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Space Science

CAT Scans Suggest Cause of Columbia Disaster 30

Posted by timothy from the incomplete-knowledge dept.
Kathy Miles writes "The latest information from Columbia's flight data recorder, along with CAT scan results from RCC layers from shuttle Atlantis' leading wing edge, may give clues to what really happened to Columbia. The flight data recorder shows that there was likely structural damage before Columbia began re-entry. Investigators have been looking at the remaining shuttles and have done CAT scans on Atlantis' reinforced carbon-carbon layers, which show gaps that should not be there. If Columbia had similar gaps, it could have doomed the orbiter."
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CAT Scans Suggest Cause of Columbia Disaster More

CAT Scans Suggest Cause of Columbia Disaster

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  • Good Idea (Score:3, Funny)

    by the_other_one ( 178565 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @11:01PM (#5635549) Homepage

    On future shuttle missions they can just take a feline or two to do a wingwalk and scan for problems.

  • 20 seconds (Score:3, Informative)

    by geoswan ( 316494 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @11:19PM (#5635634) Journal
    Today's NY Times has an article [nytimes.com] about analyzing those recently found tapes. It says that there was something like 20 seconds from the loss of voice contact, and the shuttle's breakup.

  • I wished I could trust NASA... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @11:41PM (#5635776)
    But I strongly suspect that any cause of the shuttle loss will be phrased so that Ron Ditmore doesn't have to lose his job.

    He lost tons of credibility in the beginning when he stood up and said that it couldn't be the foam that caused the problem. Soon after, we learned that he refused the request of NASA engineers to have pictures taken of the craft while in orbit.

    • Re:I wished I could trust NASA... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @05:36AM (#5637008)
      He lost tons of credibility in the beginning when he stood up and said that it couldn't be the foam that caused the problem. Soon after, we learned that he refused the request of NASA engineers to have pictures taken of the craft while in orbit.

      First I will point out that Ron Dittamore is not the kind of person to cover up his mistakes. If only most of us Techs/Geeks had the honesty, engineering and management skills Ron has - maybe a lot of these dotcom's would still be around.

      Part of the normal procedure is to analyze videos of the launch. When those pieces of ice and/or foam were seen, Ron held a series of meetings with some of the top NASA Engineers while the shuttle was still orbiting. The team determined the pictures wouldn't provide the detail needed to determine if it was a serious problem. The team decided that, not just Ron. A good manager listens to his team members, not like some of the dot bombs I worked for.

      It isn't like the shuttle hasn't lost tiles before and landed safely, it has lots of redundancy. If in the very unlikely event military satelites had seen a serious gash, they couldn't have done anything about it when it was in space. And just what would they send up there to get them? It takes time to get something ready to go into space with enough room and docking capabilities to perform a rescue. The shuttle doesn't have months of provisions and fuel would not have allowed it to rendezvous with the space station.

      Right now, the insiders at NASA think they have found the cause and if it these gaps between layers of multilayered reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) are the cause, it is Congress and President Bush who deserve the credit for the accident. The budget for NASA has been flat for too long, the NASA people are working 60-70 hours a week at the same pay rate (works out to a big pay cut), and they have had to take short cuts like reducing thorough and rigorous testing such as mentioned in the article. The article said "One NASA engineer commented that the in-depth checks had not shown cracks, and that, coupled with NASA's shrinking budget, forced them to do the less involved between flight checks."

      • Not only is NASA being asked to do so much for so litle, but they are being held as a pawn's tool. W. came in and quickly killed X-33 just as it was about to make some inroads. Tests on the engines showed that they were awesome. The shell was finished. The only thing cuasing problems were the composite fuel tanks. The idea was to use stanless steel until the composites could be done up better.
        This was the replacement for the shuttle, but W. was far more intrested in politics than in advancing science.
      • If in the very unlikely event military satelites had seen a serious gash, they couldn't have done anything about it when it was in space.

        That is not true from what I read. Some things that could have been done:

        * Reduce the weight of the shuttle by tossing non-critical systems. This would decrease friction.

        * Rotate shuttle to put damanged portion in shadow just before reentry. This would reduce tempurature a bit.

        * I have read that there were ways to reduce the peak reentry friction by spreading it out
        • If in the very unlikely event military satelites had seen a serious gash, they couldn't have done anything about it when it was in space.

