Good Article on Columbia Break-Up

It was the cover article in the November 2003 Atlantic Monthly, and it's
very well written, very long and detailed by lay standards. I highly
recommend it to anybody interested.

John writes:

It was the cover article in the November 2003 Atlantic Monthly, and
it's very well written, very long and detailed by lay standards. I
highly recommend it to anybody interested.

It is available on their website:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/11/

including a special web-only part.

Elizabeth

cndc writes:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/11/

Thanks for the link. A very interesting couple of articles there.


Some comments on the main article and its subject:

He said that had photos of the Shuttle been allowed, the would have
shown the leading edge hole, while I've gotten the impression from
watching lots of C-SPAN coverage back then that the NASA managers
had reason to believe that photos would not have been able to show
the damage, and that the photos would not have shown it. (He did
mention that the managers had clearances for the photos while those
who asked for them did not, but that's only a supporting clue that
the managers might have known what the photos could do.)

I think he concentrated too much on the photo decision and the "wrong"
decisions during flight, while I'm not nearly as convinced as he that
there was much chance that anything useful could be done at that time.
Those decisions seem to me at worst simply wrong choices made in a
time of high stress and maybe even reasonable, and not a result of
arrogance and other flashy criticisms the author seemed to enjoy
flinging at NASA management from time to time.

He barely mentioned what I consider the more important failing: that
of finding the previous foam failures and damage to be fairly
unimportant and of low priority to get fixed, when there was zero
engineering on the ability of the leading edge to tolerate foam
strikes of any size, nor carefully estimate it's margins of safety,
simply because the margins had not yet been exceeded in previous foam
strikes. These were engineering decisions which should be inexcusable
as they should have been considered as standard operating procedure in
the ample time they had to do careful studies of their safety margins
related to possible consequences of continued foam strikes.

NASA higher-managment's failure was to not cause previously-noted
problems to be well-enough studied nor to devote a large enough
fraction of their budget to pure improvement and safety investigations
by teams with enough authority to make changes happen. The author did
note that NASA failed to learn much from Challenger and forgot much of
the rest, but he didn't delve into what they should have been doing
differently.

He said that had photos of the Shuttle been allowed, the would have
shown the leading edge hole, while I've gotten the impression from
watching lots of C-SPAN coverage back then that the NASA managers
had reason to believe that photos would not have been able to show
the damage, and that the photos would not have shown it.

That was when they suspected a small area of damage. Given the size of
the actual hole, that probably would have been visible, although there
are some doubts because of the necessarily low-contrast conditions.

Jan

Jan C. Vorbrüggen wrote:

That was when they suspected a small area of damage. Given the size of
the actual hole, that probably would have been visible, although there
are some doubts because of the necessarily low-contrast conditions.

Obviously, it was in the interests of the NASA managers to say that
imaging would not have helped.

Paul

Of course hypothetical questions about what would have happened if
something had been done differently are always uncertain. You can't say
that the hole would have definitely been seen if they had looked, but you
can demand that they do everything to find out, and then work with the best
information they can get, instead of deliberately closing their minds to
possibly useful information.

And the question of what would have been done if the hole had been seen is
even more controversial, since both possible answers open Pandora's Box.
If you decide there's nothing that can be done, because the only option is
an unrealistic rescue mission, then you're giving up without ever trying.
But if you demand that a rescue mission could have been mounted, then
you're assuming that a very low probability mission could have been
successful.

In the first case, you seem cold and uncaring, which is how Linda Ham was
labeled, having decided that there was nothing that could be done anyhow,
so why bother discussing it.

Remember that Apollo 13 was in a very difficult situation, with antique
technology and a lot farther from home, but some very creative NASA
engineers, "flying" by the seat of their pants, solved the problem. If
NASA had had the opportunity to try to find an answer, there's no telling
whether they would have succeeded or not. But the important thing is not
to give up without making an effort. They succeeded on Apollo 13, and NASA
aren't quitters.


(Gary W. Swearingen) wrote in
:

cndc writes:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/11/

Thanks for the link. A very interesting couple of articles there.


