M wrote:
The official 400 page report in PDF format is he

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/298870main_SP-2008-565.pdf

It is the most detail accident report I have ever read in my life. I
had access to Air Force accident reports while I was in the service,
and I read AW&ST accident reports on airline accidents. This report is
very very detailed.


It's also 16.3 megabytes in size for anyone who downloads it, so be
forewarned.
I haven't read it yet, but even the table of contents gives some clue as
to the degree of detail it goes into, with investigations of the effects
of thermal heating on the soles of the astronaut's boots.
One section of the report may lead to a change in space suit design;
according to the report the non-form-fitting shape of the space helmets
led to the astronaut's heads violently impacting the interior of the
helmets as their bodies were flailed around after their upper body
restraints failed to lock into place as they were supposed to do when g
loads became excessive, so it might be time to either put more padding
in the helmet or come up with a soft inflatable type helmet. The
pressure suit helmet the Russians use on the Sokol-KV2 space suit during
Soyuz ascent and reentry is partially inflatable, as it was on the G5C
suits used on the Gemini 7 flight.
One thing you could do is rigidly mount a padded helmet to the top of
the pressure suit so that it could be rotated around its neck ring, but
would keep the astronaut's head from moving around inside the helmet
except in rotation.
IIRC, aren't they using something like this already on race cars to
prevent broken necks in crashes?

Pat