What if they had known of the problem ?

Ok, this is all in hindsight.

What if, during Columbia's flight, they had announced that there was damage to
the tiles but that they didn't think it would cause enough damage to doom the
orbiter ?

So, all eyes would have been wide open during re-entry, hoping they would
survive, and be horrified to see its destruction.

But in the end, wouldn't NASA have come out of this with a much better image ?
The RTF technical requirements might have been the same, but wouldn't the
organisational criticisms by CAIB have been much milder because at least NASA
would have acknowledged the problem and not tried to ignore it ?

Since NASA's computer simulations would have shown this to be survivable, then
NASA wouldn't have had to go into heroic/emergency mode with the launching of
a rescue mission, or even risking an EVA to an area of shuttle not normally
accessible by EVA.

NASA may have been faulted for having a simulation software that had failed in
its prediction, but it wouldn't have been faulted for humans ignoring a problem.

Comments ?

Tom Yellow wrote:


Ok, this is all in hindsight.

What if, during Columbia's flight, they had announced that there was damage to
the tiles but that they didn't think it would cause enough damage to doom the
orbiter ?


Isn't that pretty much exactly what they said anyway?

They didn't know how badly, and they didn't know that they were looking in the
wrong place (ignoring the possibility that the farm even hit RCC, much less
whether foam could damage the RCC).

In the end, they didn't know. And some of the management acted like they did
NOT want to know. Because "nothing could be done about it anyway". That
attitude poisoned the atmosphere and made it into a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Engineers were swatted by management who wanted engineers to produce some sort
of rock-hard evidence there as a problem, not too unlike with the Challenger
accident when engineers dind't have rock-hard evidence that SRB's joints would
fail when exposed to too much cold (" My god Thiokol, when do you want us to
launch? APRIL?". Well, they didn't launch anything for three Aprils, plus a few
moth months). For Columbia, engineers ask for imaging, and management killed
that.

What MIGHT be a better what if to ask would be if management didn't have such a
fatalistic attitude of "we don't want to know because if it's as bad as it
might be, somebody decided nothing could be done even though no official
meetings have been held to determine any such thing".

What if there had been an attitude that if an orbiter was suspected of having
serious damage, it would be investigated with extreme vigor with an eye on
doing anything possible to try to resolve the problem, no matter how hard it
might be (and not simply hoping the problem was not bad or would just go away).


Even if that involved trying anything to do a repair that might survive to
bail-out altitude, or a rescue. But some in management seemed to be
pre-disposed to the notion that if there was ever anything seriously wrong like
that, they would just write off the crew in a "surprise" accident on re-entry
than play out the drama over a period of days or weeks (which thus robbed many
of the best and brightest of NASA the opportunity to try to save the crew).

So, when key people in management did not want to know, since their mindset was
"nothing could be done about it anyway", how could you expect NASA to know in
your what-if scenario? You'd have to at least delete that mindset, or play the
game with different people who were more of the Apollo-era mindset ("Prove
things are OK", rather than "prove things are not OK" mindset of Challenger
that dammit to hell popped up again for Columbia).

- George Gassaway

In all this discussion of imaging, one of the most important questions has
been ignored by everyone. Why not take the damn images the engineers
requested even if management was *sure* they would show nothing? Was NASA
afraid the Air Force would send them a bill that would bust their budget?
Get real ! Imaging, unlike the Challenger situation, would not have affected
any schedules or adversely impacted the Columbia flight. There is more going
on here than we are being told.

"Management didn't have the clearances to see the images"? What a crock! The
Air Force for several recent years has publicly discussed its imaging
capabilities. As one Air Force General put it "..we can read the lettering
on a basketball in orbit.."

Management knew it had a serious problem and hoped they could get away with
it. What is particularly sad is that Story Musgrave has stated that a space
walk to examine the damage would have put him nose to nose with the RCC
damage and "would have been the easiest spacewalk he had ever taken!". Of
course, what does Story know--the "experts" here have all the answers--all
negative. Geez.


