Foam Gluing Flaw Killed Columbia Astronauts

Freshly Exhumed writes "Now it can be told: NASA's Columbia Accident Investigation Board has blamed the faulty application of insulating foam for the loss of the Columbia orbiter. From the chief engineer for the external tanks project: '...NASA concluded after extensive testing that the process of applying some sections of foam by hand with spray guns was at fault.' And further: 'It was not the fault of the guys on the floor; they were just doing the process we gave them'."

60%?

[Koushiro]

Gaps, or voids, were often left, and tests done since the Columbia accident have shown liquid hydrogen could seep into those voids. After launch, the gas inside the voids starts to heat up and expand, causing large pieces of insulation to pop off.

NASA said this happens on about 60 percent of its shuttle launches.

Sixty percent of the time? I don't pretend to be an expert, but that number seems a bit high, especially when this can cause such damage. Can anyone shed some more light on the situation here?

Re:60%?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sixty percent of the time? I don't pretend to be an expert, but that number seems a bit high, especially when this can cause such damage. Can anyone shed some more light on the situation here?

Luck basically. 60% of launches lost foam, and the foam has a miniscule chance of causing damage

It might hit at an acute angle and bounce off easily. the foam might not hit the orbiter at all. The foam might be tiny tiny pieces.

It's because of this experience of the foam falling off so often and not causing damage that the idea foam could be to blame was originally discounted. It was just too outrageous - but when foam was actually tested on the most dangerous possibly spot, the leading edge of a wing or right into the flat of the nose, then the damage became obvious.

It's like the experience of riding a bicycle, and saying being hit by bugs isn't dangerous - and 99% of the time it's not, until you happen to get a rather sharp angry beetle right in your eye. Blinded and in pain riding along at 30kph and you're suddenly on the pavement.

Re:60%?

[LMCBoy]

Just guessing, but:

The main fuel tank (the big cylinder in the center) is filled with liquid hydrogen. It is topped off until moments before launch, and since its boiling point is far colder than 300K, I imagine it gets a bit violent when it touches the "hot" rim of the tank, so some may splash out and dribble down the side of the tank.

As for why it doesn't evaporate immediately, I refer you to the Leidenfrost effect [wikipedia.org].

Re:60%?

[kirkjobsluder]

I know that, in hindsight, it is easy to find flaws.

Which I guess is the point. The design of these systems are intended to minimize the possibility of failure. It is easy for us to armchair analyze the decisions involved and say that someone didn't do their homework, and ignore the thousands of anticipated disasters that were accounted for and prevented.

Re:60%?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have any amount of a substance, some of it is naturally ionized.

Ionized Hydrogen is just a proton...it's really freaking small and can permeate *anything*.

Hydrogen doesn't leak through the seams of the tank, it leaks through walls.

You can contain this leakage with a static electric field around the whole tank, but there are drawbacks to that too. Think Hindenberg style drawbacks.

Re:60%?

[terrymr]

I'm not sure ... it almost sounds like a typo ... previously I'd heard that gases in the air can condense on the extremely cold surface of the tank. I'm not sure how hydrogen would get there though.

Re:60%?

[rusty0101]

A couple of things to remmeber include the fact that since this is 'foam' there are a lot of people out there thinking impacts would cause very little to no damage, and even with a 60% event rate (foam poping off) half of that is going to happen on the 'far' side of the tank from the shuttle, meaning that about 30% of the launches would result in some foam poping off on the shuttle side of the tank, and a significant percentage of those events will have no impact with the shuttle as well.

Lastly as has alre

It seems to me

[barakn]

that ABC has messed up the story. What is really getting into the voids is water vapor or nitrogen [space.com]. Either that or the tank is so poorly constructed that dangerously flammable liquid hydrogen is leaking out, in which case it is a wonder that the shuttle hasn't exploded right on the launch pad.

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[bogaboga]

The Russians still have the best technology in space. While the Americans were speculating about where the MIR would land, the Russian scientists were confident that it'd land on target. Indeed it did land 1.3 km within the targeted area. As usual, the Americans simply congratulated them. Russians are the only link to the ISS. They realized long long ago that the space shuttle was way too expensive...but they had one of their own that flew and landed within feet of its intended target on the runway.

To understand this, the Russians only have to prepare to sell some of their [space] tech to the Chinese, then Americans will come out screaming.

They also produce some of the deadliest weapons on earth, and all in simple production houses...and ohh...they also have the heaviest and biggest flying aircraft in the world. Please google for the Antonov-225.

Russians just need more organization.

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[Keebler71]

Let me get this straight... you're evidence for your claim that the Russians are the 'best' was the accuracy with which they predicted their broken space station would crash?

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to belittle the Russian space effort, they are without a doubt the leaders in the areas of heavy lift and long duration manned space flight - but predicting a crash and abandoning a space vehicle as too expensive are not the best examples of Russian space dominance.

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[drinkypoo]

MIR operated for three times as long as intended [energia.ru]. How is this not impressive?

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[Keebler71]

Thats is exactly my point... there are no-doubt some amazing achievements of the Russian space program. Mir's longevity is one of them... its predicted impact accuracy is not.

