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Space Science

Columbia Coverage 624

Posted by michael from the thunder-on dept.
ke4roh writes "Space.com offers a list of questions and answers about the events and hardware surrounding Columbia's destruction Saturday. They address suspected causes, foam, tile, and some of the alternatives had NASA known the ship would not be able to re-enter the atmosphere." viewstyle writes "PC Magazine has a pack of stuff put together on the space shuttle accident, as they recognized the fact that the space program inspired a lot of tech people in general. What's pretty cool is the section written by a guy there who worked on the computer components in the shuttle." And naturally, the idea of a space elevator is back in vogue again.
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Columbia Coverage More

Columbia Coverage

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  • 30 seconds of telemetry (Score:5, Interesting)

    by InterruptDescriptorT ( 531083 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @10:36AM (#5231227) Homepage
    I've been hearing a lot about the 30 seconds of telemetry that was too weak for the computers to display during the shuttle break-up but that is now being analyzed from backups. Does anybody have any more information on what this data?

    As I understand it, the last 'good readings' were full-scale low or high on a lot of the temperature sensors, which to me would indicate sensor failure. Several of these sensors reported such values before communication was lost. This kind of makes me wonder what benefit there would be in examining whatever else came back after those failures--I can't imagine the data would be particularly accurate, though there may be some valuable information. Can anybody elaborate?

    • Off-scale and zero readings are still useful (Score:5, Informative)

      by MyNameIsFred ( 543994 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @11:05AM (#5231484)
      As was noted in the press conference over the weekend, off-scale and zero readings are still useful. For example, a zero reading in one sensor implies a broken sensor. When several read zero, it implies a multiplexer box is damaged or a wire has been cut.

      So what the engineers will do is pull the threads. For example, it may be possible to explain all the off-scale and zero readings by assuming a particular wire bundle was cut at a certain point. This can lead them to look at the surrounding structure in more detail. They'll also look carefully at the times at which sensors went bad to determine how the structural damage evolved.

      Basically the effort is to look at all possible causes of the disaster and use the telemtry to eliminate them one-by-one. Zero readings in sensors will probably be inconsistent with some possible explanations, thus eliminating them.

      • Re:Off-scale and zero readings are still useful (Score:5, Interesting)

        by efuseekay ( 138418 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @11:22AM (#5231647)
        Very good.

        Also, broken telemetry readings and strength of signal can be used to determine the attitude (read : orientation, not height) of the shuttle since transmitters are usually directional.

        The attitude data of the shuttle at its final seconds would be the most useful information. For example, you can use it to determine how the shuttle begin to tumble out of standard flight reentry modes.
      • Just to play devil's advocate, is it possible that some of the 'off-the-scale-high' readings were in fact accurate, i.e. into the "this ship is now officially a flying coffin" area of the scale, and that NASA chose not to present it in that light to avoid further grief to the family (or astronauts themselves)? (i.e. no point distressing them by announcing that they are about to die and nothing can be done about it.) How much before the actual breakup DID the ground crew know that it was doomed? (I'm sure we'll never know.)
    • Bad sensor readings are still data. If all the sensors in the left wing become strange a half second before the rest of the sensors do, you can conclude that the damage started there. With as little phsyical evidence as the accident investigators are likely to find, that telemetry may be most of what they have to work with.

      -B
    • There are two ways for telemetry data to get from the shuttle to the ground. There are direct shuttle to Earth-based stations, but these but off as the plasma from reentry overwhelms the signal. [1]

      There is a second path where data is sent from the shuttle to low orbit satellites and then onto geosynchronous satellites and back down to earth. This data was origionally automatically discarded (i.e. not passed on to mission control) as it had more than a predetermined level of static. NASA is now looking to see if any of the data that was sent is readable to see if something of those 30 cesonds can be learned. They are hoping that 50% of the data sent during that period can be read.

      [1] A familiar event in Apollo splash-downs from my youth was the period that mission control lost contact with the descending command module as the plasma generated by reentry cut off radio transmissions during the actual reentry. I remember the news announcers always talking about the ablative shielding which protected the craft from the heat of reentry and that, if it ever failed, the craft would burn up as it entered the atmosphere.
  • My favorite quote:

    "Technology has its limits. Information systems have their limits. Human analysis, foresight and insight have their limits."

    I firmly believe that what limits us and/or holds us back is not how horribly broken is, but how we choose to abuse/use it.

    Columbia likely was doomed by damage incurred during launch. However, those astronauts were likely doomed by a faulty damage analysis.

    • Sigh... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by slashuzer ( 580287 )
      Another armchair expert.

      Columbia likely was doomed by damage incurred during launch. However, those astronauts were likely doomed by a faulty damage analysis.If the "likely" cause was damage during launch, how do you propose, genius, that they could have "repaired" the "damage" in space? Faulty damage analysis indeed.

