Columbia crew not fully suited up during reentry?

In article , Pat Flannery wrote:


Doug... wrote:


I think the conclusions of the board also reflect the state in which the
bodies were recovered. You could probably tell whether or not a crewman
was completely suited based on the remains of the body and the suit.


Trying to be as delicate as possible about this...some of the bodies
were found very far from the crashed cockpit area, and in a badly burned
and dismembered state...it is not unusual for passengers falling from an
disintegrating airliner at cruising altitude to spin so quickly when
they are falling toward the ground that both clothing and limbs are
stripped from them be centrifugal force.

FWIW, there's a reference in the report (can't remember where, pdf's on
another machine) to the cause-of-death of the crew; it mentions that the
knowledge that some weren't wearing gloves was arrived at by the teams
working on the bodies, or at least that's how I read it...

--
-Andrew Gray

Pat Flannery wrote in
:

Frankly, if correctly
reported, this is the single most disturbing thing I've heard to date
regarding the loss of Columbia....

Surely that's a facetious statement. There were plenty of other things
in the report that I found far more disturbing than the fact that the
crew was slow in donning equipment that wouldn't have saved them
anyway.

To me though, that slow donning was emblematic of the whole situation
that led to the loss of Columbia;

Fine, you *and* Derek want to evade the question of whether you really
consider this issue to be the "single most disturbing thing" you've heard
about Columbia. I'll ask the question in a different way: Do you really
consider the crew putting on their gloves late during entry to be more
disturbing than:

1) the fact that NASA knew about the ET foam shedding problem since 1981,
but never considered it important enough to ground the fleet to fix?

2) the fact that NASA never performed foam impact testing on the RCC before
deciding to live with the foam shedding problem?

3) the fact that, due to the lack of foam impact testing, the Debris
Assessment Team had to use a software tool to analyze a foam strike that
was far outside the database to which the tool was validated?

4) the fact that the MER manager's presentation of the Debris Assessment
Team's conclusions to the Mission Management Team systematically downplayed
all the team's uncertainties regarding the validity of said conclusions?

5) the fact that the MMT was unaware that three separate teams were
requesting imaging, and in cancelling one of them, inadvertently cancelled
all three?

6) the manner and extent to which the crew was notified of the foam strike?

a failure to go "by the book" at
every phase of the whole operaton....when mission rules state that you
should be fully suited up at X minutes before reentry, you should be
suited up by that time- not around that time.

I suppose you consider Schirra's failure to wear his helmet during Apollo
7's entry to be more disturbing than the Apollo 1 fire?

--
JRF

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In article ,
says...
Pat Flannery wrote in
:

Frankly, if correctly
reported, this is the single most disturbing thing I've heard to date
regarding the loss of Columbia....

Surely that's a facetious statement. There were plenty of other things
in the report that I found far more disturbing than the fact that the
crew was slow in donning equipment that wouldn't have saved them
anyway.

To me though, that slow donning was emblematic of the whole situation
that led to the loss of Columbia;

Fine, you *and* Derek want to evade the question of whether you really
consider this issue to be the "single most disturbing thing" you've heard
about Columbia. I'll ask the question in a different way: Do you really
consider the crew putting on their gloves late during entry to be more
disturbing than:

1) the fact that NASA knew about the ET foam shedding problem since 1981,
but never considered it important enough to ground the fleet to fix?

2) the fact that NASA never performed foam impact testing on the RCC before
deciding to live with the foam shedding problem?

3) the fact that, due to the lack of foam impact testing, the Debris
Assessment Team had to use a software tool to analyze a foam strike that
was far outside the database to which the tool was validated?

4) the fact that the MER manager's presentation of the Debris Assessment
Team's conclusions to the Mission Management Team systematically downplayed
all the team's uncertainties regarding the validity of said conclusions?

5) the fact that the MMT was unaware that three separate teams were
requesting imaging, and in cancelling one of them, inadvertently cancelled
all three?

6) the manner and extent to which the crew was notified of the foam strike?

I can see the point of both earlier posters, that safety protocols had
become so lax that fairly important things like donning your PGA and
sealing it up on schedule was something that was never enforced or even
fairly monitored.

However, I also see your point, Jorge. The PGA issue was very reflective
of culture problems, but so are all the points you raised. And the
points you raised are far more serious in potential catastrophic results
than whether or not you've got your helmet and gloves on on-time.

A lot of people have raised the question as to whether the Columbia
disaster could have happened on Gene Kranz's or Chris Kraft's shift, and
the general consensus is that Kranz and Kraft were no more superhuman
than the current flight directors. I will bring up the possibility that,
just perhaps, you would at least have seen imaging and more follow-up on
the foam strike problem had Mad Don Arabian still been managing the MER.
The MER is where the troubleshooting ought to begin; when Arabian ran it,
the managers did whatever Mad Don said they needed to do to diagnose and
quantify the problem.

So, here's to finding another Mad Don Arabian to run the MER in the
future...

--

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for | Doug Van Dorn
thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup |

On 28 Aug 2003 01:10:01 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Doug..."
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:


A lot of people have raised the question as to whether the Columbia
disaster could have happened on Gene Kranz's or Chris Kraft's shift, and
the general consensus is that Kranz and Kraft were no more superhuman
than the current flight directors. I will bring up the possibility that,
just perhaps, you would at least have seen imaging and more follow-up on
the foam strike problem had Mad Don Arabian still been managing the MER.

I don't necessarily want to join the crowd in scapegoating Linda Ham,
but seriously, can you imagine Glynn Lunney or Gene Kranz in this
scenario?

