On Friday, February 1, 2013 7:01:31 AM UTC-6, bob haller wrote:
On Jan 31, 10:50*am, Dean wrote:
On Thursday, January 31, 2013 9:31:45 AM UTC-5, bob haller wrote:
On Jan 31, 9:11*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...
On Wednesday, January 30, 2013 4:11:36 PM UTC-5, bob haller wrote:
ok to make it clear you believe that if anyone dies in space its best
to not attempt recovery of their body?
the challenger bodies and crew compartment were in deep water off the
coast......
but its ok to recover gus grissoms mercury capsule that sunk so long
ago in very deep water?

Do you have problems with common sense? *Which is easier? *Recovering a body from the moon or one in water off the coast of FL? *Really, Bob, you need to think a bit deeper sometimes.

It's clear that Bob is out of his depth.
snip
really look at the efforts today to recover remains from korea or
second world war. why spend time and money the 2nd world war familys
who knew the victims have probably mostly died of old age....

Jesus, Bob! *You really are denser than osmium, aren't you?

well heres a connected issue, if nasa decides a crew is doomed to die,
should the crew be told?

say the columbia crew, should they have been informed before re entry
if nasa was certain of their dying?

Hi Bob. I find this very ironic for you to have asked that question on the very day of the 10th anniversary. I also find it odd that this anniversary went unacknowledged here (as far as I saw). But what I find most ironic about your question is that...

We already know the answer!

How can *anyone* look at that launch impact video and *not* think that there was a high probability that the vehicle was fatally wounded? Remember that we had a discussion here on this very forum 10 years ago just a few days after -107 had launched. Jim Oberg sent copies of the video to a bunch of us. We knew Columbia was in a world of hurt. NASA knew that Columbia was in a world of hurt.

Wayne Hale was *not* the hero. Yes, he got the awards and promotions, but he is the very same person who had chaired the AEFTP meeting where they analyzed the foam damage from STS-112 and announced that NASA was good to go, and that the foam threat was an "assumed risk". THAT is when he signed Rick & crew's death warrant. Worse yet, he leaves to KSC and out there kicks off this totally unauthorized scramble to get photos.

It was Linda Ham who made the tough call and decided to lay in the bed that NASA management had so thoroughly prepared. It was SHE who bit the bullet and turned off the photo request knowing full well that they had absolutely no plan of action if they were to get those photos and verify the damage.

Leroy Cain was not surprised in how that morning turned out. Charlie Hobaugh was not surprised. Everyone in that room who had seen the strike video must have been instantly aware. We can imagine that several of them had dreams about it the night before, or one of the several nights before. That goes for crew members as well.

So the answer to your question is 'yes'. NASA told the crew. They sent Rick the video. Rick knew exactly why his bird was falling apart around him. This is unlike John Glenn, who, if his capsule had fallen apart around him would not have had the pertinent facts.

We can guess that it is because of John Glenn that Rick was given the video.. People like Leroy Cain probably learned that story and told himself, "I'm never going to do that to any crew of mine."

The one question that I don't have the answer to is, "Who did Rick tell?" We can guess he would have told Willy immediately. Then I can imagine the two of them having a discussion between themselves about which other crew members they would share that info with, and when they would tell them.

The problem was that Steve Stich had done his best to sugar coat the news, making the situation sound as benign as possible. But again, who can look at that video and *not* think that they were in a world of hurt? Especially if you were riding on that bird and watching that video. Obviously Ilan could take it. But could someone like KC? Mike? Laurel? Dave? This was the tough call that Rick had to make. Who did he tell? I don't know. Here we are 10 years later and we may never know. If that had been communicated back to the ground, I did not see it reported by Gehman.

If you were commander, would you leave your crew, or certain members of your crew, in the dark? Or would you hold off on sharing that info for several days to ensure this would not affect their performance during their on-orbit tasks? We might guess that Rick held off for some days. We might guess that Rick put an extra layer of sugar coating on top of Stich's already thick coat. Can we imagine Rick gathering his entire crew and saying, "Here, watch this video"?

If that had happened, I think we would know about it - because it is very hard for me to imagine that the crew would have been directly informed straight away like this and that we would not have come to learn about it. Why?

....because that opens up the NEXT stage of should I or shouldn't I: Do you tell your family? *When* do you tell your family? If Rick had been direct with his entire crew, showing them all the video the same day he received it, then we can expect that several of them would have made the decision to share that with their families, and that those family members would have eventually told us.

And of course, even at the family level there are onion layers to peel. Steve tells Rick. Rick tells Willy. Willy tells his wife. And then his wife has to decide on if and when to tell the boys. Tell just the oldest? Or can the youngest handle it?

I don't know how far the info went beyond Rick. When bumping into kids of the crew I never asked, "Hey, did your dad ever let you know what was happening?"

Now here's the biggest irony I see in all of this, Bob...

I would actually expect an answer from one of the children to be something like, "Well, my mom told me, but I didn't really have any idea how dangerous it really was."

The reason why is because at EACH AND EVERY STAGE of peeling that onion, the truth got stretched a little bit - to the point that the information being passed along became USELESS.

And why is this ironic?

That is because it is the VERY SAME psychology that created the fatally struck orbiter situation in the first place. Long ago on this forum we had many conversations here about how this foam strike vulnerability was a totally manageable problem. NASA received funding to take care of it. There was an upgrade program intended to strengthen the Wing Leading Edges (WLE). Why did this upgrade never get implemented? Because at each stage of the risk assessment, prioritization and funding, the facts got stretched to the point where it ultimately became meaningless. The WLE upgrade got called the MMOD upgrade - meaning that it was intended to protect against Micro-Meteoroids/Orbital Debris - when EVERYONE KNEW that the biggest threat was the orange tank they were sitting on. The ET cam to watch this phenomenon got funded and implemented, but the upgrade that *mattered* got axed!

It got axed because the people reviewing the funding prioritization looked at this upgrade, now obfuscated into the alphabet soup of 'MMOD' and they correctly assessed, "we don't need to increase protection of the orbiter against micro-meteoroids and orbital debris - that is a very low threat".

Instead the sexy glass cockpit upgrade got funded. Glitz and glam, instead of safety. And who voted on this funding prioritization? People like Wayne Hale, Linda Ham, even the astronauts had their say. You know who one of the lead astronauts was for testing that cockpit upgrade? Willy McCool. Will any of his kids ever gain a realization of their dad's role in doing this to himself? Of how NASA did it to themselves? I doubt it.

But yes, we can imagine how their mother passed the word along to them in Jan '03 of how dad told her that Columbia had taken a little ding of foam during launch and how it probably meant nothing.

None of that will bring their dad back. You cannot unpeel an onion. But the cumulative distortions from each of those layers sure can make you cry.

~ CT