      • Re:Sigh... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by crow ( 16139 )
        According to the article, NASA could have probably kept them alive in orbit long enough to get Atlantis up there to rescue them. Of course, that risks having the same thing happen to Atlantis...
        • Hmm..that makes me think. If they had sent Atlantis up, and it were damaged in the same was as Columbia, would they be able to scavenge parts from one for the other? Would it be possible, for example, to transfer heat-resistant tiles from one shuttle to the other in space, or would it require machinery that can't currently be lifted?
      • The genius says:

        If you know they are doomed, don't bring them back. There's a space station up there that can hold their butts until rescue arrives.

        If, due to orbital differences this isn't possible, there are still contingencies for getting the crew safely back - granted, they are alot more likely to be deadly. The shuttle does have escape mechanisms.

        Finally, if the world community knew that there was a problem, I bet one or two people out there could've come up with a way to get them back safely.

        • Re:Sigh... (Score:2, Informative)

          by Spazzz ( 577014 )
          If you know they are doomed, don't bring them back. There's a space station up there that can hold their butts until rescue arrives.

          Columbia wasn't equipped to dock with the space station.
        • The genius says: If you know they are doomed, don't bring them back. There's a space station up there that can hold their butts until rescue arrives.

          This highlights the futility of arguing with geniuses ;-), j/k

        • Re:Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by kevlar ( 13509 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @11:32AM (#5231719)
          Finally, if the world community knew that there was a problem, I bet one or two people out there could've come up with a way to get them back safely.

          I bet you one or two couldn't. They couldn't repair the damage. There is now escape mechanism on the shuttle from orbit. They had no suits or training for extra-vehicular activity. Their orbit made it impossible to get to the ISS and even if they did they had no way to actually DOCK with it. The only way they could have come down was using the shuttle. If there was damage to the left wing, the only way they could have prevented a burn-up is by altering their de-orbit trajectory. For example, the shuttle performs a series of rolls to turn right and left. When you turn right, the right wing has the majority of the force applied to it (and vice versa). Limiting the amount of force on the left wing may have solved the problem, but we really do not know.

          All of these possiblities are under the assumption that NASA KNEW THE SHUTTLE WAS BROKEN to the extent that they'd all die. NASA did not know, otherwise they would have atleast altered the shuttles reentry trajectory (at the very least).

          Short of preparation for this trajedy, there was nothing NASA could do to prevent it.

  • Temperature detectors... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MosesJones ( 55544 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @10:37AM (#5231253) Homepage
    One thing that suprised me was how FEW detectors there appeared to be on the shuttle. You'd have thought that it would be mostly wiring and lots of redundancy and measuring every millisecond, but it appeared to be much coarser and less often. Surely in 1980 they had small electronic detectors so as to enable more accurate reporting ?

    • Re:Temperature detectors... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @11:02AM (#5231453) Journal
      So let's assume that you had a temperature sensor behind every protective tile on the shuttle.

      One of the tiles becomes damaged during takeoff, but perhaps not so bad that there is any concern. The tiles are designed to take some amount of damage from space debris after all.

      You begin re-entry with a damaged tile. Maybe the damage was a little more than you could have suspected, and it comes off! Now your temperature sensor is screaming and you kow you've got a real problem... ...but unfortunately you're already going about Mach 18 in what is basically a high-tech meteor. You have only a few minutes before the heat buildup destroys the shuttle. What are you going to do, pull over?

      No matter what you do, no matter how careful you are, no matter how much redundancy or how large a safety factor you have, there will always be something that can go wrong in a very bad way.

      All things considered, the shuttle is an extremely well built and carefully looked after machine with an exceptional safety and performance record. I don't feel anyone is at fault for what happened... it was just the luck of the draw.

      =Smidge=

      • Re:Temperature detectors... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @11:33AM (#5231734)
        I think the point that a lot of people forget about this is that the Space Shuttle is something that we launch into space strapped to a pair of 15-story solid propellant rockets and a fuel tank larger than you can even think of.

        Then we let it sit around in an environment that has all sorts of tiny little rocks and pieces of metal and neutrons and such flying around at bullet speeds for a week or two.

        Then we drop it back into the atmosphere and try to land it on the earth. During this process it accelerates to speeds faster than just about any manmade object as ever moved before and heats up to thousands of degrees.

        As you can imagine, there is quite a lot of danger involved here. Rather than criticizin NASA for the accident, let's recognize how amazing it is that their safety record is as good as it is, and see what we can do to learn from this catastrophe.
    • Columbia, as the first orbiter built, carried quite a bit more instrumentation that the other shuttles.

      NASA believed that they had learned enough from these sensors/instruments that they were no longer needed. At some point (I'm not sure how many flights ago), NASA stopped collecting the data from them, and during Columbia's recent refit, they were removed altogether.

      This was Columbia's first flight since the refit (and removal of those additional sensors), but from the briefing it seemed like even had they been aboard, they would not have been active.

