Spacewalk danger, outside sub-systems; no ISS/shuttle refuge?

On Sat, 3 Jul 2004 9:41:38 -0700, Jorge R. Frank wrote
(in message ):

Exploring frontiers inherently means going beyond the point where lifeboats
can help you. It was the case for the age of sea exploration, the
colonization of the New World, the early air age, and now the space age.
And all the ages of exploration before them. Lives were lost, but our lives
are all the richer for their sacrifices. Had Homo sapiens evolved with your
attitude, humanity would still be scratching out a living in Olduvai Gorge,
forever afraid to risk lives to see what lies beyond the next hill.

As a recently departed former president said while eulogizing another lost
space crew, "The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted; it belongs to
the brave." You can feel free to continue to be meek. I'm told your kind
will eventually inherit the Earth.

The rest of us will inherit the stars, or die trying.



And I have no disagreement with you, in the above. I didn't say,
stop all missions, unless they could be made totally safe. This isn't
possible. Aviation, could have progressed, without the invention of the
parachute, or ejection seat. But both saved the lives of countless
pilots, who survived to expand the field. So I'm naive to think a current
shuttle model still in orbit, but damaged, might save it's crew via the
ISS. Just that future plans, should keep improving safety meausures.
Sure space is dangerous. So were early autos and planes. Take the early
air age, and their sacrifices. Wasn't there an even greater gain to
the enrichment of our lives, (and theirs!), with less sacrifice on
their part, being able to bail out of a damaged plane? We spend quite
a lot, on the ejection systems of modern jets. Parachutes wouldn't work
here, so a different approach was worked out. That's all I'm saying here.
Do the utmost, for similar new ideas for orbital space flight. Beyond the
earth, there will be few lifeboats. Yet take Apollo 13. They turned
a partly blown up, primitive craft, on the other side of the moon, into
a lifeboat that returned them to earth. All I'm saying, is give
future space missions, a similar chance. And spend the money to do so.
STS-107 was a more modern craft. And in orbit close to the earth. Say
it's fatal defect, had been discovered before landing. Are you saying
nothing could or should have been done, to give them a better chance
for life, than the Apollo 13 crew, in a tin-can passing around the Moon?

One more followup on STS-107. NASA imaging people, who veiwed launch
film, requested DoD images of the under-side of STS-107, while still in
orbit. They felt insulation may have struck and damaged the craft.
This request was turned down. The report into the disaster, asked if the
damage had been known; what about a rescue mission? The report states:
"This rescue was considered challenging but feasible."
The only legacy I would have liked to leave those nine people, was that
they had been given a similar chance for survival, as the crew of Apollo 13.
There was a chance, but they were denied this. This isn't progress.

"Arty Hues"
requested DoD images

This request was turned down.

You seem to imply that DOD turned down the request. This was not the
case. You might try to write more clearly.

On 2004-07-05, Arty Hues wrote:
One more followup on STS-107. NASA imaging people, who veiwed launch
film, requested DoD images of the under-side of STS-107, while still in
orbit. They felt insulation may have struck and damaged the craft.
This request was turned down. The report into the disaster, asked if the
damage had been known; what about a rescue mission? The report states:
"This rescue was considered challenging but feasible."

Considered challenging, but feasible... in March. It wasn't considered
challenging or feasible in January, because it wasn't considered.
Hindsight is a remarkable thing.

And, of course, had we images of the underside... we'd have re-entered,
because there wasn't any damage visible. Ooops. There doesn't seem, as I
understand it (though I haven't read the CAIB report for a couple of
months), to have been significant damage to the TPS tiling on the
underside; it was the RCC leading edge that was the killer.

And you wouldn't have seen that in the photographs of the tiles.

The only legacy I would have liked to leave those nine people, was that
they had been given a similar chance for survival, as the crew of Apollo 13.

Incidentally, the Apollo 13 crew's chance for survival was pretty much
dumb luck; had the tank ruptured much earlier, consumables wouldn't have
lasted long enough for a return - and had it ruptured much later, after
lunar-orbit insertion (or, eek, LM seperation), then the crew would be
dead, regardless of anything the ground could do.

