What steps could have been taken to avert the shuttle disaster?

[sharkeeper]

well i dont think tile damage is something they could repair in space. I support if they though it was serious enough that they couldn't land, they could dock at the ISS, stay for a bit longer, until a replacement shuttle could be launched, and then abandon the first shuttle.

That's not possible. The last mission's orbit was too far from the required orbit to dock. There is nowhere near the energy and fuel present to make such a change. Additionally, the necessary gear for docking was absent.

Pretty scary isn't it? You really only have one chance to get things right, yet so many things can prevent this from happening.

Cheers!

 

[Gaard]

Any new developments on that guy from California who said he saw stuff breaking off the shuttle as it passed overhead?

Kiyup - They didn't blow it off. According to whatshisname....Dittemore(?)...they discussed it at length with their relevant personnel (engineers, safety peeps, etc) and concluded that it posed no loss-of-craft danger. That's hardly blowing it off.

For shame...all it took was 1 day of what if...crap put out by the media to get you badmouthing NASA and start finger-pointing.

 

[SoylentGreen]

Originally posted by: Gaard
they discussed it at length with their relevant personnel (engineers, safety peeps, etc) and concluded that it posed no loss-of-craft danger.

Yea, we're all so relieved to see how right they were.

I stand by my original post. Place the people responsible for the poor decision on TV in order they may be shamed.

 

[Gaard]

Originally posted by: Kiyup

Originally posted by: Gaard
they discussed it at length with their relevant personnel (engineers, safety peeps, etc) and concluded that it posed no loss-of-craft danger.

Yea, we're all so relieved to see how right they were.

I stand by my original post. Place the people responsible for the poor decision on TV in order they may be shamed.

Shamed for what?

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: sharkeeper

well i dont think tile damage is something they could repair in space. I support if they though it was serious enough that they couldn't land, they could dock at the ISS, stay for a bit longer, until a replacement shuttle could be launched, and then abandon the first shuttle.

That's not possible. The last mission's orbit was too far from the required orbit to dock. There is nowhere near the energy and fuel present to make such a change. Additionally, the necessary gear for docking was absent.

Pretty scary isn't it? You really only have one chance to get things right, yet so many things can prevent this from happening.

Cheers!

Exactly right.
The inclination of the shuttle for this mission was about 39 degrees. ISS inclination is about 52 degrees. So the plane change required is a minimum of 13 degrees, and that's only if you can wait long enough for J2 to perturb the respective RAAN (Right Ascension of Ascending Node) into alignment.

The equation for a plane change dV is:

dV = 2 V sin(theta/2)

Orbital velocity @ LEO is roughly 7 Km/s
So the dV would be about 1.6 Km/s

That's huge, and it's just the absolute lower bound of what would actually be required to rendevous with ISS.
Maybe I'll take a closer look at it at home tonight.

As for kiyup ... stfu until you actually know what the he|| you're talking about.

"A large piece of insulation breaks off hitting the craft when it is traveling several thousand miles an hour and the engineers blow it off?"

I haven't worked on the shuttle, but I work with guys that have. NOTHING gets blown off on shuttle missions. At least not by engineers (Chammenger was a political & management issue. The engineers told them not to launch, but even that was uncertain) They are perhaps the most anal retentive engineers an the planet.

They routinely perform analysis of this type of impact ... it happens fairly often. Their analysis is always conservative wrt the damage they actually observe when they get it back on the ground. That analysis said it was OK. Was that analysis wrong? Maybe. We don't know yet. We may not ever know. But they didn't "blow it off" by any stretch of the imagination, and its insulting to suggest that.

"Anyone watching that launch could see the jet of fire emanating from the solid rocket booster igniting the main fuel tank. "

So, what does that mean? Why was the SRB jetting out the side? What caused it to do that? Is it the primary cause, or a side effect? Is something happening somewhere else? You don't know jack sh|t from that video except one place out of many to start looking.

You can armchair quarterback all you want, but in reality, it's a bit more complicated.