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[Akimotos]

The Dutch guy who just went up with the Russians once said in an interview: Like the USA, at ESA we are very thorough on our equipment and we cherrish it. If it is not necessary, you are not even allowed to point at a rocket, let alone touch it. When I went to Russia for my first Russian training, I saw engineers hammering away at their rockets and boosters. They were sitting on the stuff working on it with wrenches and other heavy tools... it was not like anything I every experienced with ESA or NASA at al

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[Anonymous Coward]

> If it is not necessary, you are not even allowed to point at a rocket, let alone touch it. When I went to Russia for my first Russian training, I saw engineers hammering away at their rockets and boosters.

You are actually pointing out at the very core of what makes the Russian space project better than the Western (Yes, NASA as well as ESA): Russian equipment is made with and also using, the lowest technology that gets the job done. Thus it is so simple that it can hardly fail, and if there is a probl

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[5KVGhost]

Good post, AC. The Russians also accepted long ago that space is dangerous and people are going to die. Of course they prefer to minimize the number of deaths and the loss of expensive equipment, but they don't make an impossible level of safety the primary principle behind their space program. (Especially when it really doesn't end up being all that much safer.)

Which is why NASA is paralyzed for ridiculous lengths of time when anything goes wrong, and why private space programs are likely to make much fas

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[Ernesto Alvarez]

I think that the Russians generally use lower tech equipment because they lack the money, know-how, and facilities to build state of the art equipment, rather than a simpler is better philosophy.

Lack of money:
I'm 100% with you.

Lack of facilities:
Maybe. After all they have a big money problem. They used to have some damn good facilities, they just have little money for maintenance.

Lack of know how:
Are you smoking crack?
It's the RUSSIANS we're talking about. They've had space stations in orbit since t

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[machoromeo]

The Russians still have the best technology in space.
That is a broad statement, Russian and U.S. spacecraft where designed for different purposes. Each type of spacecraft has it's own advantages/disadvantages. For example, the shuttle can release, dock, and bring back satellites in it's docking bay. Also, what about GPS, US Satellite imaging, Mars rovers, etc?

...their [space] tech to the Chinese, then Americans will come out screaming
Can't disagree with you there. We are not on the greatest terms with China, but the US governent would probably complain about any country selling significant technology to China.

heaviest and biggest flying aircraft in the world. Please google for the Antonov-225
The U.S. has found that using several smaller cargo aircraft such as the C-130 Herc is typically more efficient for military use. The Herc uses a smaller runway, requires less maintenance, and is a smaller target for those nasty SAMs. In this case, bigger does not mean better. Don't get me wrong, a big aircraft is cool, but how practical is it?

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[Artifakt]

The Antonov-225 was designed back in the Soviet era, and like many of the USSR's military concepts was expected to be useful in non-conventional warfare or "police action" programs. It took Afghanistan to teach the USSR that there would likely be anti-aircraft assets in the hands of local rebels and resistance movements.
One of their assumptions was that there would be need for a military controlled asset in areas without anti-aircraft weapons deployed. The US typically relies more on civilian assets for such functions as disaster relief. We would also normally pay (in both time and money) to pre-position really large industrial equipment by ship instead of plane. The USSR wanted to be able to fly in enough gear to resume oil production and refining on very, very short notice, for just one example. The time involved was much shorter than would be needed to restore an oil based economy post war, and more a matter of having fuel for Soviet armored divisions still in full active combat mode. It is left as an exercise to the reader to decide just where the USSR hoped to use this capability.

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[John Newman]

The U.S. has found that using several smaller cargo aircraft such as the C-130 Herc is typically more efficient for military use.

That's often true, although you're sort of comparing apples and oranges - the C-130 is a short(ish)-haul tactical cargo aircraft, while the C-5/C-17/An-124/An-225 are designed for non-stop, long-haul missions. And despite how pleased the US armed forces are with the C-17, I don't doubt for a moment they wouldn't mind having an aircraft that could carry more than a single Abrams at

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[mantera]

From this [nasa.gov] page:

"In November 1995, the partially completed (Russian) shuttles were dismantled at their production site. The manufacturing plant is scheduled to be converted for production of buses, syringes, and diapers."

Gotta love capitalism.

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[ed1park]

"The Russians still have the best technology in space"

But at what expense? Perhaps they can be proud of their space program, but their country and and social system was/is a disaster and failure.

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[KingV]

Russian nuclear safety is laughingly bad, it always has been. I'm in the nuclear navy, and generally when we explain why we do our things the way that we do them, by comparing it to a russian design and point out their flaws. Look at chernobyl, in what way was that good design? The whole reason russian subs are faster than american subs are because they lack as much shielding in the reactor compartment. This is a known fact. Even the movie K19 highlights poor russian nuclear designs. Where are the equ

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[Chuck1318]

No, as I see it, the core problem is that today manned spaceflight is so difficult, so close to the limit of what is possible with chemical rockets, that every safety margin has to be shaved down to the bone for it to be even possible. There are a million things that can go wrong, because every part is designed as close to the limit of the materials as it can be. If we put in a safety margin that would be considered normal in most earthly applications, we could never get to orbit. IAAME (I am a mechanica

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[mabhatter654]

nobody want to declare the shuttle a "failure" and put the money on the table for something else. After all, the shuttle represents the height of US cold war "supremecy" because we made it work thru sheer force of will... It's done it's job and time for us to move on...actually it was planned to move on 10 years ago, but nobody wants to pay..so they keep cobbeling them back together...

