From Bill Harris:
In summary, it would have been easy to design the shuttle with crew escape
capability covering the vast majority of ascent/entry

I didn't think you could answer my question.

I didn't ask about ascent. I specifically asked about the stage at where
Columbia was lost.

I have addressed -107 type entry scenarios. If you don't like my
analysis, there are specialists within the field who can give you
their analysis as to how easy it could have been done.

I was at the library yesterday and was surprised to find the AvWeek
article titled "Crew Module Separated" (Sep-1-03,p31). This led me to
go back to the CAIB report to find the section where crew module
integrity was discussed: p77(of248) titled "STS-107 CREW
SURVIVABILITY". The report is very clear in the fact that it was well
after vehicle breakup that aerothermal loads finally caused the loss
of integrity of the crew module. This tells me that a module designed
for aerodynamic stability and given adequate thermal protection would
have survived (or at least *could* have survived).

It was deeply saddened to read...

"The death of the crew members was due to blunt trauma and hypoxia."

Death by hypoxia?! I hope this is referring to crew members who
weren't wearing their gloves/helmet. Now if it was a fully suited
crewmember who died from hypoxia, then I would find that exceptionally
disturbing. The report does not say how close anyone came to
surviving, but death by hypoxia requires a certain length of *time*,
which tells me that they (or at least, someone) may have survived the
debris of cabin breakup.

I am wondering about the possibility that following cabin breakup,
someone gets ejected out of their seat to go into a freefall. Imagine
then that after the long hot-to-cold freefall an altitude sensor in
the ACES automatically deploys their chute, to minutes later touch
down softly in a Texas field... only to find that this crewmember died
of *hypoxia*.

The fact remains, that if the thermal protection system fails (tiles, heat
shield, whatever you want to call it) during reentry, the spacecraft is toast.
Nothing can save it, or the crew.

We agree that the spacecraft is toast. As to the crew, CAIB stops
well short of saying what could have saved them. But they do say
this:

"The Working Group's results significantly add to the knowledge gained
from the loss of Challenger in 1986. Such knowledge is critical to
efforts to improve crew survivability when designing new vehicles and
identifying feasible improvements to the existing Orbiters."
(p77of248)

They do NOT say...

"Spacecraft and crew are toast so we aren't going to bother making
efforts toward designing a way to save future astronauts in similar
situations."


~ CT