  • Here is an insightful editorial on K5 [kuro5hin.org] which should help put some things into perspective. It's worth reading if you haven't already.
    • In the editorial, the author complains about commericalization of the event...but when else is a 1.5 hour news conference given by NASA going to be broadcast uninterrupted by commercials on CNN? I sure haven't seen one on there in quite some time...I thin CNN had far fewer commercials on Saturday than they have on any other given day... Cynicism is not always = to insightfulness...
    • How is this interesting?

      It's extraordinarily easy to bash the media. (And sometimes appropriate.)

      It's not extraordinarily easy to organize the logistics of getting people and equipment to the right place and filtering the information that comes in into newsworthy and white noise.

      Of course we have media overload. Supply and demand. Is your point that Americans spend too much time glued to their TV sets? If it is, I absolutely agree. But why would you pick this as an example? I don't even own a TV, but I'd have been glued to it last Saturday if I did (instead I was glued to cnn.com).

      Supply and demand. Until people get off their arse and choose not to eat what the media is all too happy to spoon feed them, you can't blame the media for doing their jobs. If you don't like how a certain media outlet does their jobs, then you can pick another! Or another!

  • Space Elevator? (Score:5, Funny)

    by kir ( 583 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @10:41AM (#5231277)
    So, how the hell do you get down if there's a fire? The "Space Stairs"*?.

    * (c)2003 kir

  • Condolances Can Be Sent Here (Score:5, Informative)

    by Acidic_Diarrhea ( 641390 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @10:45AM (#5231313) Homepage Journal
    I think the most important thing I saw in that article was this address to send condolances to:

    People wishing to express their sympathies can send notes to this address:
    Johnson Space Center
    NASA Road 1
    Houston, TX, 77058

    The astronauts are heroes who risk their lives to better our world. They are truly the best of the best and I think we have taken them for granted. Since Apollo, the missions they've been on haven't been attention-grabbing and shuttle launches became routine. But I think this event has awoken us to the fact that space exploration is one of the most important fields and we need to give NASA more funding. It's time to realize that space exploration is costly but to make it safe, it is even more costly. I'm also going to draft a few letters to my national representatives and let them know that NASA needs omre money. THe launch of a space shuttle is not mundane and we should still be in awe of it.

    • "HEROES" you must be kidding. This people are not heroes, I have seen this reference far to many times in the last few days. Does it stink for the people who died? Yes, also for their families and friends. But just because you happen to catch a bad break in a very public location is not an automatic ticket to the exulted status of hero.

      The United States of America has collected its fair share of those who have justifiable earned the title of hero, without the need to inflate the ranks with random people every time a tragedy has occurred. Think for a moment of the Marines who fought in the Pacific Theater during WWII. Those that landed on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Most of these men did not want to be there, they knew going in that their odds stank and many got to see bodies stack up all around them yet most still charged forward to what must have seemed certain deaths. That earns you the right to be called a hero. In countless battles by many different forces, there are examples of those who have exposed themselves to heavy fire in effort to save a someone else, they have earned the rights to be called a hero.

      The person who catches a bad break and has their office building fall down upon them, their car crushed by a tractor trailer, or their bus explode on them are indeed people who have faced tragedy, but that in itself does not a hero make.

      • Hmmm. . . How does one define a hero? From reading your post, I get the impression that your argument goes as follows:

        (1) The crew were not heros because they were simply in a widely publicized accident, which is tragic, but not necessarily heroic.
        (2) Soldiers in WWII were heros because they willingly accepted the risk of death or maiming in order to serve their country.

        I agree with the premises which are, if I follow your reasoning properly,

        (a) Just because you get a lot of publicity, it doesn't follow that you are a hero.
        (b) Putting yourself at risk to serve your fellow man is a heroic act.

        But if these are the premises, we could still consider the crew to be heros. Were they not volunteers? Did they not accept high risk? Wasn't their work/job in the service of humanity?

        IMHO (YMMV), it is not inappropriate to apply the title to the crew.

      • What is a hero? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jht ( 5006 )
        I would say there are (at least) three kinds of heroes:

        People who knowingly risk their lives in order to either try and save the lives of others or to try and help advance humanity as a whole.

        Or people who put themselves in harm's way on the spur of the moment in order to protect or rescue others.

        Finally, people who dedicate themselves to helping others or performing a valuable service to society (whether or not they risk their own lives) are heroes too, I think.

        So no, a person who gets hit by a bus may not necessarily be a hero, but when that person sacrifices their own safety to push other people out of the path of that bus, they could be called a hero.

        And if that person who was hit by the bus had been an astronaut, then I think given the nature of what they do and the risks they take, that a hero was hit by that bus - even if dying in a bus crash isn't itself a "heroic act".

        For better of for worse, society has assigned a value to the work performed in space by astronauts who were trained to go there and assume those risks. Ergo, astronauts are heroes. The bus driver may have been a decorated military veteran. Or not. It doesn't matter for these purposes. Ordinary people die doing heroic actions, and ordinary people also rise to the occasion, do something heroic, and live to tell the tale. Heroes also die peacefully in their sleep at a ripe old age - heroism and martyrdom are not automatically related.