If you REALLY want a space program you need to scrap 90% of the NASA bueracracy and get automotive level engineering inv

Heroes

[mfh]

Let's remember the heroes who died that day. I think it's very sad something like a little glue can cost lives in the blink of an eye. What a horrible mistake. There is an interesting article [newscientist.com] on the safety upgrades for the spring 2005 launch.

Re:Heroes

[LiquidCoooled]

I personally feel better knowing that it was a flawed human process that caused the fatal accident.

Had it been a random unknown event, then we could not learn from our mistakes, and potentially leave other things to cause problems later.

This will have refocused every member of the team, and there is the potential for this mishap to make Nasa even stronger, and make space travel safer for us all, and if that occurs, then those 7 heroes will not have died in vein.

Not Heroes

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a terrible tragedy, yes. They're not heroes. Enough of calling anyone who dies in a well publicized disaster a hero.

Re:Not Heroes

[Mmm coffee]

I agree the term "Hero" is tossed around all too often. However, these men and women put themselves into some very extreme and dangerous conditions in order to advance the human race as a whole in countless different areas, and paid the ultimate price. These modern explorers definately earned the title "Hero" in my books.

Re:Not Heroes

[ClosedSource]

I guess by intention, they were heroes, but I'd dispute the idea that these shuttle flights have done anything to advance the human race and I don't believe we have done any manned space exploration since the moon missions.

Re:Not Heroes

[Have Blue]

They're heroes because they were astronauts, not because they died.

Re:Not Heroes

[Buran]

Not every astronaut is a "hero" -- but it does take a lot of guts to do something that you know might kill you and willingly do it anyway, and those of us who do things for the love of it believe that if we die doing them, we'll be going out doing something we love and not quietly in our sleep at the age of 101.

Jimmy Buffett once said that "Most are fine as oysters, while some become pearls." He spoke of Charles Lindbergh and Elvis Presley; two people who had a dream and went out and changed the world wit

Re:Not Heroes

[tftp]

Not every astronaut is a "hero" -- but it does take a lot of guts to do something that you know might kill you and willingly do it anyway

You can say the same about anyone who drives a car. Not a day goes by without a fatal accident. Today, for example, a truck driver didn't notice [cbs5.com] that the cars in front started slowing down... In other places it may take some real bravery just to be in the street [cbs5.com] at night.

All in all, we may even declare a typical construction site to be more dangerous than a Shuttle fl

Re:Not Heroes

[lobsterGun]

Bold words from an anomymous coward.

They aren't heroes because they died. They're heroes because, like all astronauts, they put their lives on the line for the betterment of mankind.

That makes them heroes.

Re:What Heroes Are

[lobsterGun]

Let em see If I am hreading you correctly. You're stating that no one that enters into a dangerous career (fireman, policeman, soldier, etc.) can be considered a hero because everything they do is considered to be their duty.

So a police officer that gets shot in a shootout with a bank robber is not a hero, because he was doing his duty. But anyone else that gets shot in identical circumstances IS a hero because they went 'beyond the call of duty'.

That's absurd. Pick up a dictionary. Look up 'hero' be

Right case, wrong circumstance.

[aussersterne]

But these people actually were heroes, like all early explorers who venture out into the great and deadly unknown (be it land, ocean, or space, depending on era and context) in the interest of making a better life for their fellow beings. Every astronaut takes his/her life into her hands as a matter of course just to better lives for everyone else, just like firefighters or police officers. Not just that, but astronauts do something fantastic and inspiring and educational that kids can really look up to wit

Re:people who died on September 11th

[Dan East]

The individuals on board Flight 93 who counter-attacked to try and regain control of the plane are heros. They knew they were going to die regardless, yet they had the self control and motivation to act.

Dan East

Re:people who died on September 11th

[drinkypoo]

Knowing you are going to die anyway gives you a certain level of freedom. If your life is forfeit, what have you got to lose? Not to discount the actions of these brave individuals, but I don't think that knowing you're going to die anyway is much of an inhibitor to such an action.

Re:people who died on September 11th

[tftp]

They knew they were going to die regardless

Not necessarily. They could have succeeded in taking over the controls in time. After that all it takes is to engage the autopilot, and then the airplane will be back on the preset course and altitude.

Since the airplane had plenty of fuel, the passengers would have enough time to contact the ground and decide what to do next. A relatively safe crash-landing would be always an option, onto a foam-covered runway and into the safety net; with most of the fuel use

Re:Right case, wrong circumstance.

[aussersterne]

Oh, I would say that the firefighters and police officers at WTC were definitely heroes, definitely. They knew they were going to die and didn't have to (they could have run.the.other.way), but they went in anyway to try to save lives. Heroes. Absolutely.