Some comments on the main article and its subject:

He said that had photos of the Shuttle been allowed, the would have
shown the leading edge hole, while I've gotten the impression from
watching lots of C-SPAN coverage back then that the NASA managers
had reason to believe that photos would not have been able to show
the damage, and that the photos would not have shown it. (He did
mention that the managers had clearances for the photos while those
who asked for them did not, but that's only a supporting clue that
the managers might have known what the photos could do.)

I think he concentrated too much on the photo decision and the "wrong"
decisions during flight, while I'm not nearly as convinced as he that
there was much chance that anything useful could be done at that time.
Those decisions seem to me at worst simply wrong choices made in a
time of high stress and maybe even reasonable, and not a result of
arrogance and other flashy criticisms the author seemed to enjoy
flinging at NASA management from time to time.

He barely mentioned what I consider the more important failing: that
of finding the previous foam failures and damage to be fairly
unimportant and of low priority to get fixed, when there was zero
engineering on the ability of the leading edge to tolerate foam
strikes of any size, nor carefully estimate it's margins of safety,
simply because the margins had not yet been exceeded in previous foam
strikes. These were engineering decisions which should be inexcusable
as they should have been considered as standard operating procedure in
the ample time they had to do careful studies of their safety margins
related to possible consequences of continued foam strikes.

NASA higher-managment's failure was to not cause previously-noted
problems to be well-enough studied nor to devote a large enough
fraction of their budget to pure improvement and safety investigations
by teams with enough authority to make changes happen. The author did
note that NASA failed to learn much from Challenger and forgot much of
the rest, but he didn't delve into what they should have been doing
differently.

John Schutkeker wrote in message . 48...
It was the cover article in the November 2003 Atlantic Monthly, and it's
very well written, very long and detailed by lay standards. I highly
recommend it to anybody interested.

That's quite odd, there's absolutely nothing pertaining to the
Boeing/TRW laser cannon, of Phantom Works, of achieving more from less
and of accomplishing things much faster.

The following is another extract of what's been posted, and
subsequently I'm receiving warm and fuzzy flak from all directions,
especially with anything moon related.

I believe Don Lancaster was way before myself with this sort of
reference to Einstein, whereas Einstein remarked; "Great spirits have
always met violent opposition from mediocre minds"

Thereby, in order to please those "mediocre minds", how about we apply
a little of Yull Brown's well documented and truthful physics
technology, along with a few modern electrolytic zirconium membranes,
just to see if we can't manage to create and/or extract pure h2o2
without getting ourselves blown to bits.

Since even Yull Browns efforts essentially further proved that "energy
in = energy out", as that which created the 2h2o2, if we continued
along the lines of what the original process created as Brown's Gas,
how hard could it possibly be for obtaining just plain old h2o2?

If energy in = energy out, thereby the process of creating, separating
and/or improving the purity of h2o2 should be worth the effort. After
all, the h2o2 along with a small amount of c12h26 should be just the
ticket for powering up the lunar LM-1 exploration bus, or of powering
the likes of a shuttle/airship explorer that could effectively
aerodynamic navigate itself through the crystal clear CO2 ocean of
Venus.

In either lunar or the Venus environments, the energy derived by the
IRRC engine(s) would offer an efficient solution that's relatively
clean burning, while obtaining a good deal of energy density, a key
element in doing business in such environments.

This page is partly about the applications of such energy for a good
cause, and/or as a result of achieving contact with others we need to
be aware of:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-interplanetary.htm

Whereas these following offer more on the LM-1 application:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-lm-1.htm
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-irrce.htm
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-h2o2-irrce.htm

This report is having mostly to do with the reasons why we need a good
mechanical energy solution for accessing lunar he3 before others do:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-lse-he3.htm

This unfortunate page is mostly about what went so terribly wrong:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/moon-04.htm

Brad Guth wrote:
John Schutkeker wrote in message
. 48...


?

Now I know why Brad Guth gets insulting posts. What the devil was he going
on about?

"Jesper Thomsen" x9jepHOSThomsen.mail.dk wrote in
:

Brad Guth wrote:
John Schutkeker wrote in message
. 48...


?

On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 14:06:02 GMT, in a place far, far away, John
Schutkeker made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Remember that Apollo 13 was in a very difficult situation, with antique
technology and a lot farther from home, but some very creative NASA
engineers, "flying" by the seat of their pants, solved the problem.

They had nothing to lose.