        Which is good, otherwise all our heroes would be dead ones.

        (as the old quote goes, "...a statesman is a dead politician. Lord knows we need more statesmen!")

  • Where are all the pics? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @10:47AM (#5231333) Homepage Journal
    I've seen the footage that CNN et al see fit to publish regarding the Shuttle, but where are all the street-level pics being posted these days?

    Surely there are sites out there for folks to upload pics of debris they've taken out in the field, etc? I'm tired of having these sorts of things filtered for me by mainstream news - so anyone got any URL's?

    Pissed me off that I have to *subscribe* to CNN to see the amateur video that was taken in California of the breakup ... as an avid space nerd, I want to see as much as I possibly can about this incident (save, perhaps, pics of the charred skeletal remains that were found the other day ... I can leave that for stile.)

  • space elevator physics explained (Score:5, Informative)

    by sludg-o ( 120354 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @10:47AM (#5231334)
    The article on space elevators said the physics were sound, but it didn't really explain how it works. Here's the short of it:

    The structure extends from earth to a point in space beyond geostationary orbit. As the earth spins, centrifugal force keeps the structure under tension to prevent it from collapsing. To place something in orbit, you just climb the structure and let go.

  • doh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Joe the Lesser ( 533425 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @10:48AM (#5231336) Homepage Journal
    "it's feasible to talk of building a meter-wide "ribbon" that would start on a mobile ocean platform at the equator, west of Ecuador, and extend 62,000 miles up into space."

    I'm not gonna be able to stand that much Space Elevator music!

  • The Software (Score:5, Informative)

    by OECD ( 639690 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @10:48AM (#5231341) Journal

    There's a good story about the software team at NASA here [fastcompany.com].

    From the story: "Consider these stats : the last three versions of the program -- each 420,000 lines long-had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors."

  • On the BBC was carried an interview with a fellow representing India's fledgling space program, including talk of a moon landing (perhaps as yet another confirmation that technologically India has 'arrived'?) China, too, has expressed interest in manned space-flight, and moon mission. Could this be a replay of the U.S. - U.S.S.R. space race? India and China are viewed as rival nations, perhaps the establishment of an international station on the moon, with four countries behind such an effort, could happen.
  • If we built a magnetic accelerator on the side of some mountain, how much would it reduce the amount of propellant needed to reach escape velocity?
  • I have to wonder if people are focusing too much on this 2lb piece of insolation. Sure, it needs to be looked at, but the shuttle is designed to withstand the force of a Mach 7, 4000+ degree re-entry AND exit of the Earth's atmosphere, both events punishing in their own right. It's an armourd flying tank for cryin out loud. Another reason why it's glide ratio sucks. This piece of insulation weighed less than your average laptop.

    I'm willing to call it an engineering defect before a piece of frozen isulation. Frankly, i'm surprised random chance hasn't caught up with us sooner outside the Challenger incident. I guess the best thing you can do at this point is to drop a 2lb piece of material of the same composition on a test wing an see what it does.

  • Interesting photos (Score:3, Insightful)

    by little1973 ( 467075 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @10:54AM (#5231391)
    In this article [sfgate.com] in the S.F. Chronicle, a photographer took some quite interesting photos 7 minutes before the break up. Decide yourself if it is a hoax or not.
  • I read the full-on 30 odd page PDF report when this was discussed a few months back ago, and was left largely with the impression that the space elevator has one problem and one problem only: the design of a process to manufacture the cable.

    Before you say, well, duh! what I mean by this is that we know what the chemical composition would be, and almost all of the problems with regard to cable damage (slow decay through ionization, meteor strike, etc) have been solved, on paper at least.

    So what remains is the process by which we can manufacture large amounts of carbon nanotubes and precise configurations. This would seem to be a good research project whether it results in a space elevator or not. The spin-offs could be incredible.

    On a second point, I wonder whether NASA is questioning the insulation damage hypothesis as a precursor to pointing at something they couldn't control, like a lightning strike or collision with something. Perhaps I'm too cynical, but right now NASA seems to be saying "it's not that, but we can't tell you why it's not."
    • Im seriously wondering what plans they have to deal with the electrical charge that will build up on that cable. If you follow the TSS (tethered sattelite system) tests that were perfromed on (I think) STS-46 with Atlantis and then again a year or two ago, where they reeled a big globe out on a tether to test for A) static buildup/generating capability B) the opportunity to build a rotating generation ship using a tether to create the rotation, rather than a hub (at least if you believe Nimoy on Destiny in Space (filmed on Atlantis), you will see that a cable strung out in space builds up one HELL of a charge. Enough to (they think) melt the tether off clean in the second and most recent test.

      I dont know about you.. but I really dont want to be climbing (or anywhere near) a giant electrode.

