New Columbia loss report out today

Derek Lyons wrote:

But then I've been in a semi dangerous profession where the chance of
getting killed was part of the allure - weaklings didn't make the
club.


Total fatalities in the US nuclear submarine force have been very low,
given the total number built and total number of hours spent at sea on
patrol.
Now, you get aboard a _Russian_ nuclear sub sometime. ;-)
Their newest missile sub hasn't even started sea trials yet, and already
needs repairs to its reactor:
http://www.en.rian.ru/russia/20081230/119234378.html
But you are right about the similarity between subs and the Shuttle;
both operate in environments very hostile to life, and in both cases you
can have something go very wrong in a big hurry that will be inevitably
fatal no matter what you do.
That collision of the San Francisco (SSN-711) with the undersea mountain
was a very close call:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US...drydock_Sm.jpg
I was just looking at that photo... that damage went clean back to the
port torpedo tube doors.
They were lucky the tubes weren't driven right back into the torpedo
room, flooding it... and probably the whole sub in short order after
that given the depth they were at when the collision occurred.

Pat

On Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:14:59 -0800, "Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary
Shafer)" wrote:

On Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:32:11 -0800 (PST), Stuf4
wrote:


How's this for a major epiphany... If you don't design your
spacecraft with any way for your crew to survive a huge range of
mishaps, when those mishaps occur then the crew is expected to die.

Acceptable risks. The nation has changed its attitude toward what is
acceptable since the Orbiter was designed, including people here, but
those of us in the community mostly haven't. The STS was never
intended to be perfectly safe. Killing off a crew and losing a
vehicle now and then was expected from the moment pencils first
touched paper. The same is true of aircraft, which is why the USAF
has the Air Force Flight Test Center and the USN has the Naval
Aviation Test Center.

In a discussion in another group, I pointed out once that if you told
people today that we could go to the moon, but we'd kill one crew on
the ground, and almost kill a couple of others in flight, it wouldn't
have the support of 25% of the American people, even if the whole
program cost $5 and would provide a cure for cancer.

take care,
Scott

Peter Stickney wrote:

Broom Straw Fractures occur when the metal fails at temperatures near its
melting point. They're fairly common in airplane crashes, and can occur in
other materials than aluminum - I've seen it in steel.
Not unexpected, considering the environment that it was in.

I think I've seen them in water ice too. Dunno though.

On Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:14:59 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Reunite
Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)" made the
phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

On Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:32:11 -0800 (PST), Stuf4
wrote:


How's this for a major epiphany... If you don't design your
spacecraft with any way for your crew to survive a huge range of
mishaps, when those mishaps occur then the crew is expected to die.

Acceptable risks. The nation has changed its attitude toward what is
acceptable since the Orbiter was designed, including people here, but
those of us in the community mostly haven't. The STS was never
intended to be perfectly safe. Killing off a crew and losing a
vehicle now and then was expected from the moment pencils first
touched paper. The same is true of aircraft, which is why the USAF
has the Air Force Flight Test Center and the USN has the Naval
Aviation Test Center.

Yes, but when they first touched pencils to paper, they expected to
have a larger fleet. Ultimately, it's the orbiter that they can't
afford to lose. We have plenty of (in fact too many) astronauts.

Pat Flannery wrote:

I'm still surprised that the problem with the inertial locks on the
shoulder straps wasn't spotted at some point.

Perhaps it was the kind of problem that only manifested itself during the sort of event that actually happened.

Since none of them locked, this was either a severe inherent design
flaw, or some endemic maintenance problem regarding them

Or thirdly, they weren't designed to function when an event happened that was not a member of the set of survivable
events :-)

Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer) wrote:

Acceptable risks. The nation has changed its attitude toward what is
acceptable since the Orbiter was designed, including people here, but
those of us in the community mostly haven't.

The range of mishaps that people should be able to survive is never going to be huge enough for some people to accept.

Fred J. McCall wrote:

Yep. The problem is we started treating the Shuttles like they
weren't experimental vehicles, putting teachers and such on them.

I think putting anyone on it is OK if they have the brains to acknowledge in advance that things can go wrong. You don't
have to be a test pilot to know that.

Scott Stevenson wrote:
In a discussion in another group, I pointed out once that if you told
people today that we could go to the moon, but we'd kill one crew on
the ground, and almost kill a couple of others in flight,


Other than Apollo 13, what was the other close call? The lightning
strike on Apollo 12? If worse had come to worse, they could have used
the LES.

Pat

Or thirdly, they weren't designed to function when an event happened that was not a member of the set of survivable
events :-)

You forget that earlier launchers had launch boost escape, that was
part of shuttles original design and the stronger crew compartment
survived the challenger break up. The crew structure had already been
built when the jetisonable crew compartment was dropped, and nasa
decided it would cost too much to shave more weight from that area

We went backwards in safety by dropping launch boost escape

"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
...
Yep. The problem is we started treating the Shuttles like they
weren't experimental vehicles, putting teachers and such on them.

Some of us remember the statement (and the argument it was made
during) and agree with it. At some point, it's time to kick the
tires, light the fires, and GO...

True. And if you look hard enough, you'll see that the STS is still being
tweaked. That just *screams* experimental vehicle. I think the latest
tweak I read about was an additional heater for one of the fuel cells.

Jeff
--
"Many things that were acceptable in 1958 are no longer acceptable today.
My own standards have changed too." -- Freeman Dyson