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MMT: "Any questions on that?" -- SILENCE



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 23rd 03, 11:16 AM
Robert Clark
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default MMT: "Any questions on that?" -- SILENCE

(ElleninLosAngeles) wrote in message . com...
...

on the 24th:
Engelauf: Um, other than that there is not a lot to report. I will say
that the crew did send down a note last night asking if anybody was
talking about an extension day. If we're going to go with that. And we
sent up to the crew about 16 second video clip of the strike just so
they are armed if they get any questions in the press conferences or
that sort of thing. We made it very clear to them, no concerns.
Ham: When is the press conference? Is it today?
Engelauf: Later today.
Ham: They may get asked because the press is aware of it. I?
Engelauf: The press is aware of it I know folks have asked me because
the press corp at the Cape has been asking. We wanted to make sure
that they are properly?.
Ham: Okay, next on the temperature. Um did they see an increase when
they exercised back there?

also on the 24th:
MER/Don McCormack: Okay, and also we uh received uh received the data
from the systems integration guys of the potential ranges of sizes and
impact angles and where it might of hit and the guys have gone off an
done an analysis, they've used uh they've used a tool they refer to as
"crater" which is there official evaluation tool to determine the
potential size of the damage um they went off and done all that work
and they've done thermal analysis of the areas of wherethere may be
damaged tiles uh the analysis is not complete there is one case yet
they wish to run but were just kind of jumping to the conclusion of
all that um they do show obviously there's potential for significant
tile damage here but, but they do not indicate that the thermal
analysis does not indicate that there is a potential
for a burn through, there could be localized heating damage um
obviously there is a lot of uncertainty in all this in terms of the
size of the debris and where it hit and angle of incidence and uh its
difficult
Ham: No burn-through means, no catastrophic damage and localized
heating damage would mean a tile replacement?
Don: It would mean possible impact to turnaround repairs and that sort
of thing but we do not see any kind of safety of flight issue here yet
in anything that we've looked at
Ham: No safety of flight and no issue for this mission nothing that
we're going to do different, there may be a turn around?
Don: Right, Right, It could potentially hit the RCC and we don't
indicate, other than possible coating damage or something, we don't
see any issue if it hit the
RCC so. Although we could again, although we could have some
significant tile damage, we don't see a safety of flight issue.
Ham: What do you mean by that?
Don: Well it could be down to the uh, we could loose an entire tile, I
mean and then the ramp into and out of that it could be a significant
area of tile damage down to the SIP {strain isolation panel} perhaps
um it could be a significant piece missing but um
Ham: Would be a turn around issue only?
Don: Right?*Some discussion going on the background, mic did not pick
it up clearly.
Ham: Right, okay, same thing that you told me about the other day in
my office, we've seen pieces of this size before, haven't we?
Mike Leinbach: Hey, Linda, we are missing part of that conversation.
Ham: Right
(Man's voice): Linda we can't hear the speaker.
Ham: He was just reiterating, it was Calvin {Schomburg}, that he does
not
believe that there is any uh burn throughs so no safety of flight kind
of issue, it'smore of a turn around issue similar to what we have had
on other flights. That's it? All right, any questions on that? Okay,
Vanessa?

on the 27th:
MER/Don McCormack: Yeah, Linda, on Friday I mentioned the thermal
analysis that we're looking at and I had stated that we had looked at
five of six areas. Just wanted to
let you know that we looked at the sixth location which was an area on
the main landing gear door. The Integration folks think this is a low
probability area as far as, you know,
maybe sustaining a hit there but we went ahead and looked at it. We
looked at????..
...




What I can't understand is if there were NASA engineers who had
doubts about this analysis why this wasn't communicated to the
managers making SAFETY decisions. You really can't blame the managers
if the engineers make bad analyses or other engineers who have
different opinions don't communicate them.

An excerpt from the CAIB press briefing on April 8:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A REPORTER: Washington Post. For Dr. Ride. I'm wondering, Dr. Ride,
in your interviewing and putting together this storyboard that you
were talking about on decision-making, have you come across anyone yet
who felt that his concerns about the condition of the left wing during
the mission or the need to photograph it were not listened to or given
short shrift.

DR. RIDE: We've now interviewed, I would say, most of the
engineering-level folks who were involved in the debris assessment
team and basically the team that was formed immediately after it was
realized that there was impact, to assess that impact. That team met
as a whole on, I want to say, January 21st. It might have been January
20th that this particular meeting occurred where they believed that,
coming out of this meeting, the concluding idea of the meeting was to
request imagery. Then they made an attempt to go through actually a
few different channels, and we're still tracing down exactly what
happened through each channel, to get the imagery taken.

They had what you can appreciate is real good engineering reasons for
wanting the imagery. You know, this is a pretty complicated process
that they go through. It was a large team, and it was a large team
because there are several steps that are required in this. You know,
the first step was just analyzing the video from the launch and
determining there was something that had come off and had hit the
orbiter.

So the first step was about how big is this piece. And that's the
photo folks. They give the size of the piece and location that it came
from to the transport folks, who then take a look at the aerodynamic
fields between the orbiter and the tank and say, okay, well, so where
did this thing probably hit and at what angle. There was a fair amount
of uncertainty in that. In fact, a large amount of uncertainty in
that.