      Maeryk

  • Refocusing NASA (Score:5, Interesting)

    by saddino ( 183491 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @10:55AM (#5231404)
    Charles Krauthammer's editorial [washingtonpost.com] in the Washington Post is an excellent read. He proposes that we leave close orbit science to the robots (why endanger lives for data collection?) and get astronauts involved in actual space exploration again (Moon, Mars, etc.).

    I couldn't agree more, which is surprising since I usually don't agree with anything he says. But I really believe that changing NASA's focus might be the ideal solution to the public's (read: media's) boredom with our space program.

    • I fully agree that we should leave earth orbit to telepresence and robots. But why send astronauts into space at all, anywhere, at this point? There is lots and lots of really useful science that we can do reasonably affordably with unmanned probes right now. Sending lots of probes to the different planets could keep us busy for decades and keep yielding new and interesting results. And, as part of that, our propulsion systems, knowledge of space, and knowledge of planets and asteroids would increase dramatically.

      Putting people into space just doesn't seem like the best use of our resources at this point. But with more unmanned experience, manned space travel will eventually become fairly easy. Let's pace ourselves, do the easy stuff first, and not rush out there.

    • Yup, a new focus is definitely needed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by apsmith ( 17989 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @11:14AM (#5231576) Homepage
      There were some attempts at this last year - maybe this time around they'll be a bit more successful. The problem isn't really NASA itself - it's the way NASA is forced to play by congress, and ultimately, the US public. With public support for a clear goal, Congress wouldn't be able to play its corporate welfare games any more, and NASA should be free to actually get things done again.


      The Space Exploration Act of 2002 [spaceref.com] seemed a great first step, but received very little backing. NASA's NExT [space.com] group plans look very promising - but do they have any money, even in this year's budget? The goal should be human exploration, development, and settlement of the solar system. The National Space Society [nss.org] has a clear roadmap for space development, and a vision of people living and working in thriving communities in space - but membership there has been dropping for years. The goals actually are pretty obvious - what's needed is for the public to get behind them. Go join these organizations, write your senators and congressman! If you care about space, do something about it!

  • Not talking about the disaster here, but I can't imagine how they use up a budget of fifteen billion dollars, every year! That's $ 41.1 Million every day (well a bit less for 2004 because it has an extra day).. geez, that's 47.5 cents every millisecond.

    A critic already claims [time.com] the shuttle is too old and too expensive, but the management likes it that way because a cheaper shuttle means less money for the contractors.

  • The cause is already known (Score:5, Insightful)

    by krygny ( 473134 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @10:56AM (#5231411)
    The so-called "journalism" media have already determined the accident was caused by foam from the external tank. They will never let it go. Any other theories, regardless of scientfic validity, will be dismissed as a NASA cover-up. The news meadia already have their slings out and they're just looking for asses to put in them.

  • Wonka (Score:2)

    by GiMP ( 10923 )
    I though there already was a space elevator [amazon.com]. Unfortunately, you may need one of these [ebay.com].
  • I think its sad how everyone wants to add his or her "expert" opinion to this matter. I'm not a rocket scientist, nor do I have a clue about the science involved in the space shuttle. So for me, or anyone else to speculate as to causes of the explosion is an insult to the men and women of the space program (although I'm sure some of the Slashdot crowd may actually be more qualified since they probably have followed the program since they were kids and some are actual engineers now). There's all sorts of finger pointing that could go on (and seems to in the media), but lets not try to lose sight of the fact that 7 people are dead. That's just my rant; after all, I'm sick of hearing the journalists and speculators "expert" opinions.
  • Only 10 billion to build an elevator into space?...wow...I'm just worried about the wind shear, dude... 1 metre wide by 62000 metres long? Thing would be like silly string in space!

    But seriously, the concept is *DAMNED* cool. Especially given its interface. Skyhooks are pretty common in scifi, and the relatively low costs could mean NASA could get its job done MUCH more effectively on its increasingly modest budget.

    Imagine the cost-saving effect space vehicles that don't need huge fuel pods and boosters! You could conceivably create a low orbit space vehicle construction yard, for servicing shuttles - in space. Refueling station in space, hell, you wouldn't even have nearly as many problems with astronauts physically degrading due to the lack of gravity - with such an "elevator", cycling astronaut duty shifts could be easy to do. I mean...if we pull this off in my lifetime, it could be seen as the next "big" leap into space. You old fogies had your moon landing, we have our low-cost penetration into low orbit! Spacecraft wouldn't even need to ever come out of orbit! Whoops, there goes all the costs associated with making general purpose re-entry vehicles! At 10 billion per skyhook, Nasa could simply abandon all those failed X series vehicles, and focus on smaller, lighter, less fuel, more reliable. And just think of this - what currently keeps shuttle missions so short in time? -Human problems, fuel, oxygen, food...hey look, boom, space missions aren't "once in a blue moon" events, but *daily* occurances. Hell, the tube itself could be powered by solar collectors on from a station in low orbit...

