NASA shies away from foam as crash culprit From space.com:
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Yeah. Something’s a little strange here. In the LA Times this morning the possibility of a meteor strike was even raised.
I dunno…
Lots of good comments. However, if NASA had diagnosed the problem early enough in the liftoff then they could have aborted the mission before the craft entered space. I think such an early detection and abort process would have probably prevented both Shuttle disasters. I think on one of the previous flights there was a camera mounted on the nosecone of the Shuttle and the image was broadcast over the internet.
First off, Challenger gave no warning at all (At least, from a flight-controll perspective, as they didn’t know about the company engineer’s complaints). Once they knew there was a problem, it was a little late to do anything about it…
As for Columbia, once those SRBs are lit, that’s it. You can’t shut them down, so the Shuttle orbiter would have to jetison while they’re still burning (Assuming that’s possible?), and let them and the fuel tank go ballistic… A move that is probably very high-risk, and puts the shuttle into a state that it would be impossible to land it from. They’d have to bail, assuming they got the craft under controll before hitting the sea. And if you wait for the SRBs to burn out for a safer separation, then you have to deal with most of the reentry problems, and again, would probably be significantly out of possition to make an emergency landing… Again, bail-out.
How soon did NASA/flight-controll know that something had hit the wing? Did they know right away, or more likely, did someone see it, and they found out sometime after it had gone out of the atmosphere?
Phoenix, IIRC, it is possible for the shuttle to make an emergency seperation on lift-off. The course of the shuttle is over the ocean, so, if I’m remembering things right, they’d seperate the shuttle from the tank and the SRBs, the shuttle would attempt to land at Kennedy (though they could ditch in the ocean), and the tank and the SRBs would be blown up once the shuttle was clear of the blast range.
Phoenix, May I also add that we saw the O-ring ignite and began to burn. Does NASA only look at the psedo-realtime telemetry data and never mind the realtime video. If cameras were appropriately mounted maybe the damage from the falling foam could have been accessed better. Others have noted that the problem may not have been this, however a camera properly mounted would have recorded both Shuttle disasters and may have provided enough time for an abort.
Okay, wasn’t sure if it was possible. But it still doesn’t seem like a safe manuver, and would definatly leave them poorly set-up for a landing, I would think…
I hadn’t noticed before, but it seems your right. However, it seems the small differences between that and a normal flight were easy to miss, and not particularly distinctive… The first was some small puffs of black smoke in the first 2.5 seconds, recorded by the launch-pad cameras. The next was at around 60 seconds, when enhanced images (Not the normal-quality ones they could see) showed a tiny flame, and telemetry started to indicate a pressure difference. Even if they had cameras mounted that showed them this, 12 seconds doesn’t seem like enough time for them to recognize a problem, tell the Challenger crew to seperate, get the shuttle seperated, and to seperate far enough to prevent the craft’s destruction. I couldn’t see any indication in the video of a problem (At least, not that I can remember)
Though despite that, having the cameras added might be a good idea, if they can get them on securely enough to survive take-off, and if they don’t compromise performance.
Which brings up another interesting point. After liftoff, and during reentry for that matter, what could happen that would allow sufficient time for the crew to abort either process. Which may be what Mr. Dittemore was eluding to. If there is nothing you can do then there is nothing you can do.
Much safer than the alternative…
National Airborn Operational Command (NAOC). Series of four 747’s, where two are always on flight ready standby, one is in reserve, and the fourth is in maintenence. Where the planes are station also always changes.
(Mother’s group has done some work for/on the plane.)
Liftoff:
During liftoff of the Shuttle, an abort can occur after the SRB’s have done there job. A jettison of the External Tank could done using explosive bolts. That in itself isn’t difficult; in fact its done all the time. The real danger is reorienting the Shuttle to return back to KSC runway or landing on the other side of the Atlantic. Of the two, the KSC is more dangerous because the Shuttle needs to flip over to orient itself for a return.
Landing:
Once the Shuttle slows down an begins re-entry, that’s it. Maybe the OMS can kick on and get back to orbit, but you have a limited amount of fuel which limits the number of times this occurs. Once your below 70 miles, the amount of drag starts becoming significant and hence more fuel is going to be required to get back up (which actually translated to moving slower as you get higher).