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: Kiyup

Originally posted by: Gaard
they discussed it at length with their relevant personnel (engineers, safety peeps, etc) and concluded that it posed no loss-of-craft danger.

Yea, we're all so relieved to see how right they were.

I stand by my original post. Place the people responsible for the poor decision on TV in order they may be shamed.

Shame the best people in the business for making the best decision they could with the data and techniques available?
You are a complete a$$.

And even if they found a problem, there's damn little they could do about it beyond crossing their fingers and bringing it in anyway.

 

[SoylentGreen]

Originally posted by: ergeorge

Originally posted by: Kiyup

Originally posted by: Gaard
they discussed it at length with their relevant personnel (engineers, safety peeps, etc) and concluded that it posed no loss-of-craft danger.

Yea, we're all so relieved to see how right they were.

I stand by my original post. Place the people responsible for the poor decision on TV in order they may be shamed.

Shame the best people in the business for making the best decision they could with the data and techniques available?
You are a complete a$$.

And even if they found a problem, there's damn little they could do about it beyond crossing their fingers and bringing it in anyway.

The previous post you said they're the best people in the business, and you are right they should be.

The next post you contradict yourself saying they would be crossing their fingers.

Sorry, but you my sir are the complete ass, not me.

 

[Corn]

In passing interest about the shuttle program and space travel inself, for years I have known that the most heavy-duty tiles are needed on the nose and wingtips of the shuttle.
A large piece of insulation breaks off hitting the craft when it is traveling several thousand miles an hour and the engineers blow it off?

They should be shown on TV and shamed.

In passing interest about morons who think they've got a clue about anything, for years I have known that the most heavy-duty morons are needed to post here so that they may not be shamed in face to face conversation with their intellectual superiors.

A large piece of insulation breaks off hitting the craft when it is traveling several thousand miles an hour.

That's an interesting point, but one must also realize that the speed differential between the shuttle and the broken piece of foam was taken into account in when Nasa was attempting to assess the damage. It's not like the foam was moving at 0MPH while the shuttle was at mach 10. As a matter of fact, at the time the piece of foam struck the shuttle, its speed is just over mach 1. Not "several thousand miles an hour" our resident moron would have you believe.

That being said, I don't think that kiyup should be shamed on TV. He has done a pretty good job of shaming himself here.

 

[Sepen]

Originally posted by: HombrePequeno
I think the best way to have averted the shuttle disaster was to give NASA adequate funding to build a next generation space shuttle.

Yeah, this way the guys who build it could charge NASA $600 for hammers to work on it?

 

[SoylentGreen]

Originally posted by: Corn

In passing interest about the shuttle program and space travel inself, for years I have known that the most heavy-duty tiles are needed on the nose and wingtips of the shuttle.
A large piece of insulation breaks off hitting the craft when it is traveling several thousand miles an hour and the engineers blow it off?

They should be shown on TV and shamed.

In passing interest about morons who think they've got a clue about anything, for years I have known that the most heavy-duty morons are needed to post here so that they may not be shamed in face to face conversation with their intellectual superiors.

A large piece of insulation breaks off hitting the craft when it is traveling several thousand miles an hour.

That's an interesting point, but one must also realize that the speed differential between the shuttle and the broken piece of foam was taken into account in when Nasa was attempting to assess the damage. It's not like the foam was moving at 0MPH while the shuttle was at mach 10. As a matter of fact, at the time the piece of foam struck the shuttle, its speed is just over mach 1. Not "several thousand miles an hour" our resident moron would have you believe.

That being said, I don't think that kiyup should be shamed on TV. He has done a pretty good job of shaming himself here.

Hmm, a 7 foot piece of foam insulation moving at MACH 1.

Do you even know the speed at mach?

Let me shoot a hard grain of rice at you traveling MACH 1.

Let me know how you feel afterward....

 

[Gaard]

repeat: Shamed for what?

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: Kiyup

Originally posted by: ergeorge

Originally posted by: Kiyup

Originally posted by: Gaard
they discussed it at length with their relevant personnel (engineers, safety peeps, etc) and concluded that it posed no loss-of-craft danger.