    And hell, just look at how LUCRATIVE a nanotube elevator would be. Satellite launches would no longer be an expensive, risky ordeal. Just send the sucker up the tube, have an astronaut chuck it into a slightly higher (or lower) orbit, and there ya go! Instantly, satellite TV becomes technologically cheaper. Instantly, satellite cellphones might actually become *feasible*...the possibilities are mind-boggling...not to mention tourism in space!

    This is one of those times where I really look forward to the future, nanotubes have huge potential, and a space elevator might just reignite the spark of passion and interest the populace once held in the Space programme.

  • Red Herring? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by badasscat ( 563442 ) <basscadet75NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @11:03AM (#5231466)
    I've started to wonder if the insulation hit isn't a red herring. NASA themselves have said it doesn't explain the breakup - that there's a "missing link" (their exact words) that they've yet to find. The temperature on the left wing only rose by about 40 degrees despite 3,000 degree temperatures outside the shuttle - which doesn't sound to me like there was much tile missing. The Atlantis, I believe, was hit in much the same way as the Columbia was on an earlier launch and showed no ill effects. And the Columbia itself lost more than 100 tiles from its nose area on one flight and still made it home fine.

    I could very well be wrong, but I would almost bet at this moment that the foam hit on launch is mostly a coincidence - or at most the beginning of a long chain of implausible events that preyed on some other, pre-existing fault. This is the case with most airplane disasters, where it's rarely one single problem but rather an entire series of highly implausible but still possible events that coincide in an extremely unlucky chain. The shuttle is not as fragile as some people are making it out to be right now; it was built to withstand the repeated abuse of the shock of liftoff and the heat of re-entry over many, many years and many, many cycles. The Columbia in particular was also just recently refurbished and had its heat shielding inspected and, where appropriate, upgraded to the latest materials available. It does not sound to me like a piece of foam hitting it at launch alone could bring it down - there has to be something more, and NASA seems to agree with their "missing link" statement.
    • First of all, the difference in degrees across the two wings will create turbulence. Now the onboard computers is going to try to compensate for that.
      The Angle of re-entry into the earth's atmosphere barely has any margin for error. Either your angle
      is correct or you skip off the atmosphere and have to try again, or you burn up. In this case the extreme heat and turbulence broke the shuttle to pieces.

    • Re:Red Herring? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dhogaza ( 64507 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @11:55AM (#5231886) Homepage
      Well ... as of this morning NASA is focusing on the foam hit as being the most likely cause, so I don't think red herring status is appropriate.

      It turns out the shuttle was on the pad during drenching rainstorms and there's (NASA) speculation that ice may've built up. Given that the piece of foam that broke off was near the strut that attaches the shuttle proper to the external fuel tank, with the strut surrounded by foam, it's possible that water could've accumulated there. Which would've frozen once the tank was filled with LOX and liquid hydrogen.

      If the chunk that fell off contained a lot of ice it would've been a lot heavier than foam alone. And the engineering analysis that was done apparently only looked at the case where the foam was foam alone.

      This is all in today's NYT and my local paper (which goes to bed later than our edition of the Times as I'm on the West Coast) and all comes straight from NASA.

  • Mothball the ISS and the Shuttle. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It is the only good thing that could come out of this horrible event.

    Both of these programs are doing next to NOTHING in helping us to colonize and explore space. They are robbing billions of dollars each year in resources we could devote to developing better launch and propulsion technologies.

    So why is the shuttle and the ISS still around if it is so worthless? Two reasons 1) Pork politics. NASA has cleverly made sure most of its contracts are spread out into districts controlled by powerful congressmen, and 2) nerds who know little about science but keep naively swallow the nonsense that is fed to them by NASA that the current incarnation of manned space flight is an investment in the future.

    Canceling the shuttle and the ISS is not turning your back on manned space flight. Don't make more people senselessly lose their lives.
  • Space Elevator? Can you say "terrorist target?" Besides, I dont' see how that could possibly be viable. Raw materials would be one factor, and I can't stand an elevator going up a couple of dozen floors, let alone several miles. If a couple of people fart, it'd be all over. And besides, bin Laden and crew would drool over a high profile target like that, and it wouldn't even get very far under construction without getting nailed by some radical towel heads who can't wait to get to their how-ever-many virgins in the name of their god. That's just reality, folks. Next idea, please...

    Aren't we supposed to be on the next generation shuttles already? Or did Challenger set us THAT far back? Don't we have some new birds like those seen in Armageddon yet? Oh yeah, that's right. Our President cares more about dropping bombs in a sandbox than he does about Space Exploration, so NASA goes underfunded, and the War for Oil gets top billing.

    Yes, we'll return to space. It took us a while after Challenger, but I don't think we'll have that much of a delay this time around. Trouble is, we're running low on Shuttles, and now that we're down by two, with the others aging, how much longer can we keep up that program? We need new shuttles, which means NASA needs more funding so it can get contracts rolling....