But too many people have said that all of the citizens who died that day were heroes, and that's just not true.

I've heard it said that "Those people at the WTC were heroes because they lived the American dream--they went to work every day and were a part

Re:Right case, wrong circumstance.

[aussersterne]

My uncle is a Colonel in the airforce (retired). My grandfathers fought on opposing sides in World War II. My best friend's wife is in the Navy. Another friend has a daughter in Iraq right now.

Too many Americans are starry-eyed over the armed forces because they have allegiances only to the U.S. and U.S. soldiers, so they are convinced that somehow U.S. soldiers are heroes and all other soldiers are not.

Well, what about the Nazi soldiers? They fought for their homeland and got paid in rather the same way.

Re:Not Heroes

[Tony-A]

Heroes or villians?
Heroes is better.
It's not for the dead, it's for the living.
If they did not die in vain, they are heroes.

Re:Heroes

[ctr2sprt]

We humans like things to be black and white. In order for someone to qualify as a hero, we need to be able to dismiss their little personal failings - sometimes they aren't so little - and focus on the good things they've done. That makes dead heroes much easier to come by, as we, as a society, are reluctant to speak ill of the dead.

In some cases, also, the danger is not always clear. In the 60s it was obvious that space flight was dangerous. Everyone knew it. But after 40 years, it's become so commo

Re:Heroes

[SillyNickName4me]

> We humans like things to be black and white.

That is somewhat debatable.. I'm pretty sure that it isvery common in US society, but I also know that it is one of the things that make that many foreigners consider US society to be simplistic.

I personally prefer grey ;P

> In order for someone to qualify as a hero, we need to be able to dismiss their little personal failings - sometimes they aren't so little - and focus on the good things they've done.

Uh? not really. TO regard someoen as a hero, that

So many minds...

[dmayle]

I'm of so many minds about this. Yes, we needed to know in order to fix this process. I'm glad no one tried to pass the buck. I'm disappointed that it took so long to figure this out.

I hope that we can use this as evidence the next time someone says, "Oh please, somebody thinkg of the children.. ehrm.. astronauts!" We know know what caused the problem, and we can avoid it in the future.

On the other hand, I'm already looking forward to the privatization os space, because I think the days of NASA are declining. For as great an agency as it is, it's got a terrible public opinionation...

Re: So many minds...

[Black Parrot]

> I'm of so many minds about this. Yes, we needed to know in order to fix this process. I'm glad no one tried to pass the buck. I'm disappointed that it took so long to figure this out. [...] We know know what caused the problem, and we can avoid it in the future.

Sadly, there is (and probably always will be) a lot of learn-from-accidents in the field of engineering. When a bridge falls down or an airplane falls out of the sky we investigate and update our standards accordingly (if the bean counters do

Re: So many minds...

[Pharmboy]

I think part of the problem is the expectation of people that space travel is more science than art, when this is not true. It requires more than crunching numbers, it requires a lot of guess work and estimation, as well as intuitive individuals to impliment the science in the safest way they know how.

Yes, the science makes it possible but there is no way to fully test theories until you put them into practice, thus there will always be significant risks with space travel. I think most people know this, and the crews that actually take the risks certainly do.

Space travel is similar to travel by submarine, being submersed in an atmosphere that is hostile and will kill you if you are exposed to it, where you are totally dependent on what you have on board to deal with any situation. With all the experience and science we have regarding submarines, we still have accidents and should expect no less with space travel, where you can't simply surface. There simply is not, and never will be, a 100% solution to guarantee total safety for either.

This is part of the reason I still awestruck by those who are willing to take this extreme risk.

Re: So many minds...

[king-manic]

This is part of the reason I still awestruck by those who are willing to take this extreme risk.

Let's see, there have been 3 major accidents with the US space program for 45 years. Lets say those 15 or so people represent 5% of all space travelers. Thats a 5% mortality rate. no big deal. Rig workers have a higher fatality. So you can be awe struck at how rig workers risk their lives.... It's sorta silly. you shoudl expect deaths when you deal with the amoutn of exstremes that space travel entail. The juvi

Re:So many minds...

[Mmm coffee]

I'm disappointed that it took so long to figure this out.

1) Time
2) Money
3) People

When you want to shoot some people off into space in a tin can, choose three of the above. When you want a concrete answer as to why something as complicated as shooting a tin can into space goes wrong, choose three of the above again.

Same old shit

[deutschemonte]

They will just launch another investigation into how this procedure was come up with to glue these tiles on.

They will find out that some budgetary advisory panel recommended these procedures against the wishes of some NASA engineer in order to save a buck.

Eventually this will fall out of the public eye (as most things usually do). In the end, no action will be taken against the people responsible for this horrible tradgedy. In fact, the same contractor will probably be hired again to advise them for the

Read the report on the Challenger

[Anonymous Coward]

It [nasa.gov] basically said NASA managers were clueless [nasa.gov].

The more things change, the more they remain the same.... (see here [nasa.gov])

This danger is not limited to space travel...

[aussersterne]

You and I are exposed to the incompetence of MBAs and bean-counters in our day-to-day lives as well.

