Columbia's Final Minutes in Detail 494
grub writes "This article on Newsday has an excerpt from 'Comm Check... The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia,' by Michael Cabbage and William Harwood describing the last minutes of Columbia's final flight in detail."
Hot Gas != Plasma (Score:5, Informative)
While original reports used the term "plasma", there's a good explanation at space.com's Columbia FAQ [space.com] that explains that the hot gas that entered the shuttle's wing was *not* "plasma", as defined by science:Not to be a science nazi, but there's an important distinction between sci-fi-sounding "plasma" and the mundane -- but still deadly -- "very hot gas".
Re:Hot Gas != Plasma (Score:3, Interesting)
Practically speaking, I don't think it makes a great deal of difference to the story. But it's the tangents that make sci
Re:Hot Gas != Plasma (Score:5, Informative)
We're trending off-topic, but I'm curious. As I understand (imperfectly), a gas becomes a plasma by becoming completely ionized at high temperature. But a Bose-Einstein condensate [wikipedia.org] requires a temperature very close to absolute zero, so that the particles' velocity approaches zero and the atoms superimpose (Wiki make um smarter! Ugh!). How would plasma fit into that phase transition?
Definition of plasma... (Score:5, Informative)
To be a plasma, the gas should have many free electrons (or ions) in each Debye length. There could be many more neutrals, just along for the ride, in the same space.
Most molecular gases become more or less fully ionized at around 10,000 degrees Kelvin (give or take a factor of four or so, depending on composition) since that's the temperature at which the collision energy becomes significant compared to valence electron binding energies, so most collisions can make new ions. So anything hotter than that is definitely plasma.
But even a fraction of a percent ionization is often enough to give you the nice bulk behavior of a plasma, because the ionized particles do their thing and drag along the neutral ones by collision. Depending on the density, it's probably reasonable to call the 8,000F (3800K) gases "plasma".
Bose-Einstein Condensates (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hot Gas != Plasma (Score:3, Informative)
Well, no.
First, Bose-Einstein condensates only occur at low temperatures when a significant fraction of the atoms sit in
Re:Hot Gas != Plasma (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, it's the difference between White Castle and Taco Bell.
Re:Hot Gas != Plasma (Score:4, Insightful)
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Re:Hot Gas != Plasma (Score:4, Interesting)
As I recall, this is how matter arrives at the plasma state
1. Start with some matter.
2. Suck out all the other gasses surrounding that original matter.
3. Seal the container.
4. Heat it up beyond the boiling point, maintain a constant volume.
5. Some of the liquid will become a gas as it boils off. The partial pressure mixture of gas and liquid will equalize and as more heat enters the system more of it will boil out of the liquid phase as gas, and the density of the gas will increase.
6. The pressure inside the container increases.
7. Keep adding heat. Eventually the density of the superheated gas will be the same as the density of the frothy liquid and the state of the entire volume will be roughly the same - this is called Plasma.
I don't recall it having anything to do with electrically charged particles, or electrons being stripped away.
I suggest that you consider foam (mental vision : put ice cream in a tall glass, pour root beer over it - the foam is the fluffy stuff on top
Consider the conditions of the re-entrant space shuttle : hauling ass through upper atmosphere. Friction of the atmosphere on the wing leading edges causing both friction induced heat and pressure. The metal that comprises the shuttle providing the 'matter' in step #1 above, is super-heated and pushed under intense pressure through cracks in the superstructure. Depending on the pressure and temperature, it could have possibly been 'plasma' as I understand it, or it could have been really hot molten metal (which when sprayed on you, feels a lot like plasma, I envision.)
It's not a plasma, something else (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's not a plasma, something else (Score:3, Funny)
Damn, there goes my marketing budget on next year's super gotta-have national defense weapon.
'Plasma weapon' is something the common people can relate to and congressmen will spend money on
'Supercritical fluid weapon' just sounds a little too phallic and borderline gay.
Damn. I may stick with my original definition of Plasma just for marketing purposes.
Back me up guys, if anybody questions it - you know the trut
Re:Hot Gas != Plasma (Score:3, Informative)
Your memory fails you. IAAPP, and in physics at least, 'plasma' always refers to partially or totally ionised gasses.
chl
Not "Insightful" (Score:5, Informative)
When you've got an object traveling very vast what happens? What happens when you move your feet across the carpet? Static electricity. What is static? Electrons stripped from one object to another.