  • Nanotubes :) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by l33t-gu3lph1t3 ( 567059 ) <arch_angel16@NOspAM.hotmail.com> on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @11:08AM (#5231508) Homepage
    The research into nanotubes could have some *very* nice spinoff techs...nanotubes, if one or two hurdles are overcome, could be heralded as a pretty much "perfect" tech for making ICs...mmm Pentium/Athlon 10 400GHz... Nanotubes are as close to "unbreakable" as it gets :)
  • On Ian Gillan's website [gillan.com], Kalpana Chawla's husband Jean-Pierre Harrison has written an interesting piece [gillan.com] abt the CDs she carried aboard the STS-107 mission.

    As a tribute to Columbia & the crew, I am dedicatingn them the Space Truckin [gillan.com] Song.

  • "Could the damage have been investigated with satellites? Perhaps, but that was tried during a 1998 mission and the pictures were of little use."

    I found this quote from the article odd. We can take pictures of license plates from space and we can see the divits from meteors on the hubble telescope, but we couldn't look at the shuttle? As far as the 1998 reference, satellite picture technology has come quite far since then.

  • Management... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Eric_Cartman_South_P ( 594330 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @11:27AM (#5231681)
    ...when all is said and done I'm sure that management will be the problem that broke apart columbia. It was management that said "We have a teacher on board and a world waiting, fuck the cold weather, we have to launch now" despite a handfull of engineers saying "The o-rings could be too cold and they could crack and leak."

    As early as the day after Columbia was lost, we are starting to see reports of management decisions that affected safelty, design, and ignored problems what were spookily predicted when it came to the foam. Sure, lots of letters might cross managements desk in regards to shuttle problems. But it's the fucking shuttle, you check them ALL or you just don't DO the shuttle. Suddenly the pointy haired boss in Dilbert strips isn't so funny, knowing how accurate he is to real managers in the real world.

    In the past four years as a computer programmer (doing other shit now, self employed, NO management to harrass or to blame) I've gotten to enjoy the view as in each and every company I worked at, managers were the cause of almost every problem that happened with the products. To all the managers reading this: goto www.dilbert.com and check to make sure you are not an idiot leading a team of people who know a lot more than you. THINK. LISTEN. THINK MORE. TRY TO DO SOME FUCKING GOOD since you do the "planing of the work" and not the actual "work". Make the best of your time in your leather chear and wall-side office, and LEAD. Watch Braveheart, get motivated!

    • Re:Management... (Score:5, Informative)

      by dschuetz ( 10924 ) <david&dasnet,org> on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @12:23PM (#5232089)
      It was management that said "We have a teacher on board and a world waiting, fuck the cold weather, we have to launch now" despite a handfull of engineers saying "The o-rings could be too cold and they could crack and leak."

      That's not entirely true. Sure, there was a lot of pressure, but the engineers were having a tough time convincing management that there was a problem. There had been an o-ring malfunction before (one of the two rings in a joint was burned through), but it happened in warm weather, to which NASA middle management said "see, it's not cold related," and the engineers didn't have a good response to that argument. Like it or not, you have to be able to prove your argument to win it.

      There's a very good description of the problem in one of the Tufte books (a series of books on visual design and display of data, usually hawked during seminars, see http://www.edwardtufte.com). It concentrates on how not all the data was immediately available to engineers, so they made presentations (and drew conclusions) on incomplete information. Further, he argues that the data they presented was done so in a confusing, and hard to interpret, fashion. Had they had more data, they would have been able to make a much stronger case for delaying launch, but as it was, the "suits" had to go with what they knew, which was that "it seems safe enough, and nobody can convince us otherwise." (I should also mention that at least one paper takes issue with Tufte's methods and findings, but I feel that the basic truth remains -- not enough data, presented in a poor fashion, failed to convince management of the imminent risk.)

      So, it wasn't so much management saying "fuck the cold," with engineers saying "they could be too cold and could leak," but instead was engineers saying "we think it could be too cold," management saying "prove it," and engineers trying to do so but not being able to present a convincing argument. Management listened, but in the end, had to go with what they knew.

  • Space elevator and terrorism (Score:4, Insightful)

    by artemis67 ( 93453 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @11:31AM (#5231714)
    No matter how good of an idea the space elevator may be, we would definitely have to consider the possibilty and consequences of a terrorist attack on it. Not only would a space elevator be a Huge Damn Target, but it would also be iconic of the US's technical achievements.

    Look at how Al-Qaida was obsessed with the twin towers. They made an attempt in 1993 which didn't work, so they regrouped and drew up new plans. I can see terrorist organizations simply salivating at the prospect of destroying a space elevator.

    If we attempt this at all, it would definitely have to be on a military base, way out in some desert in the middle of nowhere and surrounded anti-aircraft missles. Even then, that only buys us time.

