NASA Astronaut on Columbia Repair (and others)

In article , "Danny Dot" wrote:
In that case it shares it with every other large organisation. People just
protecting their jobs.


I have worked for several other large organizations, I found NASA to be the
worst. Recall two commissions have found a problem with NASA's culture.
Perhaps the problems is work place bullies. It is certainly worth a look at
in my opinion.

I dont know Ive always felt NASA's culture, although its always viewed as
being this oddly unique thing, can actually be found in any large organisation
that has an engineering or technical focus that involves a level of non
technical decision making.

because that will always produce a conflict where an issue that has to be
resolved technically, has to be decided by someone whose view might well be
more focussed on a balance sheet or a delivery date than why x is really such
a big problem

the difference with NASA is their mistakes make headline news , in a large
business the same kind of cultural mistake occuring might just blip the share
price for a day or two.


Aw

Craig Fink wrote:

Personally, I from what I've read in the CAIB, it doesn't look to me that
NASA seriously looked at the repair option before putting out the report.
Bags of water



For once and for all, forget the bags of water. Water at cabin
temperature will boil on contact with vacuum, and the bag will explode.
All you are going to end up with is a huge shower of small droplets
spraying all over the airlock's insides as soon as it's depressurized.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:
[...]
For once and for all, forget the bags of water. Water at cabin
temperature will boil on contact with vacuum, and the bag will explode.
All you are going to end up with is a huge shower of small droplets
spraying all over the airlock's insides as soon as it's depressurized.

I'm not convinced that a gallon ziplock, sealed, in the heavy-duty
gauge, would explode -- the bag would keep the vapor pressure under
control, and the water wouldn't freeze until it had radiated the heat
away, which may take some time.

It isn't until you try to *remove* the water from the bag that you'd
have flash evaporation, so your airlock may be safe, even if you can't
do anything useful with the water.

/dps

On Wed, 15 Nov 2006 20:46:01 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote
(in article ):


Craig Fink wrote:

Personally, I from what I've read in the CAIB, it doesn't look to me that
NASA seriously looked at the repair option before putting out the report.
Bags of water



For once and for all, forget the bags of water.

Now you understand why many of us finally killfiled him - he spouts the
same nonsense over and over again and just completely ignores
information to the contrary.

--
Herb Schaltegger
"You can run on for a long time . . . sooner or later, God'll cut you
down." - Johnny Cash
http://www.angryherb.net

JF Mezei wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote:

For once and for all, forget the bags of water. Water at cabin
temperature will boil on contact with vacuum, and the bag will explode.


Then why is it that water, flowing out of the toilet into space often
freezes up and clogs the outflow hole on the shuttle's surface ?


As the pressure drops the water boils into vapor - this causes it to
drop in temperature and freeze almost immediately:
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasc...1/gen01060.htm
The problem that they ran into with the toilet was that the water froze
as it was coming out the outlet, and each successive "flush" of the
toilet made the icicle grow as more water stuck to its surface and
froze, just the way that water flows down a icicle's exterior and
freezes on its end.

Obviously, if you put the sun on it, it will melt and evaporate.


It will take a while; it's slowly evaporating into the vacuum, and that
evaporation will cause it to cool down yet more.
In the case of the Shuttle's toilet icicle they ended up using the
Remote Manipulator Arm to knock it off after a couple of days.


And "explode" is perhaps a strong word. The bag would burst and let
evaporated water out well before any "explosive" pressures could build
up.


I probably should have said "rupture" instead. It would be a real mess,
as whoever is holding the bag is probably going to end up with ice stuck
all over their EVA suit.
There's a graph for figuring out its boiling point at varous pressures
he
http://designer-drugs.com/pte/12.162...nomograph.html

Pat

"Terrell Miller" wrote in message
news

the thing that still galls me about that particular Musgrave Maneuver is
that, the evening of the Columbia disaster, he was on CNN *bragging* about
doing that entry, going on and on about all the neat stuff he saw out the
window. At some point he must have seen Miles's face, or he just suddenly
realized what he was saying, because he got very serious all of a sudden,
and they cut to somebody else.

Trauma makes people do and say some very unfortunate things.

Some people just won't be told to wear a seat belt, I suppose

"Danny Dot" wrote in message
...

"Neil Gerace" wrote in message
...
"Danny Dot" wrote in message
...


I have worked for several other large organizations, I found NASA to be
the worst. Recall two commissions have found a problem with NASA's
culture.