Static charge accumulates when loosely-held valance electrons transfer from less to more electonegative atoms. (Electronegativity is a measure of an atom's tendency to attract electrons.) It is analagous but not identical to dissociation, which occurs in plasma formation. Dissociation is the complete stripping of electrons from the nucleus, even the tightly-held inner shell electrons, which do not transfer when you shock someone by scuffing your feet on the rug. Dissociation, especially of diatomic gases such as O2 and N2, the major components of the atmosphere, requires immense amounts of energy. N2, for example, dissociates around 9000K (~16,000 deg F). For comparison, graphite vaporizes at about 6000K (~10,000 deg F).
Static can be a huge problem in pipes that move large amounts of non-polar fluids. Guess what most gasses in the upper atmosphere are? Non-polar fluids. So, there is your ionized high velocity, high temperature gas. Plasma.
I don't know alot about the shuttle's design, but I'd guess that if you talked with some NASA aerospace engineers they'd confirm this phenomenon. It's got to be a factor with all very fast aircraft.
Static charge is not plasma. Plasma requires complete ionization, and static doesn't even come close.
Static is not a problem insofar as flight mechanics are concerned. It may be a factor for avionics, as much as it is for any electrical system, but that is outside my area of experience.
-Carolyn
A moment of silence (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A moment of silence (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A moment of silence (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A moment of silence (Score:3, Interesting)
The thought that they were still alive 26 miles up
Re:A moment of silence (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, I'd say it seems pretty likely that at least some of the crew were alive (possibly even conscious, depending on the g-forces in the crew cabin) up to the moment the cabin itself disintegrated.
*shudder*
In any case, I don't think there's any doubt that they knew what was happening to them...
We will never forget you.
SB
The complexity... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The complexity... (Score:5, Insightful)
From here until the end of the lifespan, there will be only a few trips. The odds of a problem are low enough that we'll probably get through those with no more accidents.
At this point it's like software: it's too complex to fix, so you start from scratch. I feel bad about that, just like I do throwing away mostly-functioning software, but it's got to go.
Complexity? Try basics! (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing that amazes me is the 1969 moon mission. Ever see the kind of equipment those guys had back then? Think about what kinds of computing power they had with them. Your car has more computing power than the Apollo mission modules.
Ask yourself this: Would you volunteer for a moon mission using the same equipment as they did in '69? From today's perspective, it'd be suicide! And yet, back then, that was the state of the art, and people did it. Amazing.
Re:Complexity? Try basics! (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact is that a moon mission today is impossible despite the rantings of the non-elected, intellectually challenged, presidential impostor, because the software and other complexity issues would make it cost far too much, take far too long, and probably suffer a BSOD.....
Another factor to con
Re:The complexity... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to sound cold here, but astronauts know the risks involved yet people line up to get into the programs. Space flight is a damn risky proposition but if I could get in, I'd be there in a second.
Discovery costs lives. Countless explorers drowned over many centuries in the quest for knowledge yet people kept getting on ships wondering what's over the horizon.
Re:The complexity... (Score:5, Insightful)
Those are the type of people I hope to run into in the afterlife. Those that died doing something, not of something.
Re:The complexity... (Score:5, Funny)
Chances are good that those skeptical, scientific people you mentioned would laugh at you for believing in an afterlife.
some details... (Score:4, Informative)
2. Clarence Dally was Thomas Edison's assistance with Xrays. Here's [psu.edu] a link.
Atlantic Monthly (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Atlantic Monthly (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Atlantic Monthly (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Atlantic Monthly (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be very informative if they could add all the existing amateur and telemetric film footage to what was being said in Mission Control during Columbias re-entry. Maybe even show the wreckage that had already reached the ground while flight engineers in Florida are still discussing what may be going on.
No Disrespect intended. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nasa won't learn (Score:2)
Re:Nasa won't learn (Score:5, Interesting)
What I have always wondered is: if they had known, could they have hung out at the ISS and waited for NASA to send up a rescue craft? The Columbia will not have had enough food or oxygen for any extended period of time, but the ISS should have had. A rescue craft coming up a couple of weeks later could have replaced both and taken the crew home.
