Lack of a Plan? WAS:( Columbia: A Secret Contingency Plan?)

Some secret.

What your describing is the a lack of a plan, and a sever lack of
understanding and faith in the ability of the people working for them to
come up with a plan. A few key managers in positions of power could not
conceive of a plan on how to make "jury rigged" repairs to a crippled
Orbiter, so they chose to ignore the problem. Worst, they forced everyone
working for them to ignore the problem by not looking at the massive damage
to the Orbiter leading edge and stopping every attempt to get the
information. Stopping the very people who would have come together,
brainstormed and figured out some "jury rigged" repairs that would have
saved the Crew and Orbiter.

When faced with a Dead Men Orbiting scenario, they chose to working on
Plausible Deniability instead of fixing the leading edge, something they
considered impossible, "and that's the way it played out."

Craig Fink




If you want to grill Linda Ham and the other managers of STS-107,
or to blame it on NASA communication errors, just wait a minute.
I see indications that perhaps something different happend.
All citations are from CAIB Final Report Vol. 1.


1. It looks like the managment considered the hit more dangerous
than the engineers later. They thought it was a ice/foam debris. Not
just foam alone like the engineers assumed.

e-mail January 17, 2003 4:03 PM:
"Just spoke with Calvin [Schomburg] and Mike Gordon (RCC SSM)
about the impact. Basically the RCC is extremely resilient to
impact type damage. The piece of debris (most likely foam/ice)
looked like it most likely impacted the WLE RCC and broke
apart. ..."

NASA liaison to USSTRATCOM (date unknown, Jan 24 perhaps):
"...The request that you received was based on a piece of debris,
most likely ice or insulation from the ET, that came off shortly
after launch and hit the underside of the vehicle...."

(The assumption that ice was involved was confirmed in the transport
analysis presented in Section 3 of the CAIB Working Scenario but only
mentioned in page 11-19.)

That ice causes more damage then foam alone is obvious. Serve damage to
the underwing tiles was the most probable scenario before the CAIB
investigation. The tile expert of the managment was Calvin Schomburg.
He is described by the CAIB as "a Johnson Space Center engineer with
close connections to Shuttle management."


2. Managment acted on notion "nothing could be done"

Jan 23 afternoon in private(!) talk to Sidney Rocha:
"Calvin Schomburg stated a belief that if there was severe damage
to the tiles, `nothing could be done.`"

Private(!) note, Jan 22, about imagery:
"Linda Ham said it was no longer being pursued since even if we
saw something, we couldn't do anything about it. The Program
didn't want to spend the resources."

CAIB conclusion:
In relating a rescue and repair scenario that might have enabled
the crew`s safe return, Section 6.4 grapples with yet another
latent assumption held by Shuttle managers during and after
STS-107: that even if the foam strike had been discovered,
nothing could have been done.


Today we know it was feasable to save the crew and the shuttle perhaps
too. But this was only by chance that Atlantis was close to launch and
the RCC instead of the tiles got hit. To repair a larger tile area was
much more difficult then the RCC.

Think for a moment the more probable case: large tile damage and no
rescue/repair launch opertunity. As an engineer you would do all to get
detailed damage assesment and call everyone for an idea to save the
crew. An open fight with the fate until realy every option is taken to
the end. That engineering way could not be done in secret. The situation
would leak to the press. An engineer could live with that. But what about
the nation? Imagine millions of youngsters closely viewing and feeling
this struggle for survival until a terrible end. Thats much more
hurting then what we had: a sudden accident without warning.

It is certain that from the begin of human spaceflight NASA has a secret
contingency plan on what managment has to do if a mission is doomed.
The main objective would be to prevent public awareness of the situation.
In most "sudden event" cases, like Apollo 13, this would be impossible.
But it would be possible if the event was long anticipated and direct
mentioned in the secret contingency plan. TPS damage by debris or
meteoride impact is such a case with low chances for repair or rescue.
It is possible that the plan then direct ordered the managment to discard
this low chances in favor of a public none-awareness. They have to
prevent any closer investigation:


3. Managment acted to prevent damage assesment

January 22, Debris Assessment Team:
"...there are good scenarios (acceptable and minimal damage) to
horrible ones, depend-ing on the extent of the damage incurred by
the wing and location."