I have a very good personal friend who has been a civil engineer for a very long time, designing large-scale structures (think high-rises, bridges). Not only does he have to fight like a bastard at times to even get safety features past the budget people and on to the blueprints, but you would be shocked to hear him tell the sheer number of times in his career that he's gone to a building site and found that

Ignorant == Insightful?

[XNormal]

They will just launch another investigation into how this procedure was come up with to glue these tiles on.

Somehow I find it hard to accept any "insights" from someone who can't tell the difference between the gluing of heat-resistant tiles to the orbiter and the application of cryogenic foam insulation to the external tank.

Amazing

[Billobob]

It's amazing how something like the method of gluing on insulation tiles can cause a shuttle to blow up, yet for all the serious damage done to Apollo 13 they still managed to get back alive.

Re:Amazing

[jginspace]

Yes but they had Tom Hanks

Re:Amazing

[yeremein]

Yes but they had Tom Hanks

And Apollo 13 managed to come home safely, despite being piloted by Forrest Gump. You really have to give credit to the ground team.

Re:Amazing

[Henk Poley]

The Apollo heatshield was entierly different stuff. And accident on reentrance is far more likely to be fatal than something like an airleak in a spaceship with multiple compartiments.

Re:Amazing

[hcdejong]

Apollo 13 had one advantage: it may have been severely damaged, but IIRC none of the damage was to the reentry vehicle.

Re:Amazing

[yeremein]

Apollo 13 had one advantage: it may have been severely damaged, but IIRC none of the damage was to the reentry vehicle.

True. The Command Module wasn't damaged. However, the loss of electricity and oxygen in the Service Module following the explosion did deplete the batteries and reserve oxygen tank in the CM, and these supplies had to be replenished from the Lunar Module. What saved the Apollo 13 crew was the fact that they had an second independent spaceship. Had the SM oxygen tank explosion occurred on Apollo 8, where there was no LM, the astronauts wouldn't have survived.

Re:Amazing

[shadowbearer]

Just a minor correction:

According to Kraft and Lovell's books, the CM batteries and reserve oxy tank weren't "depleted" but drawn down a little. They did transfer some power from the LM bateries to the CM, but no oxygen.

Had the SM oxygen tank explosion occurred on Apollo 8, where there was no LM, the astronauts wouldn't have survived.

An interesting tidbit from Gene Cernan's biog is that the tanks on 13 were actually the original tanks from Apollo 10. I don't remember why they were pulled, I'd have

Chief Apollo 13 Advantage

[lildogie]

IMHO, the main advantage that Apollo 13 had was that the people on the ground and in the craft were trying to save it almost from the moment the damage occurred. This in spite of the fact that it seemed completely impossible to save the craft almost up to re-entry. They didn't accept a "can't do" answer and kept trying.

Contrast with the "no problem" approach to Columbia, followed by a big surprise on re-entry.

Not Amazing; porkbarrel.

[Tom_Yardley]

The notion of the, "reusable space plane," is simply stupid. If the astronauts ran NASA, we would have vehicles, like Saturn V, that lifted mass into space and capsules that bring down only what we need. The shuttle is a boondoggle to throw money to the aerospace industry. The Progress M-50 craft is vastly superior to our shuttle when it comes to lifting weight to orbit. We lost a shuttle because Senator Orrin Hatch (Bush-loving republican, natch) overrode the engineer to throw work to Thiokol. The original design called for one piece boosters which would be transported by barge. Orrin made them cut the booster in half so Thiokol could bid. (There aren't many barge routes in Utah.) The two haves were joined by -- o-rings. In the United States, there is only one agency with the tradition, tradition and ability to explore. Let's turn the space program over to the Navy and go back to the moon.

Re:Not Amazing; porkbarrel.

[TheHawke]

Ahh, the good ole Saturn V. It can still be revived and work in tandem with the shuttle you know. Allow the shuttle to still be used for the "glamour missions", hauling personnel back and forth from ISS, service various satellites, the fancy short-term experiments using the ESA modules. Then, the Legends come into play. Saturns lofting entire ISS modules loaded with supplies, bigger, heavier satellites than what the Ariannes can handle, mission-ready probes that can rendevous with the station for final asse

Re:Not Amazing; porkbarrel.

[HiThere]

A reuseable space plane is a perfectly reasonable design. One whose parameters have been dictated by politicians rather than engineers is a recipie for repeated disasters.

The original design for the shuttle called for a titanium body. But we got into a squabble with our principle supplier of titanium (Rhodesia?) and the politicians required a new design. O, and they wanted it to be cheaper at the same time. I know just who to blame for the problems that NASA has had. (Granted, it could have generated

Re:Amazing

[MavEtJu]

It's amazing how something like the method of gluing on insulation tiles can cause a shuttle to blow up, yet for all the serious damage done to Apollo 13 they still managed to get back alive.


The shuttle managed to do its whole program, until it went back into the atmosphere, as if there was nothing wrong.

The Apollo 13 managed to fly to the moon and back, with a lot of luck and despite all the odds.

The shuttle was damaged into the heatshield.

The Apollo 13 was not damaged in the re-entry capsule.