True, but I think it's by no means unique or even unusual. I worked for a
large bank until recently, and it was just as bad.



If the bully process was as bad as it is at NASA, I can understand why you
don't work there anymore ;-)

I think the common thread is: nobody likes a smartarse.

"Because the NASA team could not verify that the repairs would
survive even a modified re-entry, the rescue option had a
considerably higher chance of bringing Columbia's crew back alive."
(CAIB Vol. 1)

In effect, the same guys who immediately after the diasater openly
stated "there was no way to repair" (they even said it that line as
the astronauts were still alive) did later the task to investigate
whether their statement was correct. They did it the NASA disaster
way: "inconclusive"

That's about all they could do, under the time constraints required by
the CAIB.

They had several months to do some tests. But they never published
what they did. They have this test facility and they were ordered
by Gehman to do it. So they did something. And no action in such
a facility without a report. This reports are somewhere. It seems
the astronaut corps got knowledge of its content and thats where
Sid Gutierrez statment about wet towels came from.



It seems the results were too
unwanted obvious:

Gutierrez is wrong. And it turns out, so were NASA's results from
the CAIB report. The three years of work that have gone into RCC
repair capability since that report have made clear that the
in-flight repair options for Columbia would not have worked.

What is your source? Was it you who said something the same line
over a year ago claiming some knowledge of NASA tests not yet
released? As we got no source it was dismissed as one of the many
Columbia Usenet myths. But maybe there is a report out now. I`m not
the only one eager to read it!

It depends on what you mean by "report". NASA has published no report
directly addressing Columbia repair on STS-107. But then again,
that's not necessary. What I did was to read the CAIB report, both
Volume 1 section 6.4 and Appendix D.13, and make careful note of the
assumptions both stated and implicit. Then I read on NASA's work on
RCC repair and entry aerothermodynamics since the CAIB report was
published. This work does not directly address 107, but the results
of it invalidate the assumptions from CAIB. It's as simple as that.

First, the results of the RCC impact tests at SwRI demonstrate that
the area around the hole in panel 8L almost certainly had surrounding
areas where the RCC was cracked and delaminated. Arcjet tests at Ames
and JSC demonstrate that RCC damage propagates rapidly along these
cracks. So it doesn't matter what the crew puts in the hole behind
the panel to try to stop the flow of superheated air; the damage will
quickly spread and allow the superheated air to simply go around the
repair.

In simple words you assume the hole in the RCC would grow up until
most the RCC was consumed and the ice block was no longer a blockade.
That would be a clear "no way to repair". But I doubt that the
delamination would spread that fast.

What data are you basing that doubt on?

The fact that NASA never mentioned this failure mode in the repair
option discussion during CAIB. NASA had to know for +30 years how a
crack in the RCC will behave during reentry. So the oxidation at
the hole of Columbia never was an issue because they did know it was
none.

As a matter of fact, you're
wrong. A 15-minute arcjet test on an RCC specimen with a 0.03" crack had
to be aborted a little after the five minute mark because the specimen
was eroding so fast.

Ok, let us look in this example. Show me the source. I`m very interested
in the details of this test.


Its a plasma oxidation of an
otherwise covered RCC layer on the open crack surface. The hole may
be 2 cm wider after reentry, but not 4 times its size. As you read
it otherwise somewhere (or you got that impression there), please
give me your source.

My source was a presentation on RCC arcjet test results given to the
Orbiter Return-To-Flight Working Group, sometime in the spring of 2004.

What we need it a transcript or the technical report on it. Look, how
can you be sure that the words you heard(!) had realy your interpretation
as the only one? Mayby it was a test of some proposed new RCC material
or of repair stuff or operational limits of the arcjet facility were
tested...

Keep in mind that we are talking about a very emotional issue in a
highly tragic event. All people (I too) would prefere the "there was
no way to save them" notion. But it was not true. And worse, this
notion was main factor in what killed them. You and a lot of others
(remember Phil Chiens postings here) were subconsciously searching
for arguments to let it be true. I think you were the first or even
the only one who found the delamination issue. As longer away the time
you heard it as more and more you were convinced on it. And others
here were happy to read it in the slight feeling it may perhaps be true.
Thats the way myths got spread, in Usenet and reality.



2. there was no evidence of BL trip related damage by CAIB, it
all developed at the RCC

There was no evidence *remaining*. The RCC panel in question eroded away
quickly; *none* of its lower surface was recovered. Likewise the lower
surface of the wing behind it. The CAIB noted there was very little
debris recovered from the left wing.

