[Mods: I’m hoping to keep this discussion as factually based as possible.]
Throughout all the investigation and conjecture over the Columbia tragedy, I don’t remember anyone discuss this issue–certainly not NASA, whose objectivity might be seen as less than 100 percent in light of their official position that the Challenger astronauts did not survive the initial moments of that craft’s fatal plunge toward Earth. (Subsequent accounts determined that at least some of the Challenger astronauts survived the craft’s destruction and may have been alive when it collided with the ocean.)
What I do recall about Columbia is that the spaceshuttle was travelling at about 12,000 mph and at ~200,000 ft. in altitude. Telemetry and subsequent data recovery also determined that the crafted pitched and yawed wildly just before its breakup.
So, as best as we could surmise, would the crew have even known that their craft was truly doomed and, given the wind blast at 12,000 mph, would they have suffered for more than a second or two?
From my reading of that timeline, it looks like there were 2-3 minutes when the crew knew they were in deep doo-doo.
As soon as the shuttle did more than just minor course corrections, the guys up front would have know there was trouble. As soon as you get into major gyrations, everyone would know it.
Given the perils of re-entry, and everyone’s memories of Challenger, they probably knew they were going to die for at least a brief while. I don’t know about you, but being afraid for my life generates suffering in me. So I’d say, yes, there was certainly mental suffering.
Physical suffering? Aside from possible air sickness from wild mid-air movements and maybe some bruising, no. As soon as what was outside came inside the people were hit by a blast of superheated air several thousand degrees hot moving 18 times the speed of sound. That’s as close to instantaneous death as you’re likely to get.
“For the astronauts, the final sequence was mercifully brief, but no doubt terrifying.”
**Broomstick,[/] perhaps my interpretation is bleaker than yours, but my inference is that the crew may have lived more than 2-3 seconds, possibly as long as 10+ seconds. I need to re-read the passage, but investigators suggest the cabin was intact, for at least awhile.
"Investigators concluded the module fell intact for 38 seconds after main vehicle breakup, plunging 60,000 feet to an altitude of 26 miles before it began to disintegrate from the combined effects of aerodynamic stress and extreme temperatures. From the debris analysis, investigators believe the module was probably destroyed over a 24-second period beginning at 9:00:58 a.m. During that period, the module fell another 35,000 feet, to an altitude of 19 miles or so.
Investigators believe the module began breaking up at the beginning of that window. If any of the astronauts were still alive at that point, death would have been instantaneous, the result of blunt force trauma, including hypersonic wind blast, and lack of oxygen. About 45 percent of the crew module was recovered near Hemphill, Texas, including pieces of the forward and aft main bulkheads, the frames from the forward cockpit windows, the crew airlock, and all of the hatches. About three-quarters of the flight deck instrument panels were found, along with 80 percent of the mid-deck floor panels and numerous parts from the crew’s seats and attached safety equipment. From an analysis of pressure suit components and helmets, investigators concluded three astronauts had not yet donned their gloves when breakup began and one was not wearing his or her helmet. In the end, however, having sealed pressure suits would have made no difference."
On second thought, maybe not. Superheated plasma traveling at hypersonic speed would probably instantly blast through the tumbling Columbia. That said, remember what NASA said about the Challenger…
I took my 2-3 minute estimate starting from 8:58 (approximately) when, according to the timeline given:
I think this is the point where at least some of the crew realized Something Was Wrong. Just how bad the crew was or wasn’t aware their situation was will always be unknown, but this seems to be evidence that something was noticed. By 9:01 the crew module was believed destroyed. That’s a 3 minute span, more or less. I assumed not everyone became aware of trouble at the same time, or died at the same time, hence my 2-3 minute range.
I don’t believe anyone aboard suffered longer than three minutes, but it would be wrong to say they never suffered at all.
Bail out? How on God’s green earth could this be even remotely possible? The ship was travelling at super-sonic speeds. Without a mechanism to slow the crew cabin, bailing out would be just as fatal as remaining inside.
How could you slow it? A parachute isn’t possible, due to the speed and heat. An engine capable of doing so would be enormously heavy, adding substantially to the cost of a shuttle mission. (IIRC, at one point they said that carrying extra insulating tiles would be too much extra weight.)
I’m utterly ignorant of the physics of a situation like this, but just from my layman’s point of view, it doesn’t seem possible. Please elucidate if I’m incorrect.
I doubt the CAIB was talking about bailiing out in the middle of the high speed part of reentry. They were merely suggesting that bailout would be more possible over a larger range of situations than had originally been considered in the design of the Shuttle, and so therefore some bailout provisions might be useful, not merely added weight and window dressing.
For example, during the Challenger mishap there were apparently at least a couple of minutes where the combo of speed, altitude, G-forces, etc. would have made bailout at least conceivable. The original Shuttle design had apparently assumed the cabin would shred pretty immediately with the rest of the airframe, precluding surviving long enough to initiate a bail out.
