of the wing, or knocking tiles off. I don't want to think past there. I couldn't will myself on the shuttle, despite wanting to go into space and seeing what there is to see. That the men and women who bravely manage to detach themselves from contemplating that sort of thing - while being very smart people at the same time, perfectly able to be cognizant of the dangers - is a quality I don't have. That quality is neccessary for the survival of humanity in the long run, and it's a sad thing to see such a tragedy happen. AT THE SAME TIME though - I am glad there are people on the space station that have to come down. It means someone will have to go back up before June; which means there's a goal to be met, and that the program can't end. It's sad the world is left with old-school technology to rely on, but it would be sadder if we gave up space entirely. The crew that goes up in the next shuttle should get amply rewarded for having to go up after this....

[ernest828]

This may sound totally wrong but after all the shit we`ve seen in the last year and a half, seven people dying in a space shuttle really did not affect me as it used to. I know that sounds awful but I woke up this morning and put on CNN as I had the morning coffee and watched this "movie" play over and over until it became just another horrible reality. Living in NYC, I see airplanes totally differently now then pre 9-11. I suppose most of us do but I am reminded EVERYDAY that the WTC Towers are not there and that is so much more depressing and life shattering than 7 astonauts in a shuttle. I don`t want this to sound like I am considering this just "another day in the life" but on a scale of 1-10, todays events rate around a 2 in my book after 9-11 which was am 8. I will continue to hold these astronauts and especially their families in my thoughts but space exploration gets no priority in my book while millions of homeless and hungry souls travel this world everyday. Peace, Ernest

[D. Gauss]

i'm no expert, hell i can't even balance my checkbook, but.... if you read the ny times article last fall about NASA having to buy ancient, out of production computer parts for the shuttle on EBAY, you'd never step foot in the thing! oh and how come no one is mentioning the fact that there are still 3 people stranded in space on the international space station. THAT's GOTTA SUCK! -d. gauss

[Gato]

Too many people die everyday and nobody is sorry about that (war casualties, car accidents, etc). The fact they were a shuttle crew doesn't make any diference. RIP.

[Mark V]

I heard it on the radio this morning,with all the things going on in the world at the moment this tragedy seems a bit surreal and probably will too for the families of the astronauts ,just for a day or so.My heart goes out to them.

[BP3]

[quote]Originally posted by Sal ©: [b]Anyone else remember [b] [url=http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/nuclear_power_030117.html]this news[/url] [/b] from last week about '[b]Project Prometheus[/b]', the current administration's multi-billon dollar push for [b]nuclear powered space vehicles[/b]? I wonder what the situation would be like in Texas right now had we been using such a program? :eek: [/b][/quote]Sal, it's likely that any new shuttle would be a completely new design. While nuclear powered spacecraft are widely discussed in the context of interplanetary travel, a nuclear powered shuttle would have enough power to slow down before re-enrty greatly reducing the heat exchage. The reason the present shuttle goes through the high speed re-entry is because it needs to bleed off the energy it gathers during the ascent. This energy can only be shed by encountering the friction of the atmosphere's molecules and exchanging the energy contained in the velocity of the shuttle for the energy expelled by creating heat during re-enrty. The premise (in part) of a different power source is to allow more control and a less hazardous re-entry phase.