No idea if this was feasable.
Re:Nasa won't learn (Score:3, Informative)
Also, when a shuttle mission is sent to the ISS they have to carry special equipment in the cargo area to actually connect the shuttle to ISS and transfer crew members. The Columbia obviously didn't have that kind of equipment along.
From what I understand, about
Re:Nasa won't learn (Score:3, Informative)
Actually the shuttle for the next mission was already at the pad and mostly prepped, the launch date was about a month away.
Step up the prep rate for that launch and put Columbia into survival mode (minimal power use, ration the consumables, etc) and they might have done it -- assuming they'd realized the problem right after launch rather than after a week in orbit squandering supplies.
Did you read the CAIB report? (Score:5, Informative)
Essentially this is a myth circulated by some NASA management apologists.
Re:Did you read the CAIB report? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Did you read the CAIB report? (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggest issue is the effort taken to change orbit. You are travelling at orbital velocity in one direction and then you want to change that direction by 20 degrees, which takes some work.
Thanks for the link. What is interesting is that if the Space Shuttle was declared irreperable, then the shuttle could also change inclination somewhat using the fuel earmarked for reentry. WHilst it cannot hope to get to the altitude of the ISS, it could possibly get into a more compatible orbit
Re:Nasa won't learn (Score:5, Informative)
No. Columbia was the oldest orbiter, and even though it had been refit and upgraded in many ways, it still had it's original airframe. Columbia was the heaviest of the orbiters, and unable to achieve the high orbit of the ISS. It was the only shuttle unable to make flights to the space station.
Even IF Columbia were able to achieve the altitude needed for docking, it was in an orbit that would take it nowhere near ISS. And IF it had been able to make it to ISS, Columbia did not have the docking module needed to dock to ISS. Without the docking module, the crew would need to EVA to get to ISS. Columbia did not have the spacesuits needed for this.
Columbia's ONLY option would be to wait for Atlantis, and Atlantis would have to be preped for launch in such a hurry that it's crew would be at extreme risk.
Columbia should have been retired a long time ago. We should have been using a 2nd gen shuttle by now. It may be sad to think that the shuttle fleet is to be retired with NASA's Mars goals, but in truth it was time.
I'm a big fan of the Space program, but NASA's claims that the shuttle fleet was designed to fly for 50 years should fail anybody's smell test. We don't use school buses for 50 years. Are we supposed to believe that they accounted for 50 years of metal fatigue when designing the shuttle fleet?
After Challenger NASA placed the odds for loss of a shuttle at 1 in 100. Those are risky odds. You wouldn't fly on an airplane with those odds.
The Shuttles never made the price of lauching satelites cheaper (it's primary goal) and it never made the turnaround cycle shorter than disposable launch systems.
It's time for NASA to get out of the trucking business and back to science.
Re:Nasa won't learn (Score:3, Insightful)
Even had it been launched as light as possible it could not have altered its orbit enough from shuttles nominal orbit to match ISS orbit & altitude. The OMS system simply does not have enough delta V capacity for such drastic changes in orbit.
Re:Nasa won't learn (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nasa won't learn (Score:4, Insightful)
In my opinion, best case scenario, you use spy satellites to take images of the left wing leading edge and belly on flight day 2. Upon finding damage, you decide the next day to attempt to scramble a shuttle with a crew of 2 (we can bring 9 back). I believe the estimation was that we could get a shuttle up in 10 days, but you're running a huge risk by forgoing the normal safety checks required before flight. Mission control would have the extra stress of flying simultaneous shuttle missions - never been done before. You have the added risk of multiple space walks required to transfer crews (don't be lead to believe that these are a walk in the park either). And to top it all off, you run the risk of losing your rescue vehicle to boot. Would it be the right thing to do? Probably. Gotta wonder what the outcry would be if you lost 2 vehicles and 9 people!!
You mention that Soyuz was at a higher orbit, which means more energy. But that doesn't mean we can "coast" to a lower orbit at a different inclination - any change in your orbital geometry would have to come from a burn of some sort.
Future shuttle flights will probably be restricted to ISS inclinations, even if it's strictly a science mission as opposed to an ISS assembly mission, to save the possibility to dock and hang out if an emergency is encountered.
