Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Bersec · 02-02-2003, 09:26 PM

All the shuttles were designed with 70's tech. Some mods have been made on the computers and electrical wiring, but the basics are still very outdated (materials, hydraulics,avionics, etc.). Columbia was never equiped to dock with the ISS because it couldn't reach that orbit. It was basicaly a low orbit lab, with a very important mission.

Jackalope · 02-02-2003, 11:42 PM

EVA kit is not standard for all shuttle missions. The rig is heavy and takes up a lot of room. This mission had a double SpaceHab module in the bay, leaving room for very little else. And that's another bad thing, since there were only two double-length SpaceHab modules. Now there's only one.

Doing an EVA on the underside of the shuttle is extremely risky and they couldn't have fixed anything. I've talked to people who've worn those suits. You can just barely work the robot arm joystick in those gloves (think about it, the air pressure inside the gloves makes it hard to move since you have to compress it to make a fist). The astronauts all reported being bruised up from banging against the hard joints in the suits as well. You cannot do fine repair work in the current shuttle EVA suit. Even the newer ISS suit...sucks...to work in. This is another area where having funding cut really hurt the space program. There are better designs, but no money to fully test them.

That said, even if they had found something, the likely types of damage are either to the adhesive (which might not show on visual inspection even close up), or microfractures in the tiles (that wouldn't show without a big magnifier and better viewing conditions than can be had inside one of those helmets).

There had been 22 previous incidents of foam insulation hitting the shuttle on takeoff in the past. Up til now, none of them caused any problems. There may very well have been no way to tell if there was damage. And none of us will know until they finish collecting the debris and start structural analysis.

The one interesting thing will be if someone turns up still photos or video of the shuttle as it was passing over California. One of the Xcor guys in the Mohave said he saw what looked like pieces coming off when it passed over his position. But he was looking through binoculars, not a video camera, so we only have his (albeit very informed) opinion on that.

Shadowy Man · 02-03-2003, 07:42 AM

Jackalope:

I did see on the news some video taken in California by an amateur astronomer. It was early morning there and still dark, so there was good contrast between the bright Shuttle and the sky. There was clearly pieces falling off, or at least some kind of debris falling behind, the Shuttle.

I would imagine that considering the intensity of the heat on re-entry, and the kinds of maneuvering that the Shuttle has to do to slow down, that any kind of structural integrity loss would be devastating.

What people seem to not realize here is how little room for error there is in space flight. I did a quick calculation just now (and someone can check my answer) of the energy in an orbiting space shuttle and I get about 10^13 Joules, or about 2 kilotons of TNT equivalent - that's about 10% of the bombs dropped on Japan!!

Mageth · 02-03-2003, 10:48 AM

What people seem to not realize here is how little room for error there is in space flight. I did a quick calculation just now (and someone can check my answer) of the energy in an orbiting space shuttle and I get about 10^13 Joules, or about 2 kilotons of TNT equivalent - that's about 10% of the bombs dropped on Japan!!

Your absolutely correct, Shadowy Man. The shuttle, on deorbit, has to "return" all of the heat expended to lift it into orbit (minus what was used to lift the external tank and SRBs). So you might picture it as the belly of the shuttle facing the fury of the main engines and SRBs during the deorbit.

Another thing about deorbit to landing; they start their deorbit burn with the goal of 45 or so minutes later hitting a landing strip halfway around the earth. And they only have one shot to get it right; after they start, they're committed; there's no way to stop the deorbit or to make major corrections if something goes wrong. And they only have one shot at the runway; there's no circling the field in the shuttle.

There are so many factors, so many things that could go wrong during deorbit-to-touchdown that it's amazing to me that it's worked almost flawlessly during the previous 111 missions that made it to orbit, and "perfectly" up to now if you consider that all those previous missions made it to the runway). While some here have criticized the technology involved, the technology (and skills) involved in the shuttle are absolutely amazing, if you think about it. And if you have a system that's worked for so long without major problems, during which time you've ironed out most of the bugs, you don't just up and replace it simply because it's "70s technology." You identify the problem(s) that caused this failure and fix them. An older, well-tested and debugged system is often more reliable than a new system.

