Hmm, is it just me?

Read this in the Daily News today about the Columbia shuttle explosion:

"NASA now says it was wrong to discount damaged tiles in catastrophe"

"The loss of external tank foam material and subsequent damage to reentry tiles is a concern because it causes tile replacement costs to significantly increase; however, it is not a flight safety issue."

I'm not going to reprint the whole article, but all I'm thinking is: DUH!! As soon as I saw on the news that something fell off during launch, the first thing I thought was, "Well, there you go, that's probably what went wrong. If structural integrity becomes compromised, even slightly, it has the potential to destroy the framework of an entire structure."

It still amazes me that people always put monetary issues before the safety of human lives. If these geniuses who work at NASA couldn't see what I thought was obvious, then maybe they don't have any business making those kinds of decisions. Perhaps that sounds a bit harsh, but it's how I feel. Just my two cents!

Damon

Damon, I think there's several more points to consider on this issue:

1) During any launch, there are bound to be objects that strike the shuttle, including birds and small pieces that fall off of the fuel tank and solid rocket boosters;

2) Because it was a lightweight foam insulation, NASA engineers and scientists assumed that it would not have caused any damage (not taking into account the speed that the shuttle was traveling);

3) There were no visible signs of damage that could be picked up by any of the cameras;

4) A similar instance happened with the Apollo 13 mission when it was believed that the heat shield sustained damage, but the astronauts safely returned home.

All of those were factors that NASA took into account when they made the decision to continue with the mission and go ahead with the landing. It wasn't a hasty decision by any means . . . no decision can be when it comes to space flight and the risks involved.

Additionally, NASA is unable to watch any of the high speed films (the ones which revealed that debris did fall off the fuel tank and strike the shuttle) until after the vehicle is in orbit. By that point, it is far too late to abort.

At most, the crew could have gone to the international space station, and three of them could have used the Soyeusze (sp) "lifeboat" capsule to return back home. Again, that would have posed even more risk as the capsule isn't the safest in the world, plus the others (including the current occupants of the station) would have still been stuck up there.

I think the most important thing to consider is the fact that the shuttle has to re-enter the atmosphere at a specific angle in order to evenly distribute the heat throughout the tiles on the bottom of the orbiter. If the angle is too shallow or too steep, or if there is some rotation, it could cause an uneven heating along the tiles . . . far beyond the limits, which could lead to the disaster like what happened on Saturday.

It's been noted already that the shuttle was in the process of performing banking maneuvers, a typical movement used to slow down prior to landing, as it passed over Texas. Also, at the same time, they had reached the point in the re-entry process where the heat and the stress would have been at the highest levels.

As you can probably see, this is a very complex issue and there probably won't be any easy answers.

Just sharing some of the stuff I've heard!

;-)
Stephanie