I didn't think it was so bad until I read this... (Score:5, Insightful)
IIRC (if I read correctly) they were about 19 miles up when the fuselage broke apart... So this astronaut had about that far to fall before coming to rest on the ground.
I saw it over and over again on TV and thought, well, at least it was instant and there's nothing left... I was wrong and I now have deep sorrow for these individuals.
Re:I didn't think it was so bad until I read this. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I didn't think it was so bad until I read this. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I didn't think it was so bad until I read this. (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't make things any better to know that though.
Steve
Re:I didn't think it was so bad until I read this. (Score:5, Insightful)
Karma me down, but I'm just amazed how quickly information about Columbia's last moments is filtering to the media (and the lack of relative umbrage from family and pundits).
In contrast, it took years for NASA to admit that, yes, the astronauts aboard Challenger were most likely aware during their final descent, but that information was quickly coupled with admonishment not to dwell on it, out of respect for the families of the astronauts.
Re:I didn't think it was so bad until I read this. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I didn't think it was so bad until I read this. (Score:2, Insightful)
A very sobering thought.
Re:I didn't think it was so bad until I read this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I didn't think it was so bad until I read this. (Score:3, Interesting)
Although they've apparently already redesigned the way the foam is applied (or how it works... I forget) so this won't happen again, this and the description of the Challenger breakup both have that one point in common, as noted in the article: The survivability study concluded relatively modest design changes might enable future crews to survive long enough to bail out.
Am I the only one that finds those words hauntingly familiar? I could have sworn the very same thing was said when they finally puzzled
Definitely RTFA... (Score:5, Informative)
Survivability? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure how the crew can survive by "bailing out" of a doomed orbiter during re-entry (take-off is another matter entirely). Once the orbiter drops below a certain speed, a return to orbit is impossible anda very hot descent is inevitable. This "bail out" logic sounds like surviving an elevator crash by stepping out at the first floor to me.
Unless the crew module can gracefully decelerate to less than hypersonic speeds, exiting the compartment is instant death.
Re:Survivability? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Survivability? (Score:3, Interesting)
That is, equip the compartment with its own heatshield. And while you're at it, get rid of all the useless and dangerous surrounding stuff like wings etc. That is, build a conventional capsule like Soyuz or Apollo. Which is what they're planning to do, right?
Re:Survivability? (Score:3, Interesting)
Humans have free fallen from as high as 19 miles with nothing more than a pressure suite and a hypersonic drag/parachute system.
Re:Survivability? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, the forward RCS rockets, RCS fuel tanks [nasa.gov], GPCs, and avionics bays are located in the nose. That makes the nose the heaviest portion of that part of the orbiter, ensuring a nose down descent. If the thermal insulation was changed to let the crew compartment survive heating, and if the RCS rockets were powerful enough, and had enough fuel to retro fire the module to a sane speed where parachutes were usable, It might be possible. Though none of the shuttles systems were designed with som
The durable crew compartment (Score:3, Interesting)
For a system designed with virtually no abort capability it is interesting that that the crew compartment survived intact immediately after both shuttle disasters
Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Hats off to those brave souls.
bad management kills (Score:5, Insightful)
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. The folks at NASA could have seen this coming by listening to the engineers who wanted to get a closer look at the spots hit by the foam. The folks at NASA should have been watching for this type of situation if any attention had been paid to the follow up of the Challenger explosion.
It is simply not true that this tragedy was unavoidable and that there was no way to see this coming. The most complicated machine ever built was not knocked out of the sky by a pound and a half of foam. This was murder by management.
Re:bad management kills (Score:5, Insightful)
So every fatal car accident caused by untimely mechanical failure is "murder by manufacturer"?
Every precaution SHOULD be taken to prevent tragedies like this, but calling it "murder by management" is far too harsh a term that unjustly impunes the motives of NASA administrators.
Sometimes you just have to accept the fact that shit happens.
Re:bad management kills (Score:5, Informative)
It's murder by management if the engineers tell management "hey, this part isn't strong enough, we have to use a stronger part or some cars are going to blow up" and management says "nah, that'll cost too much, forget it". Ford Motor Company was in fact indicted for second-degree murder over the notorious exploding Pinto gas tank, after it came out that basically the above engineer-management exchange had taken place.