That said, I do think we need to take what we've learned from the shuttle and commit ourselves to developing a replacement manned vehicle system within the next decade or so.

I think many people get their ideas of space flight from sci-fi books and movies. Remember, this isn't sci-fi; they're limited by the technology on board and by the laws of physics and orbital dynamics. The shuttle can't behave like an airplane and go where it wants to in space or in the atmosphere, and the astronauts can't make spontaneous and "active" spacewalks to do amazing feats, as has been depicted in too many sci-fi movies (e.g. the ridiculous Armageddon). Of all the movies I've seen, 2001 perhaps portrayed EVA the best.

I don't think Columbia was even outfitted to perform an EVA. None was planned for this mission, and they don't carry any equipment they're not planning on using. And when the SpaceHab or SpaceLab is in the cargo bay, there's no way out for an EVA anyways, IIRC. I know the robotic arm wasn't on board.

Even if they could have rendezvoused with the ISS (which they couldn't), they couldn't dock with it when they did, or reach it in any other way.

If the launch damage ends up being the cause for this tragedy, then they were, unfortunately, doomed from T +80 seconds. Even if a visual inspection had been performed and revealed what could be catastrophic damage, there would be no way to repair the damage, and no way to escape an eventual attempt at deorbit and reentry. The only "benefit" would be that NASA, the crew, and perhaps the rest of us, would have known that they were probably doomed. I think the crew may have been better off not knowing, which allowed them to finish the objectives of their mission in peace.

Shadowy Man · 02-03-2003, 10:55 AM

And I didn't include the chemical energy in whatever fuel they might still have on board. My number is only kinetic plus potential energy.

Jimmy Higgins · 02-03-2003, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mageth
If the launch damage ends up being the cause for this tragedy, then they were, unfortunately, doomed from T +80 seconds. Even if a visual inspection had been performed and revealed what could be catastrophic damage, there would be no way to repair the damage, and no way to escape an eventual attempt at deorbit and reentry. The only "benefit" would be that NASA, the crew, and perhaps the rest of us, would have known that they were probably doomed. I think the crew may have been better off not knowing, which allowed them to finish the objectives of their mission in peace.

I completely disagree. People keep making a poor assumption here. That they had to come back! While it is hardly a simple solution and probably would lead to seriously issues, Columbia could, in theory, have been abandoned if a proper inspection was done. If a submarine surfaced and damage was noted properly that would lead to certain disaster, the captain certainly wouldn't have sent the boat back underwater to their doom. They'd stay at the surface and eventually evacuate.

This of course leads to questions. How many people could have been sustained on the ISS for a specific period of time? Would it have been possible to evacuate the shuttle? I'm sure that with the computers of today, they could have looked at the damage and modeled its effect. Perhaps keep four at the ISS and send only three back on the shuttle. If it is possible, keep Columbia in orbit long enough to be repaired.

I know most of these solutions seem out of reality, but I don't think they should be completely ignored unless they prove completely infeasible. I doubt however, the ISS couldn't of housed a few more astronauts. I mean, are the Russians capable of launching as well? Couldn't something have been arranged.

Abacus · 02-03-2003, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jimmy Higgins
This of course leads to questions. How many people could have been sustained on the ISS for a specific period of time? Would it have been possible to evacuate the shuttle?

The answer to these questions would not have mattered. The Columbia had no way to rendezvous and dock with the ISS.

Mageth · 02-03-2003, 11:54 AM

I completely disagree. People keep making a poor assumption here. That they had to come back!

Of course they had to come back. I'm not making a "poor assumption." It's a fact that they had no other viable options available. Adding to that, they had limited life support aboard, probably good for only a few more days, most certainly a week or less.