          That is not true from what I read. Some things that could have been done:

          * Reduce the weight of the shuttle by tossing non-critical systems. This would decrease friction.

          * Rotate shuttle to put damanged portion in shadow just before re-entry. This would reduce tempurature a bit.

          * I have read that there were ways to reduce the peak reentry friction by spreading it ou

          • but it isn't likely they could reduced the mass more than a percentage or two.....but if the suspected cause is correct (and I think it is), it would not have made enough of a difference either.

            If people's lives are on the line, then every few percentage points may just be worth it. At least they could have brought those options into open discussion if they knew of actual damage.

            Worse is all that debris doesn't just fall to earth over night, it creates hazards of future space flights.

            They perhaps

          • Re-entry is already optimized to minimize heat and structural stresses.

            IANA Rocket Scientist, but, the Columbia descent program put it through a several "S" turns. Wouldn't doing so have put favoured first one wing, then the other?

            May I suggest that abandoning this profile, abandoning the idea that Columbia must land at Cape Kennedy, replacing it with a profile that continually favoured the left wing, may have made survival slightly more likely.

            Even if Columbia's hidden damage was so profound this cha

          • Tossing stuff sounds like you have been watching too many old movies. Maybe they could have ditched hundreds of pounds, but it isn't likely they could reduced the mass more than a percentage or two. It would not have been a significant enough reduction in friction or heat to make any difference. Worse is all that debris doesn't just fall to earth over night, it creates hazards of future space flights.

            Wasn't Columbia carrying a big Science Module in the Cargo Bay, something of a size similar to Hubble?

            • I wanted to respond to several comments, not all by this person but I thought I'd try to get it all in here. First, tossing stuff out of the shuttle would be disasterous. NASA already tracks over 40,000 pieces of debris from spent rocket stages and dead satellites, all of which are a major hazard to the shuttle and anything else up there. Because of the speeds involved, even a paint flake becomes potentially dangerous. If it collides with the orbiter, it carries the punch of a 22 caliber bullet. In fact, t

              • Someone else mentioned those "s" turns, I think it was with the idea that they could have somehow changed those to favor the left wing. Those s turns are very precise and are designed to reduce orbiter speed. They already plot a course for maximum reduction of speed and therefore exposure to higher temperatures.

                I am sorry, but I don't think you have given the suggestion of abandoning the "S" turns a real answer. Answering that NASA has plotted the descent profile with great precision is not a meaningful

                • Your inability to survive re-entry in just a space suit is due to a failure of imagination, too. Sometimes the parameters of the circumstance are just too tough no matter how much we all want Plan B. (or C or D or...)

                  I suspect you're thinking of having Columbia do a series of leftward corkscrews to favor that wing. I seriously doubt if would have been enough. In addition, it would have left them with no path to the runway, since their energy expendature just gets them to Florida.

                  The runways where the shut

                  • Your inability to survive re-entry in just a space suit is due to a failure of imagination, too. Sometimes the parameters of the circumstance are just too tough no matter how much we all want Plan B. (or C or D or...)

                    The engineers actually thought of that, way back with STS1. Unfortunately that shrunken budget reared its' ugly head and quashed that. Now, after the STS107 tragedy, those ideas are back on the discussion board, however, they will have to deal with the budget issue.

                    I suspect you're thin

                  • Your inability to survive re-entry in just a space suit is due to a failure of imagination, too.

                    Bzzt. Bum rap.

                    Back in February I wrote, in detail, about what I found out about the Emergency egress system put in after the Challenger crash. (Only useful if the orbiter could be slowed to sub-sonic speeds. Explosive bolts blew the door. Then a pole was extended that the astronauts would hook up to, and slide down, that would guide them out of the slipstream, much like a ww2 paratroopers static line.) I

                • I am sorry, but I don't think you have given the suggestion of abandoning the "S" turns a real answer. Answering that NASA has plotted the descent profile with great precision is not a meaningful answer at all.

                  If you want to abandon those turns, then how else do you suggest slowing down the orbiter? I think you are maybe trying to compare this to an airplane and there is little comparison.