The remaining evidence was extern the shuttle. The telemetry showed
no indication of BL trip. The CAIB reconstruction of the destruction
process explained all evidence (even the lost bright glowing tiles)
by events just behind the leading edge.


3. required smoothness criteria for the shuttle was to protect it
against any thermal damage to the tiles. This was to keep the tiles
reusable. In case of an emergency some tile damage would be
accecptable.

It depends on where the damage is.

4. on other missions Columbia had several early BL trips without
serious damage or without any damage at all.

The earliest of those BL trips was around Mach 19, more than halfway
through the peak heating period. I'm talking about a BL that goes
turbulent from the *very beginning*, at Mach 25.

I have not checked this. But as others have pointed out, the heat load
at Mach 25 is rather low.


--
JRF

## CrossPoint v3.12d R ##

Danny Dot wrote:" Good information in you post. If you look up the
definition of narcissistic, you will get a feel for how NASA management
acts. It is impossible for NASA management to admit it has a problem
or has made an error. Classic narcissistic behavior. Any NASA
employee that attempts to
fix a problem is put down because "NASA doesn't have any problems". OK. I over state the situation, but it is almost this bad, and I do think NASA is getting better. Wayne Hale, the Shuttle Program Manager, is a good example. Mr. Hale has enough honesty to admit there is a problem. If NASA keeps putting people like him in possition of responsibility, NASA engineers might someday be comfortable speaking up against a management decision."

The point of Roger Boisjoly's information and affiliation with a
group such as onlineethics.org is for all of us to benefit from his
personal story to stop the launch of challenger, and prevent the
tragedy that occurred jan 28 1986. Boisjoly, his engineering colleages
and low level managers encountered much frustration from the fact they
did not have the power or authority to make nasa upper management heed
the warnings prior to the tragic launch of sts-51l, or in the post
tragedy time frame to investigate if boijolys recommendations to
correct nasa's upper management problems were valid. Boisjoly
basically feels his congressional testimony titled "Nasa's midlife
crisis, a context for change" presented to the congressional
subcomiitee of space and science technology of 1991, (along with a
former ceo of martin marreita, and one of the founders of hp), was not
utilized, acted upon, an experience that has left him rather frustrated
with nasa, and congress (a felling some of you have shared on this
thread). Roger Boijolys point to bring a bout a change in nasa
policies, was to make upper management crimmanly responsible for their
decisions (if found to be negligent), as to prevent non-ethical forces
influencing decisions, such as what happened in the case of management
choosing to launch challenger the morning of jan 28 1986, inspite of
recomnedations not to launch by Boisjoly and his colleages.

please see below the interesting information at onlineethics.org
pertaining to ethical engineering practices.

http://www.onlineethics.org/eng/index.html
"onlineethics.org: Engineering Pracitce
This section of the OEC contains cases, discussions, and ethical
guidelines bearing on the professional responsibilities of engineers.
These range over the engineering disciplines from civil to electrical
to biomedical engineering. The cases themselves vary significantly in
structure. Some are discussion cases that present open-ended situations
requiring a response. Some are descriptions of completed actions and
call for a judgment on an action taken. Many cases are brief, but some
detailed descriptions also appear. Most cases are at least loosely
based on real incidents, in order to give a realistic impression of the
moral problems that face engineers.
In Memoriam -- Roland Schinzinger (1926 - 2004)
Electrical engineer, pioneer in engineering ethics, and longtime
advisor to the OEC.
Cases
A variety of types of engineering cases that raise ethical issues,
including detailed historical cases, such as Three-Mile Island accident
and Roger Boisjoly on the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster,
International cases, NSPE BER judgements, Michael Pritchard's
Hypothetical cases with commentaries, and cases reported to the
IEEE."

Open sharing of information is crucial to improving everybody's
understanding of the universe around us.
Tom

"columbiaaccidentinvestigation"
wrote:

The point of Roger Boisjoly's information and affiliation with a
group such as onlineethics.org is for all of us to benefit from his
personal story to stop the launch of challenger, and prevent the
tragedy that occurred jan 28 1986.

Except - he didn't actually take any actual action to stop the launch
and prevent the tragedy. When push came to shove - he folded.

His actual message seems to be "you can claim an ethical victory even
if you failed". (Or to put it even finer "it does not matter if
people died, so long as you've done the minimum to salve you our
conscience".)

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL