NASA Astronaut on Columbia Repair (and others)

No offense taken, sorry for the rudundant paragraphs but totally
unrelated excuse about to occur totally unconnected to the Subject line
isn't totally unheard of on Usenet. And the two long paragraphs were
really to just get Jim Oberg to consider a story from his point of view,
touchy feely one as opposed to technical.

To me Columbia had plenty of margin at the deorbit burn to have done
something wrt a Repair. Even if the payload bay door had to be closed
manually by a space walking astronaut who happened to look over the
side and saw the hole. They could and would have done something.

I have Googled the time frame, and Jim's posting looked like the first to
me. I'd be interested in the others hints you mentioned. Having not found
them in my earlier search, would you happen to know what the hints were or
possibly a link? I'm interested.

--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @
--


On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 17:25:34 +0000, TB wrote:

"Craig Fink" wrote:

Well Rand, I do, I care. I find it interesting reading, to hear about how
people found out about the Disaster. Even the ones who weren't
connected to NASA and just happened to be watching the landing, maybe even
yours. Jim Oberg's story, which he hasn't told yet, as far as I know,
would be interesting to me and maybe some others who read this news group.
He had a posting here before the Disaster that was intriguing to me.
Enough time has passed so that telling the story might not be too
painful. This posting is going to sci.space.shuttle and sci.space.history,
and Jim actually did hear hints of what was going on at NASA at the time.
Historians might find his story interesting at some point in the future
too. How I found out about Columbia really isn't that interesting.

How I found out about the Challenger Disaster might be considered a bit
more interesting to the group. I found out about that Disaster when I
heard a gasp coming from the other side of the room. From over in the
corner where the ARD people were. I couldn't see the video monitor in the
room, so I had to lean around the console, all those stagnant numbers,
to see the television. I can still see the image of the lone SRB flying by
itself. The flash of hope, followed by the realization, nudging my
coworker, stop looking at the stagnant data, look up at the only real data
in the room, the live video feed.

That story might be interesting to others, as Jim's story about Columbia
might be interesting. Maybe not news worthy, but a personal interest type
story, his thoughts and feelings. I was kind of hoping he would share.

No offense, but you just wasted a couple long redundant paragraphs about
something totally unconnected to the original thread, which was an
astronaut's somewhat incorrect opinion about surviving the two Shuttle
disasters.

And while it is irrelevant to this thread, I'll add that among a few people
who closely monitor the shuttle flights, there was clearly hints from
several posts on usenet aside form anything Oberg may have said which can be
found using Google to view newsgroup postings that NASA was looking into the
foam strike several days before the mission ended.

T.B.

The Guy In Ireland wrote:

"Story Musgrave's standing reentry really set a bad example in that
regard. "

Sorry whats that all about? Did he stand for a reentry and why did he?



It was his last flight, so he stood up during the whole reentry and
filmed it through the front cabin windows.

Pat

On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 17:25:34 GMT, "TB"
wrote:

No offense, but you just wasted a couple long redundant paragraphs about
something totally unconnected to the original thread, which was an
astronaut's somewhat incorrect opinion about surviving the two Shuttle
disasters.

....That's Fink's version of logic. It's the reason most of us have the
retard killfiled.

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

In message , Pat Flannery
writes


The Guy In Ireland wrote:

"Story Musgrave's standing reentry really set a bad example in that
regard. "

Sorry whats that all about? Did he stand for a reentry and why did he?


It was his last flight, so he stood up during the whole reentry and
filmed it through the front cabin windows.

In Arthur Clarke's "The Sands of Mars" a pilot says 'I once took-off
standing up, just for a bet, though it was a damn silly thing to do".

On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 22:44:00 +0000, Jonathan Silverlight wrote:

In message , Pat Flannery
writes


The Guy In Ireland wrote:

"Story Musgrave's standing reentry really set a bad example in that
regard. "

Sorry whats that all about? Did he stand for a reentry and why did he?


It was his last flight, so he stood up during the whole reentry and
filmed it through the front cabin windows.

In Arthur Clarke's "The Sands of Mars" a pilot says 'I once took-off
standing up, just for a bet, though it was a damn silly thing to do".