"GCGassaway" wrote in message
...
| Tom Yellow wrote:
|
|
| Ok, this is all in hindsight.
|
| What if, during Columbia's flight, they had announced that there was
damage to
| the tiles but that they didn't think it would cause enough damage to doom
the
| orbiter ?
|

wrote:
"Management didn't have the clearances to see the images"? What a crock! The
Air Force for several recent years has publicly discussed its imaging
capabilities. As one Air Force General put it "..we can read the lettering
on a basketball in orbit.."

Have you ever considered the *possibility* that this is what they want you to
think but that in reality, the resolution is not so impressive ? From a
tactical point of view, it makes sense for an army to overstate some of its
capabilities since it will scare off enemies. And it also makes sense to
understate some of its capabilities to present the element of surprise.

The movies tell us US satellites can read the lettering on a basketball, but
we have no idea if this is overstatement or understatement.

If part of the military strategy is to keep everyone guessing as to the real
resolution of such images, then I could see it being a problem giving NASA the
absolute best possible resolution. It would probably take some sort of
executive order to force the military to comply with such a request.

What will he find out there? His destiny.

walk to examine the damage would have put him nose to nose with the RCC
damage and "would have been the easiest spacewalk he had ever taken!". Of





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So the Air Force conned Admiral Gehman and the CAIB as well? Interesting.


"T.Yellow" wrote in message
...
| wrote:
| "Management didn't have the clearances to see the images"? What a crock!
The
| Air Force for several recent years has publicly discussed its imaging
| capabilities. As one Air Force General put it "..we can read the
lettering
| on a basketball in orbit.."
|
| Have you ever considered the *possibility* that this is what they want you
to
| think but that in reality, the resolution is not so impressive ? From a
| tactical point of view, it makes sense for an army to overstate some of
its
| capabilities since it will scare off enemies. And it also makes sense to
| understate some of its capabilities to present the element of surprise.
|
| The movies tell us US satellites can read the lettering on a basketball,
but
| we have no idea if this is overstatement or understatement.
|
| If part of the military strategy is to keep everyone guessing as to the
real
| resolution of such images, then I could see it being a problem giving NASA
the
| absolute best possible resolution. It would probably take some sort of
| executive order to force the military to comply with such a request.

I read the report when it came out a while back and I noticed that the main
engines and SRB's had gimballed 40% more than on any previous mission due to
fuel sloshing in the tank. I think they said a wind shear caused the slosh
and I think they said it put a lot of stress on the forward attachment
point. I just recently started reading this news group. Does anyone think
this significant? Peter

"Lynndel Humphreys" wrote in message
...
What will he find out there? His destiny.

walk to examine the damage would have put him nose to nose with the RCC
damage and "would have been the easiest spacewalk he had ever taken!".
Of





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http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----

I read the report when it came out a while back and I noticed that the main
engines and SRB's had gimballed 40% more than on any previous mission due to
fuel sloshing in the tank. I think they said a wind shear caused the slosh
and I think they said it put a lot of stress on the forward attachment
point. I just recently started reading this news group. Does anyone think
this significant? Peter

"Lynndel Humphreys" wrote in message
...
What will he find out there? His destiny.

walk to examine the damage would have put him nose to nose with the RCC
damage and "would have been the easiest spacewalk he had ever taken!".
Of





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-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----

"T.Yellow" wrote in message ...

Have you ever considered the *possibility* that this is what they want you to
think but that in reality, the resolution is not so impressive ? From a
tactical point of view, it makes sense for an army to overstate some of its
capabilities since it will scare off enemies. And it also makes sense to
understate some of its capabilities to present the element of surprise.

The movies tell us US satellites can read the lettering on a basketball, but
we have no idea if this is overstatement or understatement.

Keep in mind here, though, that this is a situation where there is
going to be practically zero atmospheric distortion. If Hubble can
resolve Olympus Mons on Mars, I think the resolution at 500km or so
would be astounding. Military satellites are probably at least as
capable as Hubble.

Military satellites are probably at least as
capable as Hubble.

Besides hubble is OLD, imagine the improvements that must of occured since it
was launched. No doubt since it was based on a spy sat is was down graded a bit
so as to not give away how good they really were.

Some of the upgrades over the years likely gave them thos capabilties back