Good grief! I just noticed you said 2-3 MINUTES. I thought you were saying 2-3 seconds.
I think you’re right but, given the investigation’s findings, it seems almost impossible the entire crew wouldn’t know something was amiss–something terribly serious. I don’t know if the Space Shuttle has similar warning systems to airliners, but don’t the latter have audible alarms for certain ensuing/impending catastrophic events.
Wouldn’t it also seem probable to assume that, once Columbia departed its critical re-entry profile–at Mach 17, no less–the craft would almost instantaneously lose control, perhaps tumbling or spinning wildly?
Given how seconds can seem like minutes during catastrophic moments–and the Columbia crew’s knowledge of Challenger–I can imagine the last 30 seconds of your estimated 2-3 minute time frame being filled with helpless terror.
You wouldn’t bail out in the sense of opening a hatch and jumping out - it would be a jettisonable crew compartment with a parachute. The old B-58 bomber had one, and I believe the F-111 did too.
It was my understanding that shuttle crews don’t wear helmets during reentry. But the news article above says this:
So apparently nearly all of the crew had time to don helmets.
From reading that and earlier articles, I thought the wing broke off first, and the entire shuttle started spinning. Hard to ignore.
PS
For what it’s worth, I had a quite horiffic dream about a group of tourists being incinerated in flowing lava one by one. In great detail. Each broke through a cold black crust and died within seconds, but with many seconds between. It was bad enough to wake me up, but not bad enough that I told anyone about it. And I never have nightmares (well, not that I remember, including over a couple years of keeping a dream-journal.) So what? 23 hours after the nightmare, the Columbia broke up. Aaaaaaaaaaarg!
Indeed, but deploying parachutes at 12,500 mph and at 200,000 feet?
There’s almost nothing up that altitude to fill a chute and, at hypersonic speeds, the hypothesized emergency chute assembly would be trailing plasma behind it. Also, an escape vehicle would have to be similarly shielded as Columbia and achieve an almost instantaneous proper reentry slope to avoid disintegration. At that speed, there’s no margin for error, it would seem.
No, I was objecting to the idea that the crew never knew what hit them.
If the crew had time to don their suit helmets and gloves, they weren’t obvlivious. The noise of the wing collapsing would probably be hard to miss.
From the comments in that article about the crew compartment, maybe they meant that a stronger structure and some secondary heat shielding could keep it intact for quite a while if the ship breaks up.
And I didn’t even yell at you for it, did I? I knew you’d mis-read that, which is why I re-explained it.
Airplanes have alarms for things that AREN’T dire emergencies, too, which occassionally requires me to calm down a freaked out passenger and fly the airplane at the same time.
It’s a WAG, but I’m going to assume that there are some beeps and buzzers that sound during a normal landing of the shuttle. Where a shuttle “passenger” would have an advantage over the typical airplane passenger is that a shuttle rider would, presumably, have spent some time in a simulator and be thoroughly briefed on normal operations.
I’m guessing that with the initial alarm regarding tire pressure problems it’s only going to cause concern with the guy(s) doing the actual “flying” (which is mostly monitoring the machine at that point), and they’re thinking “How are we going to land with a bad wheel?” not “Oh crap, we’re toast”. However, as more and more warnings appear concern would rise. Panic? Probably not - someone kept busy in an emergency usually doesn’t panic. I think that’s one of the reasons pilots are taught to keep trying things in an emergency.
It’s been awhile since I studied the layout of the shuttle, but if I recall at least some of the people on board sit out of sight of the cockpit. They wouldn’t know anything was wrong until the ship started to tumble - which it would as soon as significant portions of the wing were lost or warped out of aerodynamic shape. At which point there’s no hiding the fact Something Bad Is Happening. That’s when panic would set it in - if it did at all. It’s also quite possible to go emotionally numb in such circumstances.
But yeah, time does seem to slow down in such dire emergencies. Even a minute of knowing you are going to die can be a horribly long interval.
Then this question: Once the shuttle started tumbling/spinning/whatever, wouldn’t the tremendous atmospheric forces/heat/blast have destroyed the crew cabin instantaneously, meaning no suffering? Can’t we logically assume that?
But why would the chute have to be deployed immediately for an escape device like this to work?
Presumably, you could design a module that would separate from the rest of the shuttle, maybe even using small rockets to push itself away from the main body of debris. Then that module could free-fall, losing speed and altitude all the time, until it was low enough and slow enough to deploy a large chute.
I’m no aeronautical engineer or anything, but that at least seems plausible.
12,000 miles an hour and untold thousand of degrees? I think when things went bad it pretty much went “poof” when the ship started tumbling.
I think they detected a heat problem in the wing, about 5 seconds later the wing failed, the shuttle tumbled at incredible speed, and the multiple hundreds of g forces mercifully and quickly ended their lives in a millisecond or so.
I’m no scientist or expert, just putting out my theory. I hope and pray that it was over for them in an instant.
And I didn’t even yell at you for it, did I? I knew you’d mis-read that, which is why I re-explained it.