Hummm, sounds like a must see film, Musgrave's that is. When offshore, I
like to stand on the foredeck touching the rigging but not using it for
balance. Feel the wind, waves and motion of the boat. Become one with the
boat so to speak, wonder if those were Musgrave's thoughts.

wrote in
:


Remember the question why NASA did not release their results on the
in orbit repair options for Columbia?

Incorrect. The results were released with the CAIB report, both as a
chapter in the main report and as an appendix.

The only "results" they released was a statement that their tests were
inconclusive. No report what they tested, how they tested neither
the results they got.

They did no materials testing, only analysis, and very limited analysis
at that. They didn't just say the analysis was inconclusive. They said
more than that.

"The assessment of the level of difficulty of the repair operation
is high. The level of risk to the crew is moderate and the risk of doing
additional damage to the Orbiter is high (i.e. enlarging the wing leading
edge breach). The overall assessment of the expectation of task success
is moderate to low, depending on damage site characteristics and the
required repair technique."

"The results while inconclusive, do not indicate this option was likely
to succeed."

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.

Second, due to the improvised materials, the repair would not have been
smooth enough to prevent an early boundary layer transition. RCC is rated
to 3000 deg F, the lower surface black tiles to 2200 deg F. The shock
ahead of the vehicle contains superheated air at temperatures up to
10,000 deg F. It is the laminar (smooth) boundary layer that protects the
TPS from these extreme temperatures. Normally, the boundary layer trips
to turbulent well after the period of peak heating but rough surfaces can
result in early transitions. A transition prior to Mach 21 can cause
vehicle damage and a transition prior to Mach 24 can cause loss of
vehicle. The improvised Columbia repair would likely have gone turbulent
right from the beginning of entry (Mach 25), exposing the RCC panel and
the trailing black tiles to the superheated air. Columbia's damage
occurred at just about the worst possible location since the shock from
the nose cap intersects the shock from the leading edge between RCC
panels 5 and 13, depending on Mach number.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Craig Fink wrote:

Hummm, sounds like a must see film, Musgrave's that is.


Lookie what I found - Story Musgrave's film:
javascript:LaunchVideo('/tech/2003/02/05/vo.reentry.1997.nasa.','300k');
This has narration.

Pat

On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 18:32:02 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote
(in article ):



Craig Fink wrote:

Hummm, sounds like a must see film, Musgrave's that is.


Lookie what I found - Story Musgrave's film:
javascript:LaunchVideo('/tech/2003/02/05/vo.reentry.1997.nasa.','300k');
This has narration.

Pat

That's not a real URL, Patrick.

No booze for you!

;-)

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

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

wrote in
:



Remember the question why NASA did not release their results on the
in orbit repair options for Columbia?


Incorrect. The results were released with the CAIB report, both as a
chapter in the main report and as an appendix.


The only "results" they released was a statement that their tests were
inconclusive. No report what they tested, how they tested neither
the results they got.



They did no materials testing, only analysis, and very limited analysis
at that. They didn't just say the analysis was inconclusive. They said
more than that.

"The assessment of the level of difficulty of the repair operation
is high. The level of risk to the crew is moderate and the risk of doing
additional damage to the Orbiter is high (i.e. enlarging the wing leading
edge breach). The overall assessment of the expectation of task success
is moderate to low, depending on damage site characteristics and the
required repair technique."

"The results while inconclusive, do not indicate this option was likely
to succeed."



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.



I think the odds of this working are about 1% at best.
It still doesn't address the problem of what the EVAing astronauts are
supposed to hold onto while they are putting stuff into the hole, or the
fact that bags of water will boil and explode as soon as they get
depressurized in the airlock, or water coming out of some sort of
jury-rigged hose is going to emerge as a spray of superfine droplets,
not come out as a stream that will flow into the hole.
You might be able to get the hole filled in with the hose, but it would
be anything but smooth, and you'd have chunks of ice around it that
would break free and do more damage as heating started on reentry.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:


Lookie what I found - Story Musgrave's film:
javascript:LaunchVideo('/tech/2003/02/05/vo.reentry.1997.nasa.','300k');
This has narration.

If that doesn't work, it's on this webpage:
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/spa...ure/index.html
"Video" box on the right hand side.

pat

Pat