While it is hardly a simple solution and probably would lead to seriously issues, Columbia could, in theory, have been abandoned if a proper inspection was done. If a submarine surfaced and damage was noted properly that would lead to certain disaster, the captain certainly wouldn't have sent the boat back underwater to their doom. They'd stay at the surface and eventually evacuate.

Not a good analogy. There was simply no place for them to go if they abandoned ship. There's no life raft on the Columbia, and space is an immensely more hazardous environment than the open ocean.

This of course leads to questions. How many people could have been sustained on the ISS for a specific period of time?

That's a non-issue. The Columbia was incapable of rendezvousing with the ISS, and if it did, it was incapable of docking, and there was no other way to get from the shuttle to the ISS. Those are facts, not conjectures.

Would it have been possible to evacuate the shuttle?

No. There was no place to evacuate to.

I'm sure that with the computers of today, they could have looked at the damage and modeled its effect. Perhaps keep four at the ISS and send only three back on the shuttle. If it is possible, keep Columbia in orbit long enough to be repaired.

As said, the Columbia couldn't reach the ISS. They were in significantly different orbits. There's no "free lunch" in space. You have to burn fuel to reach a different orbit, and they didn't have enough fuel to do that and rendezvous with the ISS.

I know most of these solutions seem out of reality, but I don't think they should be completely ignored unless they prove completely infeasible.

They are (or were) completely infeasible. This was a real-life situation, not a sci-fi movie.

I doubt however, the ISS couldn't of housed a few more astronauts. I mean, are the Russians capable of launching as well? Couldn't something have been arranged.

Nothing that could have rendezvoused and docked with Columbia, especially not in the limited amount of time we had due to life support concerns. Columbia wasn't outfitted to dock with the ISS, Soyuz, another shuttle, or any other craft which might have been available. There was, AFAIK, no other way for the crew to exit the shuttle (e.g. EVA equipment), or for someone from outside to get into the shuttle.

Autonemesis · 02-03-2003, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jimmy Higgins
How many people could have been sustained on the ISS for a specific period of time?

It doesn't matter. Columbia could not have reached the ISS. They didn't have enough fuel to alter the orbit enough to attempt a rendezvous. Even if they did, Columbia was not carrying the ISS docking module.

Quote:

Would it have been possible to evacuate the shuttle?

Evacuate to where?

Quote:

I'm sure that with the computers of today, they could have looked at the damage and modeled its effect. Perhaps keep four at the ISS and send only three back on the shuttle. If it is possible, keep Columbia in orbit long enough to be repaired.

Columbia would have run out of fuel and entered the atmosphere uncontrolled long before any repair mission could be mounted. We do not even have the technology to repair the tiles in orbit. That would first have to be developed, before any planning for actually conducting such a mission could begin.

Quote:

I know most of these solutions seem out of reality, but I don't think they should be completely ignored unless they prove completely infeasible.

The alternatives were all infeasible. Even if the astronauts knew that the tiles were seriously damaged, they would also have known that sticking to the mission plan was their best hope to survive, and I am sure they would have chosen to attempt re-entry anyway.

Jimmy Higgins · 02-03-2003, 12:35 PM

Fine. I can accept all that.

It'd be nice if something could have been done, still. Sounds like all non-sequitors, though. I guess that's the hazard.