"He deflected concerns about wing damage and failed to investigate the
adequacy of the engineering analysis because -- as he told reporters
-- he did not feel competent to do so."

--
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interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

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h (Rand Simberg) wrote in
:

On 28 Aug 2003 01:10:01 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Doug..."
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

A lot of people have raised the question as to whether the Columbia
disaster could have happened on Gene Kranz's or Chris Kraft's shift,
and the general consensus is that Kranz and Kraft were no more
superhuman than the current flight directors. I will bring up the
possibility that, just perhaps, you would at least have seen imaging
and more follow-up on the foam strike problem had Mad Don Arabian
still been managing the MER.

I don't necessarily want to join the crowd in scapegoating Linda Ham,
but seriously, can you imagine Glynn Lunney or Gene Kranz in this
scenario?

"He deflected concerns about wing damage and failed to investigate the
adequacy of the engineering analysis because -- as he told reporters
-- he did not feel competent to do so."

I certainly can't imagine Lunney or Kranz tolerating the flawed in-flight
decision-making process you describe above. But I could imagine them being
involved in the flawed *pre-flight* decision-making process, because they
*were*. Both were in charge of shuttle mission operations (Kranz on the
NASA side, Lunney on the Rockwell side) during the era when management "got
comfortable" with the foam-shedding problem.

--
JRF

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"Doug..." wrote in
:

I can see the point of both earlier posters, that safety protocols had
become so lax that fairly important things like donning your PGA and
sealing it up on schedule was something that was never enforced or
even fairly monitored.

Of course it's important, but such incidents of laxness have been occurring
at NASA since the 1960s, many of them have been discussed at length in
sci.space.history, and *never* *once* did Pat Flannery express that he was
"disturbed" by them. Examples include:

- Wally Schirra not wearing his helmet during the Apollo 7 entry
- Story Musgrave standing up throughout a shuttle entry
- Dick Scobee not locking his harness during the 51L ascent

But suddenly he thinks that the 107 crew being slow putting on their gloves
is the "single most disturbing thing" he's heard about Columbia? Give me a
****ing break! None of the earlier incidents contributed to an accident,
and neither did the 107 crew's.

However, I also see your point, Jorge. The PGA issue was very
reflective of culture problems, but so are all the points you raised.

Thank you. I might add that if the PGA issue is reflective of a culture
problem, it is a problem that has existed throughout NASA's history, per
the examples above. It isn't something that gradually crept in over time.

And the points you raised are far more serious in potential
catastrophic results than whether or not you've got your helmet and
gloves on on-time.

Exactly. And we must consider that crews don't always disobey safety rules
because they're lax about safety; sometimes they do so because they think
the rule is wrong. The shuttle ACES suits are only rated up to 100 kft
altitude, so they're not terribly useful early during entry. And the gloves
and helmet cause reach-and-visibility constraints that could impede the
crew in dealing with some types of contingencies. So some astronauts could
legitimately feel safer delaying the helmet and gloves until they're a
little closer to the suit's spec limit. That doesn't make it *right* - if
you think the rule is wrong, don't just break it, propose a rule change -
but it is understandable. Schirra's incident falls into this category as
well.

So, here's to finding another Mad Don Arabian to run the MER in the
future...

Agreed!
--
JRF

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h (Rand Simberg) wrote in
:

On 28 Aug 2003 02:40:01 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Jorge R.
Frank" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

I certainly can't imagine Lunney or Kranz tolerating the flawed
in-flight decision-making process you describe above. But I could
imagine them being involved in the flawed *pre-flight* decision-making
process, because they *were*. Both were in charge of shuttle mission
operations (Kranz on the NASA side, Lunney on the Rockwell side)
during the era when management "got comfortable" with the
foam-shedding problem.

Well, Glynn wasn't really involved with Shuttle issues at Rockwell.
He was in charge of new business.

Sorry, I should have specified Rockwell Shuttle Operations Company, not
Rockwell International. Lunney certainly was involved with shuttle issues
at RSOC.

--
JRF

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"Jorge R. Frank" wrote:
Fine, you *and* Derek want to evade the question of whether you really
consider this issue to be the "single most disturbing thing" you've heard
about Columbia.

Pay attention Jorge, I never claimed it was any such thing. Those are
Pat's words.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

On 28 Aug 2003 01:10:01 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Doug..."
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

A lot of people have raised the question as to whether the Columbia
disaster could have happened on Gene Kranz's or Chris Kraft's shift, and
the general consensus is that Kranz and Kraft were no more superhuman
than the current flight directors. I will bring up the possibility that,
just perhaps, you would at least have seen imaging and more follow-up on
the foam strike problem had Mad Don Arabian still been managing the MER.

I don't necessarily want to join the crowd in scapegoating Linda Ham,
but seriously, can you imagine Glynn Lunney or Gene Kranz in this
scenario?

Easily, because they, like the rest of the Apollo era controllers,
were only human, and not the demi-gods of recent popular perception.
In recent discussions on .history and .shuttle several instances of
them taking questionable actions have been shown.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

On 28 Aug 2003 03:55:01 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Derek Lyons) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

I don't necessarily want to join the crowd in scapegoating Linda Ham,
but seriously, can you imagine Glynn Lunney or Gene Kranz in this
scenario?

Easily, because they, like the rest of the Apollo era controllers,
were only human, and not the demi-gods of recent popular perception.
In recent discussions on .history and .shuttle several instances of
them taking questionable actions have been shown.

The issue isn't taking questionable actions. The issue is saying,
well, what she said. Even if they weren't competent to assess the
analysis, I can't imagine them admitting it...

;-)

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
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