Yea, we're all so relieved to see how right they were.

I stand by my original post. Place the people responsible for the poor decision on TV in order they may be shamed.

Shame the best people in the business for making the best decision they could with the data and techniques available?
You are a complete a$$.

And even if they found a problem, there's damn little they could do about it beyond crossing their fingers and bringing it in anyway.

The previous post you said they're the best people in the business, and you are right they should be.

The next post you contradict yourself saying they would be crossing their fingers.

Sorry, but you my sir are the complete ass, not me.

YOU KNOW WHAT?
SOMETIMES YOUR ONLY OPTION IS TO CROSS YOUR FINGERS AND HOPE, NO MATTER HOW GOOD YOU ARE.
BECAUSE THE PHYSICS DOESN'T SUPPORT ANYTHING ELSE.

What would you have done differently if the analysis had indicated a potentially serious problem due to that impact?

With respect to the impact, you are working with extremely limited and inexact data in an area on the bleeding edge of several sciences (reentry aerodynamics, high temperature materials & adhesives, collision & damage mechanics, etc.).

And besides, they might be right. There is every possibility that this impact during launch was entirely unrelated to the actual failure.

 

[Dudd]

Sh!t happens. We're flying into space for Christs sake, bad things will happen. Unless the engineers were frantically trying to stop the launch but the beaurocrats stopped them, then I don't see what the problem is. I'm sure the engineers did the best they could, and it was simply bad luck that brought it down. We're not God, we don't have total control over what happens.

 

[Corn]

Hmm, a 7 foot piece of foam moving at MACH 1.

7 feet huh? Prove it.

Not only that, but once again you've proved you don't even have the capability to grasp the concept that the piece of foam that struck the shuttle was not at rest, but also travelling at a nearly identical speed and direction as the shuttle. It's more like the piece of foam hit the shuttle at a relational 100 MPH, not at mach 1.

Yeah, you're a real rocket scientist, eh? There is no way the extent of the damage could have been discerned with the evidence at hand: Grainy video of lift-off, no way for the crew to manually inspect, and satellite photos that were also inconclusive. The fact is that it wouldn't have even mattered anyway, the shuttle still had to land as there were insufficient supplies to last beyond a couple days.

This wasn't the first time the shuttle has been pelted with debris falling from the tank and boosters, it's also not the first time that tiles were missing.

If I were an astonaut in that situation, I would rather take my chances with a landing than starving and freezing to death.

Do you even know the speed at mach?

Yes you moron, I certainly do. It doesn't appear that you do.......

 

[MacBaine]

Originally posted by: Kiyup

Originally posted by: Corn

In passing interest about the shuttle program and space travel inself, for years I have known that the most heavy-duty tiles are needed on the nose and wingtips of the shuttle.
A large piece of insulation breaks off hitting the craft when it is traveling several thousand miles an hour and the engineers blow it off?

They should be shown on TV and shamed.

In passing interest about morons who think they've got a clue about anything, for years I have known that the most heavy-duty morons are needed to post here so that they may not be shamed in face to face conversation with their intellectual superiors.

A large piece of insulation breaks off hitting the craft when it is traveling several thousand miles an hour.

That's an interesting point, but one must also realize that the speed differential between the shuttle and the broken piece of foam was taken into account in when Nasa was attempting to assess the damage. It's not like the foam was moving at 0MPH while the shuttle was at mach 10. As a matter of fact, at the time the piece of foam struck the shuttle, its speed is just over mach 1. Not "several thousand miles an hour" our resident moron would have you believe.

That being said, I don't think that kiyup should be shamed on TV. He has done a pretty good job of shaming himself here.

Hmm, a 7 foot piece of foam insulation moving at MACH 1.

Do you even know the speed at mach?

Let me shoot a hard grain of rice at you traveling MACH 1.

Let me know how you feel afterward....

What the hell have you been watching? The insulation fell off while the shuttle WAS STILL ON THE LAUNCH PAD!