(In fact, I suppose you could argue that Apollo 13 would have been safer
for the crew had they aborted during launch, when the S-V started
misbehaving...)

The crew on Apollo 13 were very, very lucky, but they were also on their
own. They were supported by a ground crew, but that crew couldn't do
anything than give them more thinking time and help them stay alert...
and all they had to do was rejig known systems to work for longer, not
try to fix heatshields or dock orbiters. Not easily comparable.

[You keep mentioning nine people; the Columbia accident did, indded,
lead to the deaths of nine. Two of those - Mier and Krenek - were
crewing a helicopter that crashed during recovery operations, and as
such it's notably misleading to talk of "nine"; there were seven who
could have been saved by a selection of lucky breaks, not nine.]

--
-Andrew Gray

On 5 Jul 2004 13:12:49 GMT, Andrew Gray
wrote:

On 2004-07-05, Arty Hues wrote:
One more followup on STS-107. NASA imaging people, who veiwed launch
film, requested DoD images of the under-side of STS-107, while still in
orbit. They felt insulation may have struck and damaged the craft.
This request was turned down. The report into the disaster, asked if the
damage had been known; what about a rescue mission? The report states:
"This rescue was considered challenging but feasible."

Considered challenging, but feasible... in March. It wasn't considered
challenging or feasible in January, because it wasn't considered.
Hindsight is a remarkable thing.

And, of course, had we images of the underside... we'd have re-entered,
because there wasn't any damage visible. Ooops. There doesn't seem, as I
understand it (though I haven't read the CAIB report for a couple of
months), to have been significant damage to the TPS tiling on the
underside; it was the RCC leading edge that was the killer.

And you wouldn't have seen that in the photographs of the tiles.

Judging by the damage inflicted on the RCC in the San Antonio test
last summer, the hole in Columbia's RCC Panel No.8 would have been
obvious even in ground-based telescope images.

The problem is that even the engineers who wanted imagery taken of
Columbia believed that the damage was somewhere on the underside, near
the wheel well, not on the leading edge. On this, the NASA management
was probably correct: imagery would not have helped. But they were all
wrong on their assumptions: the impact was not on the underside. It
took the MADS data, recovered after the accident, to conclusively
prove that the impact was on the leading edge around RCC Panel 8 or 9.

Brian

On 2004-07-05, Brian Thorn wrote:

And you wouldn't have seen that in the photographs of the tiles.

Judging by the damage inflicted on the RCC in the San Antonio test
last summer, the hole in Columbia's RCC Panel No.8 would have been
obvious even in ground-based telescope images.

Yeah, but the photography desired was of the underside specifically, as
you say below... not conducive to spotting the RCC problems. I've no
expertise, but it seems to be that the imagery would likely have
involved cherry-picking your angle, and quite possibly not noticing the
RCC at all...

--
-Andrew Gray

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Then STS-112 shed bipod ramp foam, then STS-107. Two out of three flights
in quick succession. Without a firm link between the root causes of the
current and previous incidents, NASA had *no* engineering rationale for
saying that the odds of bipod foam shedding would be any *less* than 67%
for a rescue flight.

So - what had changed to make it more likely?

--
A man can always find a pub.

Mary Pegg wrote in
:

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Then STS-112 shed bipod ramp foam, then STS-107. Two out of three
flights in quick succession. Without a firm link between the root
causes of the current and previous incidents, NASA had *no*
engineering rationale for saying that the odds of bipod foam shedding
would be any *less* than 67% for a rescue flight.

So - what had changed to make it more likely?

At the time, and under the time constraints NASA would have been under, the
answer would have been "Probably not, but there's no way to know for sure."
NASA would have combed their vendor documentation to make sure nothing had
changed in the foam formulation, and their process documentation to make
sure nothing had changed in the way it was applied. But that only tells you
about the parts that are under your control; it doesn't necessarily capture
environmental factors you don't control. And it assumes the documentation
is complete and accurate. As the CAIB later found, neither of those are
particularly good assumptions.
--
JRF

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