It is not hard to envision the complex waiting procedure shown below with the knowledge that we posses today. Things would have been far different for the decision makers at the time since no one actually believed that the mission would degrade as it did. Actually, we could move the decision point further back in time all the way to the basic design decisions that were made at the beginning of the project. Now, not like then, most engineers would realize that falling foam damage might cause failure to the craft and it will never show up again in future designs. This is the nature of unknowns and they always exist.
Can you imagine the uproar that would have occurred had a group of engineers come forward and told their managers about their concern at the time? Remember the famous O-ring meetings? I suspect that operating upon issues that 'might' happen is routinely suppressed. It is difficult to imagine any scenario involving a complex craft such as the shuttle that is 100% safe under any and all conditions which might arise. We can certainly argue that the loss of tiles in a critical area falls under the category of major concern, but plenty of other faults could end a mission as well. Unfortunately danger is always a part of life. It is not possible to go back in time(at least not yet) to follow an alternate path which averts destruction. How could we be sure that the other possible plans do not have serious misconceptions lurking within them? I am afraid that we are bound by the decisions made by those in authority. There will always be errors in judgement and designs will need to be modified to compensate. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Sun, May 27, 2012 1:54 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Critique of Space Shuttle written in 1980 Here is another interesting article in Slate's series, on the Columbia disaster: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2003/11/langewiesche.htm This is about the dysfunctional corporate culture in NASA. When Columbia was in orbit, some people thought it might be damaged by the falling insulation. Some said that even if it was damaged, nothing could be done about it. Here is something I did not know: [NASA administrator] Linda Ham was wrong. Had the hole in the leading edge been seen, actions could have been taken to try to save the astronauts' lives. The first would have been simply to buy some time. Assuming a starting point on the fifth day of the flight, NASA engineers subsequently calculated that by requiring the crew to rest and sleep, the mission could have been extended to a full month, to February 15. During that time the Atlantis, which was already being prepared for a scheduled March 1 launch, could have been processed more quickly by ground crews working around the clock, and made ready to go by February 10. If all had proceeded perfectly, there would have been a five-day window in which to blast off, join up with the Columbia, and transfer the stranded astronauts one by one to safety, by means of tethered spacewalks. Such a rescue would not have been easy, and it would have involved the possibility of another fatal foam strike and the loss of two shuttles instead of one; but in the risk-versus-risk world of space flight, veterans like Mike Bloomfield would immediately have volunteered, and NASA would have bet the farm. The fallback would have been a desperate measure—a jury-rigged repair performed by the Columbia astronauts themselves. It would have required two spacewalkers to fill the hole with a combination of heavy tools and metal scraps scavenged from the crew compartment, and to supplement that mass with an ice bag shaped to the wing's leading edge. In theory, if much of the payload had been jettisoned, and luck was with the crew, such a repair might perhaps have endured a modified re-entry and allowed the astronauts to bail out at the standard 30,000 feet. The engineers who came up with this plan realized that in reality it would have been extremely dangerous, and might well have led to a high-speed burn-through and the loss of the crew. But anything would have been better than attempting a normal re-entry as it was actually flown. - Jed