And why they hell are you so insistant that we put people on TV to shame them? You think they're having a little celebration right now because 7 people are dead? Jesus Christ dude, you are one of the most ignorant people I've met in a while.

 

[tweakmm]

Originally posted by: werk

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Why don't you head the space program yourself? Obviously you know more than those currently working on it.

Yeah! It's not like it's rocket scie....oh wait...

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: Kiyup

Originally posted by: Corn

In passing interest about the shuttle program and space travel inself, for years I have known that the most heavy-duty tiles are needed on the nose and wingtips of the shuttle.
A large piece of insulation breaks off hitting the craft when it is traveling several thousand miles an hour and the engineers blow it off?

They should be shown on TV and shamed.

In passing interest about morons who think they've got a clue about anything, for years I have known that the most heavy-duty morons are needed to post here so that they may not be shamed in face to face conversation with their intellectual superiors.

A large piece of insulation breaks off hitting the craft when it is traveling several thousand miles an hour.

That's an interesting point, but one must also realize that the speed differential between the shuttle and the broken piece of foam was taken into account in when Nasa was attempting to assess the damage. It's not like the foam was moving at 0MPH while the shuttle was at mach 10. As a matter of fact, at the time the piece of foam struck the shuttle, its speed is just over mach 1. Not "several thousand miles an hour" our resident moron would have you believe.

That being said, I don't think that kiyup should be shamed on TV. He has done a pretty good job of shaming himself here.

Hmm, a 7 foot piece of foam insulation moving at MACH 1.

Do you even know the speed at mach?

Let me shoot a hard grain of rice at you traveling MACH 1.

Let me know how you feel afterward....

Ok, precisely what does a 2.7 lb piece of insulation traveling @ M1 do to ceramic shuttle tiles when it strikes a glancing blow to them?
I personally have no idea, wouldn't even hazard a guess.
But you seem to have this locked down.
What would it do? Please be specific and give a detailed analysis on the potential impact of this damage on reentry operations

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: MacBaine
What the hell have you been watching? The insulation fell off while the shuttle WAS STILL ON THE LAUNCH PAD!

Actually, it was about 80 seconds into the flight.

 

[Moonbeam]

The foam and the shuttle were traveling at the same speed. It's like rolling over in your sleep and hitting yourself in the face with your hand while flying on the Concord. Oh man, I just got hit by a hand moving 2000 MPH. Geez did that hurt.


You should be asnamed, Kiyup, very ashamed.

 

[MacBaine]

Originally posted by: ergeorge

Originally posted by: MacBaine
What the hell have you been watching? The insulation fell off while the shuttle WAS STILL ON THE LAUNCH PAD!

Actually, it was about 80 seconds into the flight.

We must be talking about something else then... I've avoided the media the last couple days. Every video I've seen has a large peice of insulation falling off and hitting the wing while the shuttle was still on the pad. Anybody link to the new one?

 

[Yossarian]

Originally posted by: ergeorge

Originally posted by: MacBaine
What the hell have you been watching? The insulation fell off while the shuttle WAS STILL ON THE LAUNCH PAD!

Actually, it was about 80 seconds into the flight.

True, but the relative velocity would have been about the same.

 

[SoylentGreen]

Yea, well...

You can all sit and stew on why 7 hard working astronauts died.

I say after a years time.... (That takes anyone that is a government bureaucrat.)

They will say it's tile failure on the left wing that caused it. And something hit that wing on liftoff? Be for real.

This is just like Challenger, when anyone could plainly see the flame protruding from the solid rocket booster towards the main fuel tank.

Sit and enjoy.

 

[Corn]

The foam and the shuttle were traveling at the same speed. It's like rolling over in your sleep and hitting yourself in the face with your hand while flying on the Concord. Oh man, I just got hit by a hand moving 2000 MPH. Geez did that hurt.

 

[jteef]

they said on fox news today that the relative speed of the falling insulation was only 60 miles per hour.

 

[SoylentGreen]

Originally posted by: jteef
they said on fox news today that the relative speed of the falling insulation was only 60 miles per hour.

I retract all I said. Sorry. Fox news said that.