02-02-2003, 11:42 PM	#52
Jackalope Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Hayward, CA, USA Posts: 1,675	EVA kit EVA kit is not standard for all shuttle missions. The rig is heavy and takes up a lot of room. This mission had a double SpaceHab module in the bay, leaving room for very little else. And that's another bad thing, since there were only two double-length SpaceHab modules. Now there's only one. Doing an EVA on the underside of the shuttle is extremely risky and they couldn't have fixed anything. I've talked to people who've worn those suits. You can just barely work the robot arm joystick in those gloves (think about it, the air pressure inside the gloves makes it hard to move since you have to compress it to make a fist). The astronauts all reported being bruised up from banging against the hard joints in the suits as well. You cannot do fine repair work in the current shuttle EVA suit. Even the newer ISS suit...sucks...to work in. This is another area where having funding cut really hurt the space program. There are better designs, but no money to fully test them. That said, even if they had found something, the likely types of damage are either to the adhesive (which might not show on visual inspection even close up), or microfractures in the tiles (that wouldn't show without a big magnifier and better viewing conditions than can be had inside one of those helmets). There had been 22 previous incidents of foam insulation hitting the shuttle on takeoff in the past. Up til now, none of them caused any problems. There may very well have been no way to tell if there was damage. And none of us will know until they finish collecting the debris and start structural analysis. The one interesting thing will be if someone turns up still photos or video of the shuttle as it was passing over California. One of the Xcor guys in the Mohave said he saw what looked like pieces coming off when it passed over his position. But he was looking through binoculars, not a video camera, so we only have his (albeit very informed) opinion on that.

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02-02-2003, 09:26 PM	#51
Bersec Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Texas, USA Posts: 40	All the shuttles were designed with 70's tech. Some mods have been made on the computers and electrical wiring, but the basics are still very outdated (materials, hydraulics,avionics, etc.). Columbia was never equiped to dock with the ISS because it couldn't reach that orbit. It was basicaly a low orbit lab, with a very important mission.

02-03-2003, 07:42 AM	#53
Shadowy Man Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: A Shadowy Planet Posts: 7,585	Jackalope: I did see on the news some video taken in California by an amateur astronomer. It was early morning there and still dark, so there was good contrast between the bright Shuttle and the sky. There was clearly pieces falling off, or at least some kind of debris falling behind, the Shuttle. I would imagine that considering the intensity of the heat on re-entry, and the kinds of maneuvering that the Shuttle has to do to slow down, that any kind of structural integrity loss would be devastating. What people seem to not realize here is how little room for error there is in space flight. I did a quick calculation just now (and someone can check my answer) of the energy in an orbiting space shuttle and I get about 10^13 Joules, or about 2 kilotons of TNT equivalent - that's about 10% of the bombs dropped on Japan!!

02-03-2003, 10:48 AM	#54
Mageth Contributor Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Deep in the heart of mother-lovin' Texas Posts: 29,689	What people seem to not realize here is how little room for error there is in space flight. I did a quick calculation just now (and someone can check my answer) of the energy in an orbiting space shuttle and I get about 10^13 Joules, or about 2 kilotons of TNT equivalent - that's about 10% of the bombs dropped on Japan!! Your absolutely correct, Shadowy Man. The shuttle, on deorbit, has to "return" all of the heat expended to lift it into orbit (minus what was used to lift the external tank and SRBs). So you might picture it as the belly of the shuttle facing the fury of the main engines and SRBs during the deorbit. Another thing about deorbit to landing; they start their deorbit burn with the goal of 45 or so minutes later hitting a landing strip halfway around the earth. And they only have one shot to get it right; after they start, they're committed; there's no way to stop the deorbit or to make major corrections if something goes wrong. And they only have one shot at the runway; there's no circling the field in the shuttle. There are so many factors, so many things that could go wrong during deorbit-to-touchdown that it's amazing to me that it's worked almost flawlessly during the previous 111 missions that made it to orbit, and "perfectly" up to now if you consider that all those previous missions made it to the runway). While some here have criticized the technology involved, the technology (and skills) involved in the shuttle are absolutely amazing, if you think about it. And if you have a system that's worked for so long without major problems, during which time you've ironed out most of the bugs, you don't just up and replace it simply because it's "70s technology." You identify the problem(s) that caused this failure and fix them. An older, well-tested and debugged system is often more reliable than a new system. That said, I do think we need to take what we've learned from the shuttle and commit ourselves to developing a replacement manned vehicle system within the next decade or so. I think many people get their ideas of space flight from sci-fi books and movies. Remember, this isn't sci-fi; they're limited by the technology on board and by the laws of physics and orbital dynamics. The shuttle can't behave like an airplane and go where it wants to in space or in the atmosphere, and the astronauts can't make spontaneous and "active" spacewalks to do amazing feats, as has been depicted in too many sci-fi movies (e.g. the ridiculous Armageddon). Of all the movies I've seen, 2001 perhaps portrayed EVA the best. I don't think Columbia was even outfitted to perform an EVA. None was planned for this mission, and they don't carry any equipment they're not planning on using. And when the SpaceHab or SpaceLab is in the cargo bay, there's no way out for an EVA anyways, IIRC. I know the robotic arm wasn't on board. Even if they could have rendezvoused with the ISS (which they couldn't), they couldn't dock with it when they did, or reach it in any other way. If the launch damage ends up being the cause for this tragedy, then they were, unfortunately, doomed from T +80 seconds. Even if a visual inspection had been performed and revealed what could be catastrophic damage, there would be no way to repair the damage, and no way to escape an eventual attempt at deorbit and reentry. The only "benefit" would be that NASA, the crew, and perhaps the rest of us, would have known that they were probably doomed. I think the crew may have been better off not knowing, which allowed them to finish the objectives of their mission in peace.