Draw y

Re:Amazing

[qbwiz]

Yeah, I heard that when the finally disconnected the Service Module (for re-entry) and saw how big the hole was, they were pretty much praying that their heat shield hadn't been broken.

Re:Amazing

[SillyNickName4me]

> The shuttle managed to do its whole program, until it went back into the atmosphere, as if there was nothing wrong.

> The Apollo 13 managed to fly to the moon and back, with a lot of luck and despite all the odds.

In case of the shuttle, there was an indication that soemthign had happened, there was no indication of potentially catastrophic failure.

The opposite was true in case of Apollo 13, it was evident from the start that there was potentially catastrophic damage.

> The shuttle was damaged i

Re:Amazing

[Jeremy Erwin]

The tiles didn't break off because of improper adhesives-- they "broke off" because they were hit by a large piece of foam. That large piece of foam broke off the external tank because of the adhesive technique wasn't up to the task.

Re:Amazing

[BoneFlower]

A big advantage is Apollo 13 knew early in the mission that the ship was crippled. Columbia did not have that knowledge. Had they been aware, something probably could have been done. They had two weeks worth of food abord, that could be stretched out a bit while NASA rushed Atlantis to be ready for a rescue flight which would have taken about two weeks.

Just one thing...

[Lisandro]

"It was not the fault of the guys on the floor; they were just doing the process we gave them," Otte said. "I agree with the (accident investigation board) that we did not have a real understanding of the process. Our process for putting foam on was giving us a product different than what we certified."

Kudos to Neil Otte for coming up like this.

I reflect back on several things...

[constantnormal]

... on Alan Sherpard's thoughts at lift-off of our first manned suborbital flight that here he was, sitting on a huge container of explosive materials, built by the lowest-bidding contractor. Yep these people truly have "The Right Stuff", and the ones who have died have paid the dues for all of us.

... and that what other nation on this planet would allow the news f the disaster and subsequent investigation to be covered so openly? Sure, "stuff" happens -- but if it's not given a thorough airing, how do we expect "stuff" to ever get fixed? I am both thrilled by the images and amazed by the political boldness when our government* allows real-time webcasting of events on the space station and space walks. At least with this revelation that we have a faulty process for applying the foam insulation, there's some reason to expect it will be fixed.

*rotten and corrupt it certainly is, but (I think) it's still better than the rest -- we'll see in November if we can change course or remain headed for the pit.

There is no GLUE!

[teridon]

Nor are there any tiles, as more than two [slashdot.org] fool [slashdot.org] implies.

The foam is sprayed on, and it adheres directly to the External Tank's aluminum substrate (and itself, of course). Some metallic sections of the tank are coated with epoxy before being sprayed. But the process is slightly different on the bipod structure:

The insulated region where the bipod struts attach to the External Tank is structurally, geometrically, and materially complex. Because of concerns that foam applied over the fittings would not provide enough protection from the high heating of exposed surfaces during ascent, the bipod fittings are coated with ablators. BX-250 foam is sprayed by hand over the fittings (and ablator materials), allowed to dry, and manually shaved into a ramp shape. The foam is visually inspected at the Michoud Assembly Facility and also at the Kennedy Space Center, but no other non-destructive evaluation is performed.
-- excerpt from CAIB report vol. 1, p. 51

You can get all the CAIB reports here [www.caib.us].

Re:There is no GLUE!

[shadowbearer]

Um, no.

Some parts have sprayed on ablatives, but the underside had tiles and the leading edge of the damaged wing was composed of a carbon composite.

Google [google.com.ni] has plenty of references.

What you're talking about is simply the support struts for the External tank, not the orbiter underside.

SB

This is bogus....

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing that doomed the shuttle was not the glue process. It was the way the organisation reacted to the clue that something was wrong. There were many people pushing for a pro-active inpsection of the shuttle, either by camera or EVA and the "suits" obstructed it.

Let's suppose it wasn't a chunk of foam that hit the wing but some unlucky bird. Nothing would have changed - the film would show "something" hitting the wing and all the decisions form that point would be made the same way. Would we then be having an inquiry that decided the bird scaring process was flawed?

The issue is that something unexpected happened and the process for dealing with that went wrong. That needs fixing, not the glue..

YMMV

Re:This is bogus....

[BoneFlower]

The glue needs to be fixed too. Had the glue worked, even with the disaster response problems Columbia would have made it home fine.

Yes, they need to fix the way they respond to problems and potential problems, but they also have to fix the direct cause of the disaster, which is the glue.

Re:Bird strikes.

[Tlosk]

He was just using a bird as an example of something unexpected, and your reasoning is the same reasoning that would have led to the disaster all over again. Relying solely on logic and assumming high probability is the same as a sure thing, without occasionally taking the time to verify your conclusions by looking out your window to see what is going on in reality can on rare occassions result in spectuarly poor judgements.

the real cause

[gordona]

Its great to find the point source of the failure, but after reading the report of the committe, it was clear that the real cause of the failure was systemic, going back many, many years.