Similar exchanges took place before the Challenger explosion (engineers didn't want to launch until the O-ring erosion had been fixed, and management overruled them) and the Columbia crash (engineers wanted photos of the insulation damage so if necessary they could make a contingency plan, and management spiked the request). So those also fit the pattern of murder by management.
Re:bad management kills (Score:5, Informative)
Do check out the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report at http://www.caib.us/ [www.caib.us]. Or, after February 1st, go to the main NASA site [nasa.gov] and look for the links to the CAIB report.
Management and political leadership did kill.
I have a Chrysler minivan to sell you (Score:3, Interesting)
So every fatal car accident caused by untimely mechanical failure is "murder by manufacturer"?
There's a decent-sized step from "In this case NASA didn't exercise the proper degree of caution, and its culture seems to have quashed the concerns of engineers who were worried about this happening" and "Every untimely mechanical failure resulting in death is murder."
Early
Re:bad management kills (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not so sure. If you create an atmosphere of 'everything must be 100% safe', no engineer would ever approve anything, no astronaut would ever don a spacesuit.
It was human error, and a regrettable one... probably rooted in the difficulty of comprehending physics so far beyond our everyday experience.
Only 38% found... (Score:5, Insightful)
More than 25,000 searchers, who scoured a debris "footprint" that was 645 miles long, found 84,900 individual pieces, about 38 percent of the space shuttle.
Does this not make one wonder how much of the shuttle might still be "out there" waiting to be found, or perhaps sitting on display in someone's house? Granted, much of it would have been literally vaporized, however I think that would amount to far less than the remaining 62% of Columbia.
I heard on CNN that pages of Ilan Ramon's journal were found recently in Texas. A quick google news turned up this article on the Post. [nypost.com]
It has also been stated that remains from all seven astronauts were recovered, and that some of the organisms on the shuttle actually survived.
This all points to the possibility that there is still more shuttle out there, and that perhaps we could be finding Columbia piece by precious piece for years to come...
I'm a budgeteer ... (Score:3, Informative)
one thing i don't understand (Score:5, Interesting)
though, what could be done 81 seconds after beginning re-entry? anything besides acknowledge that you're going to die? if you level your course, instead of going down into the atmosphere will you just gradually burn up? I'm thinking, skim the outter atmosphere, since the air is thin it isn't having a drastic effect on the structure (compared with a few minutes later the change in atmosphere rips into the shuttle a lot more). skip out of the atmosphere and resume some sort of drift through space. try to control the drift so you're not hurtling into nothingness, although if your travelling at 1,568 mph maybe that is a little far fetched. then, assess the damage, and deal with it somehow (emergency rescue mission, repairs if at all possible?).
i am not a rocket scientist. but at what point of re-entry is it too late to do any sort of constructive abort?
Re:one thing i don't understand (Score:3, Informative)
The leading edge of the shuttle's wing is flat. Over that goes a series of reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) panels which form a smooth, aerodynamically-friendly shape. These RCC panels are shaped something like a V rotated 90 degrees. This creates a small cavity between the RCC panels and the leading edge spar of the wing, which is where the RCC panels are bolted on.
The bolts that hold the RCC panels t
Re:one thing i don't understand (Score:3, Informative)
For the same reason they don't make entire planes out of the material they use to make the "Black Boxes:" weight and cost. If you put sensors all over everything, your ship suddenly weighs much, much more, thus takes more fuel to launch, thus increasing the cost considerably. Besides, it's not very often that you experience catastrophic structural failure, and when it does happen (such as in the cas
Re:one thing i don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
Timely: Tomorrow is Challenger's 17th anniversary (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll be outside at about 1130am tomorrow, looking up at the skies as I do every year, thanking that shuttle crew for their sacrifice.
Expensive mistake = critical lessons (Score:5, Insightful)
Like Challenger's crew, the Columbia astronauts met their fates alone and the details will never be known.
The initial government line is always that that people die instantly. After the Challenger crew compartment was recovered, it surfaced that some of crew's PEAPs (Personal Egress Air Packs) had been activated. This lead to the debate on whether anyone was conscious prior to impact with the ocean, and if there was any improvements that could be made to escape such a fate.