02-03-2003, 10:55 AM	#55
Shadowy Man Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: A Shadowy Planet Posts: 7,585	And I didn't include the chemical energy in whatever fuel they might still have on board. My number is only kinetic plus potential energy.

02-03-2003, 11:54 AM	#58
Mageth Contributor Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Deep in the heart of mother-lovin' Texas Posts: 29,689	I completely disagree. People keep making a poor assumption here. That they had to come back! Of course they had to come back. I'm not making a "poor assumption." It's a fact that they had no other viable options available. Adding to that, they had limited life support aboard, probably good for only a few more days, most certainly a week or less. While it is hardly a simple solution and probably would lead to seriously issues, Columbia could, in theory, have been abandoned if a proper inspection was done. If a submarine surfaced and damage was noted properly that would lead to certain disaster, the captain certainly wouldn't have sent the boat back underwater to their doom. They'd stay at the surface and eventually evacuate. Not a good analogy. There was simply no place for them to go if they abandoned ship. There's no life raft on the Columbia, and space is an immensely more hazardous environment than the open ocean. This of course leads to questions. How many people could have been sustained on the ISS for a specific period of time? That's a non-issue. The Columbia was incapable of rendezvousing with the ISS, and if it did, it was incapable of docking, and there was no other way to get from the shuttle to the ISS. Those are facts, not conjectures. Would it have been possible to evacuate the shuttle? No. There was no place to evacuate to. I'm sure that with the computers of today, they could have looked at the damage and modeled its effect. Perhaps keep four at the ISS and send only three back on the shuttle. If it is possible, keep Columbia in orbit long enough to be repaired. As said, the Columbia couldn't reach the ISS. They were in significantly different orbits. There's no "free lunch" in space. You have to burn fuel to reach a different orbit, and they didn't have enough fuel to do that and rendezvous with the ISS. I know most of these solutions seem out of reality, but I don't think they should be completely ignored unless they prove completely infeasible. They are (or were) completely infeasible. This was a real-life situation, not a sci-fi movie. I doubt however, the ISS couldn't of housed a few more astronauts. I mean, are the Russians capable of launching as well? Couldn't something have been arranged. Nothing that could have rendezvoused and docked with Columbia, especially not in the limited amount of time we had due to life support concerns. Columbia wasn't outfitted to dock with the ISS, Soyuz, another shuttle, or any other craft which might have been available. There was, AFAIK, no other way for the crew to exit the shuttle (e.g. EVA equipment), or for someone from outside to get into the shuttle.

02-03-2003, 12:35 PM	#60
Jimmy Higgins Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Proud Citizen of Freedonia Posts: 42,473	Fine. I can accept all that. It'd be nice if something could have been done, still. Sounds like all non-sequitors, though. I guess that's the hazard.

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