Well, liftoff was described above. Seperate from the tank/SRBs, and either ditch the shuttle (Bail out), which is, by my understanding, not an easy move, or try for a landing, if you are in possition to line up for it.
For reentry, you can’t abort. Not enough fuel to return to a stable orbit. Once you’re in, you’re in, and you have to ride it out. That’s why reentry is probably the most dangerous part of space flight.
It’s questionable wether they’d be able to orient and go for a landing. The Shuttle glides like a brick, and chances are, the crew would have to bail… Which from what I understand of the bail-out procedure, is not easy to do in an emergency. An abort on launch would have a good chance of loosing the Shuttle, and would be risky for the crew. I think safety would decrease if you abort any time there might conceivably be a problem (Remember, there have been plenty of cases before when some foam broke off and hit the shuttle, which is what everyone is claiming should have keyed off an abort here… Even though it seems highly unlikely now that it was the cause of the disaster).
NASA does have a runway available in Spain for shuttle landings, if they ever need it.
My apologies. For some reason I thought you were talking about Challenger. In that case an abort attempt would have been safer, but I’m not sure how quickly that decision could have been made.
Wouldn’t it be possible, with today’s technology, to build some sort of self-contained, remote-controlled camera ship that they could deploy to fly around the outside of the shuttle before landing? I recall seeing a demonstration some years ago of a prototype for the “Brilliant Pebbles” SDI project, a little remote-controlled manuevering vehicle not much bigger than a shoebox. You could put a camera on the front and control it from the ground, to fly around the shuttle and get good shots of critical spots like the leading edges of the wings. It probably wouldn’t be cost effective to recapture the thing, either - just send it flying away from the shuttle to burn up on re-entry and build a new one for the next flight. The whole system shouldn’t take more than a hundred or so pounds at most with today’s technology.
Of course, if they found damage that would render the shuttle unlandable, there’s nothing they could really do about it anyway. Which may be the main reason susch a system was never built.
Actually, I was referring to aborts in general. It’s questionable wether an abort command could have been given to the Challenger, and have the orbiter seperate far enough, to survive. An abort for Columbia would have saved STS-107, but it’s still quite possible that Columbia’s next flight would be ended by whatever destroyed it this time, since NASA’s review stated that the foam was very unlikely to have anything to do with the crash.
I used the foam-hitting-shuttle example mainly because it’s a case where similar visible events as STS-107’s launch have happened, many times, and not resulted in any problems.
I do like Andrew’s suggestion. Such a vehicle would probably be very, very cheap and light (100 pounds might even be a bit of an over-estimation there). But he’s also right that they couldn’t really do anything about it if they found a fatal problem. They could possibly scramble an emergency shuttle mission, if they have one ready to launch.
However! I hear that one of the new things proposed for NASA is a backup rocket to support the Shuttle missions. It would be an emergency vehicle, to be sent up in case of a problem where the Shuttle crew needs a different way to return to earth (Ironicly, the proposal I saw came in only days before Columbia’s destruction…). If they ever get a system like that up, that’s definatly more incentive to give a quick once-over check of the Shuttle upon arriving in orbit.
I think that’s a great idea, if we are going to keep using Shuttles…
Do you have any more info on this?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2004/nasa.html
Not a whole lot of info, more planning-to-plan, really, but it seems like a good idea.
Looks like they are already working on the R2 units. It’s about time.
DaLovin’ Dj
Is it all right if I nitpick a bit?
First, getting out and taking a look-see at, let alone repairing, the tiles is like checking your tire pressure while driving down the highway. You’re just not going to be able to do it easily.
Second, the Challenger’s crew was probably alive until they smashed into the ocean. The Master speaks
Folks, this is outer space we’re talking about. It may be close, but going there is not easy-- and it’s not forgiving. Picture it like sailing away from a coastline 4 thousand years ago, and trying to deal with things going wrong. People will die, but we’ll learn from it. That’s part of the human experience.