It may seem morbid as first but spacecraft, unlike automobiles, aren't as easy to crash-test. This promotes learning as much as you can from the mistakes.
Unfortunately, its unlikely more meaningful debris will be recovered from the Columbia.
Really never thought it would happen again (Score:5, Interesting)
I've heard complaints about feeding starving people instead of exploring space, and that does sound compelling in light of the fact that there is so much human suffering, but I believe (as do many) that space exploration represents a greater destiny for mankind.
Maybe that destiny could be put off a few decades while we solve all the world's problems, but I don't want that long.
It's like that t-shirt my one trekkie buddy used to wear, "The meek shall inherit the Earth... the rest of us shall go to the stars."
It's lurid, but I love these forensic accounts (Score:2, Interesting)
We all die alone and nothing can change this fact. How our own lives will end is the ultimate question. Why wouldn't we all be interested in the minutia of how other lives ended. I put myself into
Where were you when this happened? (Score:3, Insightful)
May God rest their brave souls in peace.
Infuriating quote at the start. (Score:5, Interesting)
It takes s special breed of bureaucratic self serving bozo to describe this accident in the most bizzarre terms possible then say something like "I don't know how anyone could have seen that coming" when the truth is people DID see it coming and tried their darndest to stop it happening and long before this NASA had been running foam inmapct studies due to earlier strikes.
It's odd (Score:4, Insightful)
mercifully brief?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
IT was 2 minutes from the time all hell broke loos until the died! 2 freaking minutes!
Ever hold your breath for two minutes? While somebody you don't know is forceably holding your head under water?
Most roller coster last about 40 seconds.
Re:mercifully brief?!? (Score:3)
"Challenger's crew module had also broken away in one piece when the shuttle disintegrated during launch 17 years earlier. As with Challenger, the forces acting on Columbia's crew during this period were not violent enough to cause injury, and investigators believe the astronauts probably survived the initial breakup of the orbiter."
So basically after the shuttle disintegrated they most likely were intact and were able to observe themselves falling to their fate? I, too, find this hardly a "merc
The real tragedy (Score:3, Insightful)
The real tragedy is using this as an excuse to keep flying the shuttle and killing more astronauts. The US needs to develop a new vehicle ASAP. NASA needs to step up to the plate, admit that the shuttle is too unsafe to fly as is and too old to reengineer, and get the money to develop its replacement on a fast track. A number of opportunities to develop a replacement and retire the shuttle were wasted before the loss of Columbia. NASA is unwilling to risk ending the shuttle program, their most prominent icon, and their fixation on it blinds them to other possibilities. There are ways to keep the ISS operating and astronauts flying without ever launching another shuttle. NASA just doesn't have the political will to pursue them.
The "studies" of in-flight repair are hideous examples of a cheap hack gone too far. It should be a joke. Who would ever voluntarily go through re-entry in a shuttle with a hand-patched wing?
Why won't NASA just admit that the shuttle is a first-generation vehicle and cannot be "fixed"? Why doesn't NASA recognize that Soyuz, and Apollo for that matter, prove that space flight can be much safer than the shuttle? When was the American way ever to throw people's lives away when there was an alternative?
The shuttle is just a piece of hardware. It has killed fourteen people. Walk away from it. Put the remaining three orbiters in museums. Move on.
Video & photo documentation archived? (Score:3, Insightful)
I know much of it is copyrighted by various parties but an event like this deserves to be properly documented online.
The CAIB Report (Score:3, Informative)
It's worth taking a look at, as it gave a lot of insight into how they used the recovered parts to determine exactly what happened. The graphs that show where each tile fell on the ground makes it very clear where the problem started. The sensor timelines also give clues about how the fire spread inside the wing. Internal emails are included to show how the problem was acknowledged but played down, and how many missed opportunities there were to have discovered the problem while still in space.
It's definitely worth downloading and at browsing through if you have any interest at all in the space program.
Ordinary Life vs The Dream (Score:4, Insightful)
(You may argue against that, but have *you* worked out a way to end hunger, to end want, to wave back the forces of nature? No, you haven't. And nor has anyone else. But people *have* worked out how to send people into space - to other worlds, even - and bring them back safely. But yet...)