                  Excuse me, you expressed this opinion very authoritatively. Can you justify this opinion? I am not a rocket sc

                  • If you want to abandon those turns, then how else do you suggest slowing down the orbiter? I think you are maybe trying to compare this to an airplane and there is little comparison.

                    What role do the "S" turns play in dissipating the orbiter's kinetic energy?

                    My understanding was that the orbiter dissipated energy by presenting its heat-sheilded belly to the upper atmosphere. My understanding was that there was a narrow envelope of relatively stable orientations where the orbiter could safely bare its be

              • I remember reading in an article in the local paper here (probably reprinted from another paper) that talked about Ron. I found it very interesting he doesn't even have a phd (only a master's degree), yet he is head of a very large NASA program. I think that speaks very highly of him and his education and personality.

                I enjoyed watching him giving the press conferences and briefings after the disaster happened, as I knew I'd get the facts with no BS. Once they switched over to the bureaucrats, I stopped wat

    • Below are parts of a USA Today Article [usatoday.com] which I think show that Ron Dittamore has done all he could in insuring the safety of NASA's people. Lets's not forget one of the astronauts that died in the accident was a personal friend of Ron Dittamore. I have heard a bit about what others at NASA think about Ron and Safety, one particular astronaut thinks he is too cautious. Most agree with what Joe Rothenberg, the former head of human space flight for NASA, said. "Ron did not let time pressures, peer pressure,

  • Culprits (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DoraLives ( 622001 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @02:37AM (#5636546)
    What's got me worried, is the fact that this seems to be more and more a problem stemming from the damnable budget cutting processes where personnel and resources were simply NOT AVAILABLE to perform in-depth engineering and QC work.

    The Shuttle program has been plagued with this since its inception, with congress demanding $5.00 worth of labor and material for $1.50 and then sending people into the most hostile environment we know of, assuming that somehow everything will work out.

    When looking for culprits here, please don't forget your elected representatives in Washington DC. There's folks in DC who, to my way of thinking anyway, are guilty of cold-blooded murder.

  • The real problem (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Muhammar ( 659468 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @06:56AM (#5637116)
    was that the manned space missions were always about politics/prestige stuff and military race with Soviets rather than about doing science. (I do not mean the space probes, and all the JPL good stuff)

    There is not the political will to provide adequate funding. So NASA had to go into salesmanship stuff (bulshit - to get funds) and cost-cutting. This is not good for engineering.

    They should have been honest to NASA: get the bloated agency cut down after the end of Apollo programm - to have the reduced money spend in more efficient way. NASA is now a hugely bureaucratised venue and aging fast, it does not attract talented young people anymore. Plans to save it are overdue and it is too bad that the radical reforms were resisted, after the Challenger disaster.

    • Re:The real problem (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RevRigel ( 90335 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @10:56AM (#5637976)
      That's not the case. Are you an engineer? NASA has plenty of money to do what they do. The problem is they spend it all maintaining the pork barrel for their contractors.

      Having too much money means you design systems that depend on having too much money. That means you get systems with exotic materials that no one understands, that are difficult to maintenance, and cost too much to launch. The Russian Soyuz launches for 10 million. The shuttle is 50 times more expensive. Given, for some increased payload capacity, but not that much payload capacity.

      NASA (or someone else, since they're so broken..perhaps the private sector) needs to be told to design a new space vehicle on a Russian-sized budget, instead of a NASA one. I guarantee they'll come up with the functionality we need, at the price we want, and because it had to be designed on that budget it'll be simpler and more reliable.

      • Re:The real problem (Score:3, Insightful)

        by coyote-san ( 38515 )
        They've already tried that, at McDonnell Douglas. The engineering prototype even did a few test flights.

        But NASA shut it down in the contest to choose the successor to the shuttle fleet. Why go with proven technology when you can pin everything on the development of new hypersonic jet engines and similiar exotic materials?
      • Russian-sized budget like during the Cold War, or as in "We don't have enough money to pay the people working for us, or the lease on Baikonur"?
      • NASA (or someone else, since they're so broken..perhaps the private sector) needs to be told to design a new space vehicle on a Russian-sized budget, instead of a NASA one.


        Are you suggesting that they pay the engineers and others Russian-sized salaries as well? Yeah, good luck with that one. Luckily you are not the one deciding these things

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