So their responsibility was then to pass that on. You know, it
probably hit going this fast at this angle in that place, but they
couldn't pin it down and they didn't pretend to be able to pin it
down. Their job was to hand that to the impact people who would, you
know, say, okay, it was coming this fast, at this angle, so it created
this much damage. But they didn't really feel that they had accurate
input to make their assessment.

They would then hand off the tile damage that they calculated to the
thermal people, who would calculate the potential thermal damage to
the orbiter. So there was this whole string of engineers who were all
in this meeting together who all said: We need to constrain this
problem more. We need some more information. We need some more data.
We could use some images. Let's go request imagery.

Now the question is why didn't that request make it to the program
managers and up into the system. We think it's a little too early to
characterize all the different places where that broke down, but it's
everything from just missed communication, you know, to areas in the
system that might not have appreciated the importance of the imagery,
might not have appreciated what, in fact, it could give them. Just a
variety of different reasons. So it turns out that this is not a
simple story to be putting together, but that's about where we are at
the moment.

A REPORTER: Where was the meeting held and how many were in
attendance?

DR. RIDE: It was tens of people in attendance, and it was an
engineering meeting at JSC."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.caib.us/events/press_brie...ranscript.html



Bob Clark
  #2  
Old July 24th 03, 09:24 AM
Robert Clark
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default MMT: "Any questions on that?" -- SILENCE

(Robert Clark) wrote in message om...
...
MER/Don McCormack: Okay, and also we uh received uh received the data
from the systems integration guys of the potential ranges of sizes and
impact angles and where it might of hit and the guys have gone off an
done an analysis, they've used uh they've used a tool they refer to as
"crater" which is there official evaluation tool to determine the
potential size of the damage um they went off and done all that work
and they've done thermal analysis of the areas of wherethere may be
damaged tiles uh the analysis is not complete there is one case yet
they wish to run but were just kind of jumping to the conclusion of
all that um they do show obviously there's potential for significant
tile damage here but, but they do not indicate that the thermal
analysis does not indicate that there is a potential
for a burn through, there could be localized heating damage um
obviously there is a lot of uncertainty in all this in terms of the
size of the debris and where it hit and angle of incidence and uh its
difficult
Ham: No burn-through means, no catastrophic damage and localized
heating damage would mean a tile replacement?
Don: It would mean possible impact to turnaround repairs and that sort
of thing but we do not see any kind of safety of flight issue here yet
in anything that we've looked at

....

I really don't like McCormack's phrasing he

"they've done thermal analysis of the areas of wherethere may be
damaged tiles uh the analysis is not complete there is one case yet
they wish to run but were just kind of jumping to the conclusion of
all that um they do show obviously there's potential for significant
tile damage here but, BUT THEY DO NOT INDICATE THAT THE THERMAL
ANALYSIS DOES NOT INDICATE THAT THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR A BURN
THROUGH, there could be localized heating damage um obviously there is
a lot of uncertainty in all this in terms of the size of the debris
and where it hit and angle of incidence and uh its difficult"

Use of the double-negative is common but it is often confusing.
LOGICALLY what this phrase should mean is that the thermal analysis
people WERE ALLOWING FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF CATASTROPHIC DAMAGE.
However, from the rest of the statement I gather what he means is
that the analyses argues against catastrophic damage.
Nevertheless, I wonder if his phrasing here REALLY was giving the
actual state of affairs: the analysis could not in fact rule out
catastrophic damage to the orbiter. Perhaps this is straying too much
into speculation but perhaps subconsciously he did want to get across
the limitations of the analyses then completed or could be completed
given the data.
Linda Ham then jumps on the common English understanding of his
phrasing that it means there is was no catastrophic damage.
Then no one seemed to contradict that interpretation - unless some of
the unintelligible comments were from people who wanted clarification
on this point.



Bob Clark
  #3  
Old July 24th 03, 10:18 PM
Bruce Palmer
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default MMT: "Any questions on that?" -- SILENCE

Robert Clark wrote:
"they've done thermal analysis of the areas of wherethere may be
damaged tiles uh the analysis is not complete there is one case yet
they wish to run but were just kind of jumping to the conclusion of
all that um they do show obviously there's potential for significant
tile damage here but, BUT THEY DO NOT INDICATE THAT THE THERMAL
ANALYSIS DOES NOT INDICATE THAT THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR A BURN
THROUGH, there could be localized heating damage um obviously there is
a lot of uncertainty in all this in terms of the size of the debris
and where it hit and angle of incidence and uh its difficult"

Use of the double-negative is common but it is often confusing.
LOGICALLY what this phrase should mean is that the thermal analysis
people WERE ALLOWING FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF CATASTROPHIC DAMAGE.
However, from the rest of the statement I gather what he means is
that the analyses argues against catastrophic damage.


It appears to be a double negative as written. I suspect that, as
spoken, there was a pause after the first part, as in "But they do not
indicate that the thermal analysis ... [pause] ... (it) does not
indicate that there is a potential for a burn through." I added the
[pause] and the unspoken (it). Many people speak this way. They start
a sentence and revise it in real time. You pause, back up a few words,
and continue.

I'll be listening to the audio myself when I get some time this weekend.
Not exactly a little light beach reading

--
bp
Proud Member of the Human O-Ring Society Since 2003

 




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