Scott M. Kozel
July 23rd 03, 03:18 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/22/national/22CND-SHUT.html?hp
"NASA Team Believed Foam Could Not Damage Space Shuttle"
_New York Times_ - July 22, 2003
The team managing the final mission of the shuttle Columbia was so
convinced that foam insulation could not seriously damage the spacecraft
that they quickly dismissed the issue, transcripts of the team's
meetings released today by NASA show.
Linda Ham, the chairwoman of the Mission Management Team, cut off a NASA
engineering manager, Don L. McCormack Jr., at a meeting on Jan. 24 while
he was discussing the uncertainties and unknown risks from the piece of
foam that struck the shuttle some 80 seconds into the launch. Ms. Ham
repeatedly stressed in the following discussion that the foam posed "no
safety of flight" concern and "no issue for this mission."
The transcripts show an orderly and efficient process of dealing with
the many problems that crop up during any shuttle mission, and they were
filled with jargon and occasional inside jokes.
It also shows a team that was not fully on guard: despite NASA rules
that the management team meet on a daily basis during missions, the
group held only five meetings during the 16-day mission, taking off for
the long weekend of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. An analysis by
National Aeronautics and Space Administration since the accident
determined that an attempted rescue with the shuttle Atlantis would have
had to be put into motion within the first four days of the mission.
"Nobody on this team believed that foam could hurt the orbiter, could
hurt the RCC at all," a person who has worked with the investigation
said, referring to the reinforced carbon carbon in Columbia's left wing.
"They had one fundamentally flawed understanding: that foam couldn't
harm RCC, and that colored everything else."
Mr. McCormack's presentation was based on an analysis from engineers at
the Boeing Corporation, which suggested that foam posed little risk to
the shuttle, despite the fact that the piece that struck the orbiter on
Jan. 16 was twice the size of any chunk that had ever struck the orbiter
before.
Earlier this month, when researchers investigating the accident fired a
comparable piece of foam at the spot on the leading edge of the left
wing that took the hit on Columbia, it blasted a hole 16 inches across
in the carbon composite panel, which is made from a brittle reinforced
carbon carbon..
NASA has scheduled a news briefing for reporters with Ms. Ham and other
members of the Mission Management Team later today. It will be the first
time that Ms. Ham has spoken publicly about the Columbia disaster.
The transcripts were released in response to requests by The New York
Times and other news organizations under the Freedom of Information Act.
They show that issues of foam come up in meetings as an item of far
lower priority than water leaks and temperature fluctuations aboard the
shuttle. The subject does not come up at all on the first meeting the
day after the launch, on Jan. 17, which took place before the foam
strike had been observed on launch films.
At the next meeting, on Jan. 21, Mr. McCormack described the incident,
saying, "as everyone knows, we took a hit on the somewhere on the left
wing leading edge." He said the impact was being studied for possible
damage.
Ms. Ham then discussed the fact that a similar incident of foam shedding
had occurred on a recent launch of the shuttle Atlantis and that no harm
had resulted. "The material properties and density of the foam wouldn't
do any damage," she said.
She then referred to the fact that NASA had decided to continue flying
the shuttles while the area that the foam came from, the bipod ramp,
could be redesigned. "`I hope we had good flight rationale the," she
said. "Really, I don't think there is much we can do," she said,
presumably referring to whether the decision to return keep flying was
valid or not.
"What I'm really interested in," she said, "is making sure our flight
rationale two flights ago was good."
In the Jan. 24 meeting, foam was discussed at greater length. Foam was
first brought up by Phil Englauf, a mission operations official, who
said he had sent a video clip of the foam impact to the astronauts so
that they could answer questions about it if it came up during a news
conference that day. "We made it very clear to them, no concerns," he
said.
Later, Mr. McCormack discussed the analysis from Boeing and said that it
suggested that there was no "safety of flight" issue" The analysis
focused on tile, not leading-edge panels, and Mr. McCormack tried to
explain that there were several unanswered questions that could mean
greater damage. "Obviously, there is a lot of uncertainty in all this in
terms of the size of the debris and where it hit and angle of
incidence," he began to say.
But Ms. Ham cut that line of discussion short, turning to a tile expert
in the room, Calvin Schomburg, and asking questions that seemed to
include the preferred answer. "Same thing that you told me about the
other day in my office; we've seen pieces of this size before, haven't
we?" she asked.
In fact, the piece was twice the size of any other chunk of foam
observed on previous missions. But the tenor of the meeting is one that
squelched concerns, the person working with the investigation said.
The Jan. 27 meeting took up the foam issue almost as a footnote, as an
engineer described further analysis of what might have happened if the
foam hit an area closer to the wheel well.
"There is no predicted burn-through and no safety of flight issue," the
engineer said.
"A non-issue?" Ms. Ham asked.
"Yeah, possibly," the engineer replied.
Foam did not come up at all at the final meeting of the team on Jan. 30.
[end of article]
"NASA Team Believed Foam Could Not Damage Space Shuttle"
_New York Times_ - July 22, 2003
The team managing the final mission of the shuttle Columbia was so
convinced that foam insulation could not seriously damage the spacecraft
that they quickly dismissed the issue, transcripts of the team's
meetings released today by NASA show.
Linda Ham, the chairwoman of the Mission Management Team, cut off a NASA
engineering manager, Don L. McCormack Jr., at a meeting on Jan. 24 while
he was discussing the uncertainties and unknown risks from the piece of
foam that struck the shuttle some 80 seconds into the launch. Ms. Ham
repeatedly stressed in the following discussion that the foam posed "no
safety of flight" concern and "no issue for this mission."
The transcripts show an orderly and efficient process of dealing with
the many problems that crop up during any shuttle mission, and they were
filled with jargon and occasional inside jokes.
It also shows a team that was not fully on guard: despite NASA rules
that the management team meet on a daily basis during missions, the
group held only five meetings during the 16-day mission, taking off for
the long weekend of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. An analysis by
National Aeronautics and Space Administration since the accident
determined that an attempted rescue with the shuttle Atlantis would have
had to be put into motion within the first four days of the mission.
"Nobody on this team believed that foam could hurt the orbiter, could
hurt the RCC at all," a person who has worked with the investigation
said, referring to the reinforced carbon carbon in Columbia's left wing.
"They had one fundamentally flawed understanding: that foam couldn't
harm RCC, and that colored everything else."
Mr. McCormack's presentation was based on an analysis from engineers at
the Boeing Corporation, which suggested that foam posed little risk to
the shuttle, despite the fact that the piece that struck the orbiter on
Jan. 16 was twice the size of any chunk that had ever struck the orbiter
before.
Earlier this month, when researchers investigating the accident fired a
comparable piece of foam at the spot on the leading edge of the left
wing that took the hit on Columbia, it blasted a hole 16 inches across
in the carbon composite panel, which is made from a brittle reinforced
carbon carbon..
NASA has scheduled a news briefing for reporters with Ms. Ham and other
members of the Mission Management Team later today. It will be the first
time that Ms. Ham has spoken publicly about the Columbia disaster.
The transcripts were released in response to requests by The New York
Times and other news organizations under the Freedom of Information Act.
They show that issues of foam come up in meetings as an item of far
lower priority than water leaks and temperature fluctuations aboard the
shuttle. The subject does not come up at all on the first meeting the
day after the launch, on Jan. 17, which took place before the foam
strike had been observed on launch films.
At the next meeting, on Jan. 21, Mr. McCormack described the incident,
saying, "as everyone knows, we took a hit on the somewhere on the left
wing leading edge." He said the impact was being studied for possible
damage.
Ms. Ham then discussed the fact that a similar incident of foam shedding
had occurred on a recent launch of the shuttle Atlantis and that no harm
had resulted. "The material properties and density of the foam wouldn't
do any damage," she said.
She then referred to the fact that NASA had decided to continue flying
the shuttles while the area that the foam came from, the bipod ramp,
could be redesigned. "`I hope we had good flight rationale the," she
said. "Really, I don't think there is much we can do," she said,
presumably referring to whether the decision to return keep flying was
valid or not.
"What I'm really interested in," she said, "is making sure our flight
rationale two flights ago was good."
In the Jan. 24 meeting, foam was discussed at greater length. Foam was
first brought up by Phil Englauf, a mission operations official, who
said he had sent a video clip of the foam impact to the astronauts so
that they could answer questions about it if it came up during a news
conference that day. "We made it very clear to them, no concerns," he
said.
Later, Mr. McCormack discussed the analysis from Boeing and said that it
suggested that there was no "safety of flight" issue" The analysis
focused on tile, not leading-edge panels, and Mr. McCormack tried to
explain that there were several unanswered questions that could mean
greater damage. "Obviously, there is a lot of uncertainty in all this in
terms of the size of the debris and where it hit and angle of
incidence," he began to say.
But Ms. Ham cut that line of discussion short, turning to a tile expert
in the room, Calvin Schomburg, and asking questions that seemed to
include the preferred answer. "Same thing that you told me about the
other day in my office; we've seen pieces of this size before, haven't
we?" she asked.
In fact, the piece was twice the size of any other chunk of foam
observed on previous missions. But the tenor of the meeting is one that
squelched concerns, the person working with the investigation said.
The Jan. 27 meeting took up the foam issue almost as a footnote, as an
engineer described further analysis of what might have happened if the
foam hit an area closer to the wheel well.
"There is no predicted burn-through and no safety of flight issue," the
engineer said.
"A non-issue?" Ms. Ham asked.
"Yeah, possibly," the engineer replied.
Foam did not come up at all at the final meeting of the team on Jan. 30.
[end of article]