These guys forgot Kindergarten

[elflet]

Clearly, the NASA engineers just need to consult with their 5 year-olds:

1. If at first it doesn't stick, use more Elmers
2. If you're going to snap somebody with a rubber band, make sure it's nice and warm or it won't work (a/k/a the Calvin and Hobbes rule)
3. Don't stick your tongue on the liquid nitrogen tank. Just don't.
4. Always remember to put on your rubbers before going outside.

Who quashed the suggestion?

[epcraig]

What I want is the name of the executive who quashed the suggestion voiced by a NASA engineer who'd watched the launch and seen the foam debris bashing the leading edges that the attitude of the shuttle be adjusted to allow ground telescope imaging of impacted leading edges.

Linda Ham

[jmichaelg]

Linda Ham [go.com] squashed a couple of requests to inspect the shuttle via spy satellite.

Linda Ham dismissed the issue, saying, "Really, I don't think there is much we can do, so you know it's not really a factor during flight [be]cause there isn't much we can do about it."

A far cry from the early NASA attitude of "Failure is not an option." I think Ms. Ham should be charged with negligent homicide for that decision. She was wrong on the foam and she was wrong that NASA couldn't have done anything about the probl

Sorry, but I really think that the real fault was

[rben]

...with the people who made the decision that they didn't need to inspect the orbiter using satellites before having it return. If the extent of the damage had been properly evaluated, perhaps we'd still have seven brave talanted people and one very expensive piece of equipment.

It's good to know what caused the problems with the insulation in the first place, but unless there are procedures in place that insure that the orbiter is properly inspected if there are problems during launch we'll see this happen again. The shuttles are incredibly complicated machines that are quickly reaching the end of their design life because of procrastination on designing replacements. We need to make sure that we take that into consideration when evaluating problems in the future.

A solution?

[mliesenf]

For all of you /.'ers out there there's an interesting new technology out there to detect these types of flaws. I'm a nuclear student at UF and some in our department are working on lateral migration radiography. It's a rather cool process, shoot x-rays into the foam and get an image of what's inside and find out where delimanation or debonding has occured. http://www.nre.ufl.edu/facilities/backscat.php [ufl.edu]

killer budgets

[Doc Ruby]

The damage might have been due to faulty foam glue. But if that flight had included the usual arm/camera, the crew could have inspected the damage from the impact on liftoff. The shock was noticed at the time, but the extent of damage was unknown. The low budget of that mission cut the camera from the gear, so they took their chances on reentry. If they had inspected the damage, they might have had a chance to do something different that could have saved their lives, and the shuttle program itself.

Re:killer budgets

[Doc Ruby]

" The official investigation into the accident, conducted by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, left the matter open, since none of the foam or the fuel tank could be recovered for study."

The CYA^WCAIB report was a way to ensure no one would be held accountable for the catastrophe, while harnessing the event to reshape NASA according to the current administration's priorities (which don't include science). As evidence, they only issued a report on the actual problem yesterday, long after they desc

Re:riiiiiight

[acceleriter]

Actually, I took that as the guys who designed the process actually taking responsibility, rather than shifting it to the poor techs who were doing the gluing. I agree that PC sucks, but this didn't look like an example of it.

Re:riiiiiight

[Xshare]

No... if I give you instructions on how to build a house and you build it EXACTLY to my specifications, following my instructions perfectly, who's to blame if it sucks? Me or you? Me. They're saying that it's not the fault of the guys who work on the floor, as they were just doing what they were told to do. Unfortunately, the method that they were told to use has now been discovered to be faulty.

Um. Re:riiiiiight

[WolfWithoutAClause]

On the other hand; if I build several hundred houses, and on each one the tiles keep falling off every winter, when they shouldn't; and I just keep patching the roof, and not bothering to work out what went wrong.

And then, eventually a tile falls off and hits somebody on the head and kills them.

Who's to blame? The architect that told you that it was a prototype design? Or the house owner that keeps sweeping the problem under the carpet and not investigating?

Or the house builder who keeps using the sam

Re:riiiiiight

[lachlan76]

How about.....no.
It's like saying the guy knocking nails into the wood is at fault when they give him a badly designed nail. The DESIGN people are taking the blame. The guys on the floor don't do design.

Re:riiiiiight

[plnrtrvlr]

Ummmmmmmm, if you are building a bridge according to plans for some very innovative design, and the engineers certify that if you follow their plans exactly the bridge will work correctly and then the bridge fails because of an "unknown" in the behavior of the concrete, whose falt would it be that the bridge failed? You certainly can't rail against the guys "on the floor" and sometimes, no matter how much we think we know, there are things that slip through our comprehension until catastrophic failure occur

Re:riiiiiight

[digitalunity]

This is an obvious troll. If it isn't a troll...

If you can't bring yourself to read the article, at least try to comprehend the article summary before making blanket accusations. That last sentence you tacked on the end of your post references 'functional thinking'. I suggest you try it sometime.

Re:riiiiiight

[Anonymous Coward]

Murderers? schoolyard bullys? I hate PC too, but I don't see how your example applies here.

If you have a job at NASA, I would guess that the procedurs put in place to perform a task such as gluing foam to the shuttle are followed exactly how you were trained to do it.