People dying in the most complex piece of technology ever created, exploring the most dangerous environment known, when they have the backing of the greatest concentration of human brainpower on the planet, and it *could* have been prevented if the bureaucrats hadn't ignored the engineers and scientists... that depresses me. That tells me everything I don't want to hear about humanity. That tells me the Dream - of accomplishing the impossible, of pushing the boundaries, of going beyond mundane everyday existance and achieving what conventional wisdom believes cannot be done - is dead. After reading the Atlantic article, to find that fucking PowerPoint slides helped contribute to the destruction of the Columbia and the death of the astonauts when there was a chance they could have been saved... Jesus Christ!
It's not like I don't feel sorry if I hear that people have died somewhere. It's just that I feel more sorry if they die in space. I can't explain it, but the idea of space travel has always stirred powerful feelings in me... and to have them shattered by what after investigation turn out to be the most stupid of reasons (metric/imperial confusion, slightly too low temperatures at launch, a piece of foam I could hold in my hands) really hits me hard.
Hell, I was depressed all Christmas Day after learning that Beagle 2 had basically cratered. Maybe you might think my priorities are wrong if I care about the fate of a machine, but it's not just the hardware - it's the hopes of all the people who worked to create it, and hoped to discover something new about the universe, being shattered.
(Plus I want to get on good terms early on with our new robot overlords...)
Sorrow.. and how to deal with Plasma... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm acquainted with plasma, the ionized(electrically conductive) gas, and I've always wondered why they don't use magnetic fields to help steer the plasma away from the critical areas, ie. leading edge of the wings and nose. What would it take to generate such a field?
I can understand if there is a lot of power required, but couldn't some of it be taken from the supersonic plasma/airstream in some way, perhaps through MHD(MagnetoHydroDynamically)? In this way you would have a self balancing system, as the ship goes deeper into the atmosphere, where it's hotter, more power would be generated, and thus the field strength could increase?
I'm not a plasma physicist, but there would seem to be some merit in such an idea for re-entry craft such as the shuttle. Anybody of the appropriate technical persuasion have any comments about such an idea?
In memorium.
Re:May their souls rest in peace. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:May their souls rest in peace. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:May their souls rest in peace. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:May their souls rest in peace. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:May their souls rest in peace. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:May their souls rest in peace. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:May their souls rest in peace. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:May their souls rest in peace. (Score:3, Informative)
At least credit Sam Kinison. (Not like he's gonna do anything about it.)
Re:May their souls rest in peace. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:May their souls rest in peace. (Score:3, Insightful)
A million starving children is a Bad Thing, but it is not tragedy [theliterarylink.com]
Re:What is the purpose of this? (Score:2)
Rubbernecking is inevitable and pretty much unavoidable. Be thankful it wasn't as big of a train-wreck as they could have (and normally would have) written it up as.
Opportunity to reflect (Score:3, Insightful)
We can do the same.
Here is the purpose I find (Score:4, Insightful)
We see here how the astronauts lives depended critically on technology performing flawless during a complex series of steps, and begs us to wonder how many times in our own life we also depend on technology performing a flawless series of steps. This doesn't just have to be your car your job, but perhaps you live close to a nuclear power plant. One could easily imagine a series of assumptions in this environment leading to even more tragic consequences.
I will not go into my job description, and this is little in my everyday performance of it to remind me that at times peoples'
lives might depend on me having done it correctly and not having cut corners. We are all part of very complex web of interactions both personal and technological. Poignant descriptions of events likes these are a wake up call and a reminder we all have responsibilities to those around us to do our best everyday.
Re:Last heard (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a really kind, articulate thing to say. If you actually read the article, you'd realize the intensity and horror of the event. I'm glad that your life has been so blessed that you haven't experienced anything so terrible in it, but please be sensitive to the fact that people lost their lives. Maybe next time you should think about being more courteous about tragedies such as this?
Re:Breaking orbit? (Score:3, Interesting)
Right, which means you need two rockets. One facing forward slowing you down, they already have that (for re-entry, though I'm not sure if it is good enough for this task). It just needs more fuel than they currently carry with them. I doupt it is significant alone, but still quite a bit more, which means loss of payload capacity.
The second rocket is very tricky though. It needs to be powerful enough to keep them above the atmosphere, and slowly get more powerful as forward speed (orbit) slowed. Th