    • It would be a difficult target... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dfenstrate ( 202098 ) <(dfenstrate) (at) (gmail.com)> on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @12:37PM (#5232174)
      All talk I've seen of any space elevator is insistent on putting it in the middle of the pacific ocean- a location you'd don't exactly sneak up on. It would also be a safe assumption that we would protect the space elevator base with a force substantial enough to destroy any conceivable terrorist attack, having learned our lessons on 9-11.
      Moreover, since the base would be in the middle of the ocean, and not in a city, there would be little opposition to stationing a couple cruise missiles (for ships) and SAM sites there.
      I think it's also safe to presume that all cargo and passengers would be thoroughly checked before beginning the journey to the base, to avoid any problems from that angle.

      Having the base in the middle of the ocean, 3000 miles from land, and protected by the US military does more than buy us time. It's damn good insurance against the likes of Al-Qaida, who, at best, have access to Cold-War era Soviet weapons. An organization that must highjack passenger planes and fill rental trucks with explosives to carry out it's goals cannot evade or overwhelm arrays of active sonar bouys, a Los Angeles Class submarine, AWACS radar planes, SAM sites, Tomohawk cruise missiles, Commanches, JSF, or whatever else we station there if we build it.

      New York City is a busy city, with 16 million people. It has it's own airport, and several other airports within an hour's flight time. It makes a great target.

      A space elevator installation, in the middle of the ocean, protected by the United States DoD, would be well protected against the likes of Al-Qaida. They couldn't sneak in if they tried.

      Even if they acquire surface-skimming cruise missiles, they're of little good. You can't hide from JSTARS and AWACS on the ocean, and once they get close, the phalanx guns (which we have mounted on destroyers and aircraft carriers) are quite capable of destroying a missile in flight.

      I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

  • Columbia Loss FAQ ... Much Better (Score:4, Informative)

    by Catmeat ( 20653 ) <mtm&sys,uea,ac,uk> on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @12:25PM (#5232101)
    The regulars at sci.space.history have put up a Columbia Loss FAQ. It's being continuously updated as new facts emege.

    FAQ Version 1.4 [io.com]

    Link to low-bandwidth version to minimise slashdoting.

  • Intrinsically safe space vehicles (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Morgaine ( 4316 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @12:57PM (#5232326)
    While nobody yet knows what caused the disaster, and while numerous alternative scenarios have been suggested to explain it, absolutely everybody agrees that current space vehicle technology is extremely fragile. Not fragile per se, as the shuttle is designed to survive a whole range of minor problems and has done so repeatedly. However, it is effectively very fragile in the context of the extremely harsh conditions of space and the huge forces of launch and reentry. Nobody disputes that the risks of manned space exploration are currently very very high in the face of things "going wrong".

    I wonder then, what would be needed to reverse this situation? If we knew what was required, we'd have some idea of how far away from such a future we currently are. It is after all not an impossible dream --- for example, as one part of a transport system, you could hypothesize that a seamless body built out of (say) 1000-times as strong self-sealing materials comprising millions of layers of ablative and structural thin film, with a passive self-righting shape, might not have any problem at all in dealing with reentry conditions. (This is not a proposal --- I'm just suggesting that you can always come up with a less fragile basis for a space vehicle by extrapolating current-day technological developments.)

    So, given the (futuristic) possibility of eventually having vehicle technology that is inherently less fragile than the current one, what would we need to develop towards such a future? We all know that there are pretty amazing developments in materials technology heading our way already, within human timespans, but there is more to it than just materials.

    For a start, is there a completely stable, self-righting shape that would be a clear candidate for a design that eliminated the risk of guidance electronics failure by not requiring any stabilizing controls once the reentry trajectory was established outside of the atmosphere?

    If so, transformation from that to a gliding shape is only one of many possibilities for handling the landing, ranging from on-end-landing propulsion to catching the darn thing to good ol' parachutes and many other approaches.

  • Some things to remember about Columbia (Score:3, Informative)

    by stonewolf ( 234392 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2003 @02:55PM (#5233453) Homepage
    Columbia was the first shuttle to fly in space. The first shuttle to fly was the Enterprise, but it was used only for drop testing and was not capable of flying under rocket power or operating in space.

    Because Columbia was the first fully operational shuttle it is by far the heaviest shuttle with the lowest payload. For that reason it was not flown much after the later shuttles were built. IIRC Columbia could not reach the altitude of the space station with any useful payload.

    Columbia was originally built with ejection seats on the flight deck that were later removed.

    During the first few flights of the Columbia NASA was very worried about the tiles coming off. They had developed a thing a lot like a caulking gun that could be used by an astronaut to fill in the gaps left by a lost tile. But, IIRC it was never flown. So, this is a problem that NASA has considered, and one for which they already had a potential solution more than 20 years ago.

    On a personal note, I can think of no better way to die than to do it while following a dream. And not just a personal dream, but a dream that benefits all of humanity. They are heros not because they died, but because they dared.

    Stonewolf

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