I think the engineer(s) that developed the process of sticking foam to the shuttle should be looked at before those that do what they were instructed to do by the engineers..

Perhaps budget constraints didn't allow them to thoroughly test the

Re:Yup

[Grym]

And those shuttle crews always knew that. The shuttle couldn't somehow 'magicly' be safer to launch and use than unmanned spacecrafts.

Now wait just a minute. Is spaceflight dangerous? Yes, of course. But did it have to be THAT dangerous? NO!

We're not talking magic, just some basic common sense. NASA, before the time of the accident, was an even more bureaucratic mess than it is now. Thousands of safety waivers were signed off nearly every mission. Engineers were "pressured" not to talk to manage

Re:Enviro-weenies at fault?

[SillyNickName4me]

> Is it not the case that they changed the formulation of the foam in an attempt to be "environmentally friendly"?

Could be...

> And that the foam did not have these problems when they used the original, non-green formula?

All that means is that they didn't test the new foam correctly.

> Political correctness is going to kill this country. It already killed those astronauts.

No, people not doing their job properly can be blamed for both.

Re:"There is no Foam", and Ray Guns. . .

[NarrMaster]

Wow, what shitty math. Ok, first you quote 400 km/h:
The 'Foam' couldn't possibly have been traveling at the 400 km/h when it struck the Columbia's wing, as claimed. Consider. . .

Then you quote 400 km/second:
The Shuttle lifter, while enormously powerful, certainly doesn't accelerate at 400 km/second.

I think we can all argree the shuttle doesn't accelerate at 400 km/SECOND.

That, and your accelerations are listed as velocities. Of course, the fact that air resistance could have played a role in a

Broken math and Fragile space craft. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

And yet, despite my regrettably broken math, you still managed to understand the logic behind what I was saying. So why bother splitting hairs? Or are you one of those who really can't get past the details to see the full picture?

As for air resistance. . .

Sure. Air resistance will of course affect the situation, but I really don't think it's that big an issue. Heck, as the NASA scientists were able to fire foam blocks out of cannons and blow holes in test materials to demonstrate their point, it would

Re:Broken math and Fragile space craft. . .

[virtual_mps]

You seem to be under the impression that space shuttle wings were not built to withstand massive sheer forces, (like atmospheric re-entry), and object impacts, (ice pellets, rain drops, birds, etc.,),

Correct. When they fly the shuttle back from its alternate landing location they have to avoid rain clouds because raindrop impacts really screw up the tiles. The heat resistent tiles are designed to withstand high temperatures, not impacts.

Re:Not about tiles. . .

[virtual_mps]

Fair enough regarding tiles, but it doesn't really address the point.

I think it addresses the point very well, which is that you don't know what you are talking about but do like to spout off on /.

The offending tile which fell hit a wing, which is designed to put up with massive sheer forces.

Did you just learn that word or something? You seem to really like saying "sheer forces". It's still unclear why you think the forces of a wing moving through air are the same as those involved in an impact.

Boeing

Re:"There is no Foam", and Ray Guns. . .

[InfiniteWisdom]

You are probably a troll, but I'll bite.

The problem was that air was trapped under bubbles in the foam. When the engines were fired the temperature suddenly went from liquid oxygen temperatures to several thousand degrees, causing the trapped air to expand and blow the pieces of foam off explosively.

Thats how the foam was travelling at supersonic speeds relative to the shuttle.

Re:"There is no Foam", and Ray Guns. . .

[Long-EZ]

This means that the relative speed of the foam when it struck could only possibly have been the same as the amount of increased velocity

What happens to a very draggy chunk of low density foam in a supersonic stream of air? It will rapidly decelerate, right?

Imagine you impale a cheap styrofoam cooler on your car's hood ornament and head out on the highway. At 70 MPH, the cooler pops off the hood ornament. What happens? Does it keep coasting along with little relative velocity with respect to the car? No. It smashes into your windshield at close to 70 MPH. Whether the car is accelerating or not has almost no effect on the outcome. It's the rapid deceleration of the foam that causes the significant relative velocity when it strikes the car. Only the relative velocity is important. Sorry the NASA engineers confused you by not suspending a block of foam motionless in the air and hurling a section of wing at it.

As for the bulk of your post, containing that half baked ranting, UFOlogy and conspiracy theories, I'd have to say you get the tin foil hat award for the rest of this century. I imagine you with your tinfoil hat, wrapped in tin foil from head to foot, in a titanium submersible on the bottom of the ocean. And the mind control waves still get through. All that trouble, and all you really need to do is...

UP YOUR DOSAGE.

Re:"There is no Foam", and Ray Guns. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

Imagine you impale a cheap styrofoam cooler on your car's hood ornament and head out on the highway. At 70 MPH, the cooler pops off the hood ornament. What happens? Does it keep coasting along with little relative velocity with respect to the car? No. It smashes into your windshield at close to 70 MPH. Whether the car is accelerating or not has almost no effect on the outcome. It's the rapid deceleration of the foam that causes the significant relative velocity when it strikes the car. Only the relative vel

Re:No, I'm New Here

[zoloto]

omg you rock!