January 22:
Schomburg, though aware of the Debris Assessment Team's request for
imaging, told Shack and Petite that he believed on-orbit imaging of
potentially damaged areas was not necessary.

January 23:
Just prior to attending the third assessment meeting, tile expert
Calvin Schomburg and Rodney Rocha met to discuss foam impacts from
other missions. Schomburg implied that the STS-107 foam impact was
in the Orbiter's experience base and represented only a maintenance
issue. Rocha disagreed and argued about the potential for burn-through
on re-entry. Calvin Schomburg stated a belief that if there was severe
damage to the tiles, "nothing could be done." (See Section 6.4.) Both
then joined the meeting alread in progress.

According to Boeing analysts who were members of the Debris Assessment
Team, Schomburg called to ask about their rationale for pursuing
imagery. The Boeing analysts told him that something the size of a
large cooler had hit the Orbiter at 500 miles per hour. Pressed for
additional reasons and not fully understanding why their original
justification was insufficient, the analysts said that at least they
would know what happened if something were to go terribly wrong. The
Boeing analysts next asked why the were working so hard analyzing
potential damage areas if Shuttle Program management believed the
damage was minor and that no safety-of-flight issues existed.
Schomburg replied that the analysts were new and would learn from
this exercise.



January 22:
Even though Austin had already informed Ham of the request for imagery,
Ham later called Mission Management Team members Ralph Roe, Manager of
the Space Shuttle Vehicle Engineering Office, Loren Shriver, United
Space Alliance Deputy Program Manager for Shuttle, and David Moyer,
the on-duty Mission Evaluation Room manager, to determine the origin
of the request and to confirm that there was a "requirement" for a
request. Ham also asked Flight Director Phil Engelauf if he had a
"requirement" for imagery of Columbia's left wing. These individuals
all stated that they had not requested imagery, were not aware of any
"official" requests for imagery, and could not identify a "requirement"
for imagery. Linda Ham later told several individuals that nobody had
a requirement for imagery.

What started as a request by the Intercenter Photo Working Group to
seek outside help in ob-taining images on Flight Day Two in
anticipation of analysts' needs had become by Flight Day Six an actual
engineering request by members of the Debris Assessment Team, made
informally through Bob White to Lambert Austin, and formally in Rodney
Rocha's e-mail to Paul Shack. These requests had then caused Lambert
Austin and Wayne Hale to contact Department of Defense representatives.
When Ham officially terminated the actions that the Department of
Defense had begun, she effectively terminated both the Intercenter
Photo Working Group request and the Debris Assessment Team request.
While Ham has publicly stated she did not know of the Debris
Assessment Team members' desire for imagery, she never asked them
directly if the request was theirs, even though they were the team
analyzing the foam strike.


Even without asking is was very obvious that the Debris Assessment Team
needed the imagery. And Lambert Austin told it Ham before. What she did
above was to ask only the higher managers about the origine of the
request. This people were not stupid. Everyone could point her to the
Debris Team. None did. They were all willing to play the game together
with Ham.

I cant imagine such a level of irresponsibility. But if they were bound
by a secret contingency plan they all had to behave this way. It seems
there were all about the same level of managment. Later one manager
for a moment tryed to break out of the bound:


4. Managment tryed to avoid any mention that damage could be serious


Tape recording of Mission Management Team Meeting January 24:

McCormack: (...) Although we could have some significant tile damage
if we don't see a safety-of-flight issue.

Ham: What do you mean by that?

McCormack: Well it could be down through the ... we could lose an
entire tile and then the ramp into and out of that, I mean it could
be a significant area of tile damage down to the SIP perhaps, so it
could be a significant piece missing, but ... [SIP refers to the
denser lower layers of tile to which the debris may have penetrated.]

Ham.: It would be a turnaround issue only?

McCormack: Right.


McCormack had in mind the estimates of the tile damage (like of Schomburg
1/22: "1 inch deep across two or three tiles"). He wanted some last action
to deal with it. A possible action would be a change in orbiter
orientation during entry to lower the heat load on the damaged wing. It
was mentioned somewhere in the news last months that it would be possible
but only of minimal effect. To get it he needed the damage to be a
"safety-of-flight issue." But Ham got him back on line. It seems the
managment wanted to cover up this exchange. Perhaps they were not aware
that a tape was running:

The Board notes that when the official minutes of the January 24
Mission Management Team were produced and distributed, there was no
mention of the debris strike. These minutes were approved and signed
by Frank Moreno, STS-107 Lead Payload Integration Manager, and Linda
Ham. For anyone not present at the January 24 Mission Management Team
who was relying on the minutes to update them on key issues, they
would have read nothing about the debris-strike discussions between
Don McCormack and Linda Ham.


Perhaps in the same way the managment at the Debris Assessment Team did
all to get a "no problem" notion out of their report. Thats a plausible
way how the famous Power Point presentation with its crude contradictions
happend.

If that scenario is true, if the managment was all bound by a contingency
plan, then they had no chance to do it better. Who is to blame? Such a
plan would be in the realm of National Security. It is designed to be
activated automaticaly and with some build in protections that it will
not be killed at the first try. Probably no even Shuttle Program Manager
Ron Dittemore could kill it. Perhaps NASA Chief Sean O`Keefe in agreement
with the National Security Council. Perhaps most to blame are some
retired oldtimers who some 20 years ago agreed to this blunder.
They agreed to rob their successors of a low probablity chance to rescue.
Imagine how their successors felt as they realized after the mission that
they had had this chance. Now they get grilled the rest of their life for
something they are not responsible for.

After I wrote this, it just got me now that the movie "2001", HAL and
the desaster with the Discovery crew - Clarks later explanation in "2010"
was rooted somewhat like the scenario above.


## CrossPoint v3.12d R ##

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 23:23:31 GMT, in a place far, far away, Craig Fink
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

Some secret.

What your describing is the a lack of a plan, and a sever lack of
understanding and faith in the ability of the people working for them to
come up with a plan. A few key managers in positions of power could not
conceive of a plan on how to make "jury rigged" repairs to a crippled
Orbiter, so they chose to ignore the problem. Worst, they forced everyone
working for them to ignore the problem by not looking at the massive damage
to the Orbiter leading edge and stopping every attempt to get the
information. Stopping the very people who would have come together,
brainstormed and figured out some "jury rigged" repairs that would have
saved the Crew and Orbiter.

When faced with a Dead Men Orbiting scenario, they chose to working on
Plausible Deniability instead of fixing the leading edge, something they
considered impossible, "and that's the way it played out."

Yes, I discussed the groupthink of this last February at my blog.

http://www.interglobal.org/weblog/ar...98.html#002098

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 23:31:41 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 23:23:31 GMT, in a place far, far away, Craig Fink
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

When faced with a Dead Men Orbiting scenario, they chose to working on
Plausible Deniability instead of fixing the leading edge, something they
considered impossible, "and that's the way it played out."

Yes, I discussed the groupthink of this last February at my blog.

http://www.interglobal.org/weblog/ar...98.html#002098

Extract from the blog:

"Comments
I think you have this analysis exactly right. Under the circumstances
of the Columbia mission, engineers would have to be able to make a
very strong case for catastrophic damage in order to justify any of
the various risky adventures that might have saved the crew or the
vehicle. And the ability to gather the information needed for the very
strong case simply does not exist."

Yes... to a point. But the ability to gather the information *did*
exist and so, probably, did the means to save the crew. By avoiding
the issue (was it seriously damaged or not?) the NASA Managers played
poker with the Crew of Columbia. FFS, it was their JOB to know what
was and wasn't possible... and if they didn't know, to ask someone who
did! The fact that they didn't know or do either was incompetent and
inexcusable and it makes my blood boil.

--
Dave