New Columbia loss report out today

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?se...cal&id=6577730

Pat

On Dec 30, 11:46*am, Pat Flannery wrote:
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?se...cal&id=6577730

Pat

The official 400 page report in PDF format is he

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/298870main_SP-2008-565.pdf

It is the most detail accident report I have ever read in my life. I
had access to Air Force accident reports while I was in the service,
and I read AW&ST accident reports on airline accidents. This report is
very very detailed.

The press release said, "Trade study on supplemental portable O2 found
a potential candidate that would offer more O2 than the existing
system, which would greatly increase survivability for multiple
Shuttle emergency launch pad and post landing emergency scenarios.
Detailed feasibility assessments are being finalized to determine
final SSP implementation plan."
Why was there not, in the original design, or at least in the post-
Challenger mods when they added the ACES suit and the bailout system,
an air supply (say, a 60-minute bottle mounted on each seat) adequate
to have everyone sealed in pressure suits throughout the reentry
procedure? Crewmembers would still have their PEAPs as an emergency
backup.
Granted, the CAIB said pressure suits would not have saved the
Columbia astronauts, but there are certainly scenarios where they
would.

Matt Bille
Freelance space writer/historian
http://mattbille.blogspot.com

Matt wrote:
Why was there not, in the original design, or at least in the post-
Challenger mods when they added the ACES suit and the bailout system,
an air supply (say, a 60-minute bottle mounted on each seat) adequate
to have everyone sealed in pressure suits throughout the reentry
procedure? Crewmembers would still have their PEAPs as an emergency
backup.


They pointed out the problem with the suits and the onboard oxygen
system in the report.
When the suits are buttoned up and pressurized, the exhaled air enters
the crew module.
Since this is a pure oxygen pressurization system and the exhaled air
still has a lot of oxygen in it, the cabin oxygen content starts to
climb, leading to a fire hazard.
That's why the astronauts do their reentry with their visors up, and are
only to lower them in the event of trouble.
At least some of them did a suit pressurization test prior to reentry,
but then raised their visors again and went back to cabin air.
Of course pressurizing your suit isn't going to work if you don't have
your gloves on, so that was a major slip-up in regards to crew safety,
in that three of them didn't have their gloves on when things started to
go wrong (as well as one not having their helmet on); it also brings up
a possible design problem - when the Shuttle was designed the intention
was to have the crew fly without pressure suits...i.e. no gloves.
Are the switches and buttons on the control panel too small to be easily
manipulated while you are wearing pressure suit gloves?

Pat

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
ne...
in that three of them didn't have their gloves on when things started to
go wrong (as well as one not having their helmet on);

As if any of this would have made a difference at 10,000 degrees fahrenheit.

M wrote:
The official 400 page report in PDF format is he

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/298870main_SP-2008-565.pdf

It is the most detail accident report I have ever read in my life. I
had access to Air Force accident reports while I was in the service,
and I read AW&ST accident reports on airline accidents. This report is
very very detailed.


It's also 16.3 megabytes in size for anyone who downloads it, so be
forewarned.
I haven't read it yet, but even the table of contents gives some clue as
to the degree of detail it goes into, with investigations of the effects
of thermal heating on the soles of the astronaut's boots.
One section of the report may lead to a change in space suit design;
according to the report the non-form-fitting shape of the space helmets
led to the astronaut's heads violently impacting the interior of the
helmets as their bodies were flailed around after their upper body
restraints failed to lock into place as they were supposed to do when g
loads became excessive, so it might be time to either put more padding
in the helmet or come up with a soft inflatable type helmet. The
pressure suit helmet the Russians use on the Sokol-KV2 space suit during
Soyuz ascent and reentry is partially inflatable, as it was on the G5C
suits used on the Gemini 7 flight.
One thing you could do is rigidly mount a padded helmet to the top of
the pressure suit so that it could be rotated around its neck ring, but
would keep the astronaut's head from moving around inside the helmet
except in rotation.
IIRC, aren't they using something like this already on race cars to
prevent broken necks in crashes?

Pat

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message news:-
with investigations of the effects
of thermal heating on the soles of the astronaut's boots.

What about the part where it investigates the effects of thermal heating on
the soles of the astronauts' feet and the palms of their hands? They went
too far in my opinion.

Pat Flannery wrote:

It's also 16.3 megabytes in size for anyone who downloads it, so be
forewarned.
I haven't read it yet, but even the table of contents gives some clue
as to the degree of detail it goes into, with investigations of the
effects of thermal heating on the soles of the astronaut's boots.

I've started reading it now, and here's the reports recommendations:

"Recommendation L1-2. Future spacecraft and crew survival systems should
be designed such
that the equipment and procedures provided to protect the crew in
emergency situations are compatible
with nominal operations. Future spacecraft vehicles, equipment, and
mission timelines should be
designed such that a suited crew member can perform all operations
without compromising the
configuration of the survival suit during critical phases of flight. (p.
3-38, p. 3-86)

Recommendation L1-3/L5-1. Future spacecraft crew survival systems should
not rely on manual
activation to protect the crew. (p. 3-20, p. 3-44, p. 3-84)

Recommendation L1-4. Future suit design should incorporate the ability
for crew members to
communicate visors-down without relying on spacecraft power. (p. 3-82)

Recommendation L2-1. Assemble a team of crew escape instructors, flight
directors, and
astronauts to assess orbiter procedures in the context of ascent,
deorbit, and entry contingencies.
Revise the procedures with consideration to time constraints and the
interplay among the thermal
environment, expected crew module dynamics, and crew and crew equipment
capabilities. (p. 3-67)

Recommendation L2-2. Prior to operational deployment of future crewed
spacecraft, determine
the vehicle dynamics, entry thermal and aerodynamic loads, and crew
survival envelopes during a
vehicle loss of control so that they may be adequately integrated into
training programs. (p. 2-10,
p. 2-29, p. 3-67)

Recommendation L2-3. Future crewed spacecraft vehicle design should
account for vehicle loss of
control contingencies to maximize the probability of crew survival. (p.
3-67)

Recommendation L2-4/L3-4. Future spacecraft suits and seat restraints
should use state-of-the-art
technology in an integrated solution to minimize crew injury and
maximize crew survival in off-nominal
acceleration environments. (p. 3-20, p. 3-53, p. 3-87, p. 3-88)

Recommendation L2-5. Incorporate features into the pass-through slots on
the seats such that the
slot will not damage the strap. (p. 3-24)

Recommendation L2-6. Perform dynamic testing of straps and testing of
straps at elevated
temperatures to determine load-carrying capabilities under these
conditions. Perform testing of strap
materials in high-temperature/low-oxygen/low-pressure environments to
determine materials properties
under these conditions. (p. 3-27)

Recommendation L2-7. Design suit helmets with head protection as a
functional requirement, not
just as a portion of the pressure garment. Suits should incorporate
conformal helmets with head and
neck restraint devices, similar to helmet/head restraint techniques used
in professional automobile
racing. (p. 3-53, p. 3-87)

Recommendation L2-8. The current shuttle inertial reels should be
manually locked at the first sign
of an off-nominal situation. (p. 3-21, p. 3-88)

Recommendation L2-9. The use of inertial reels in future restraint
systems should be evaluated to
ensure that they are capable of protecting the crew during nominal and
off-nominal situations without
active crew intervention. (p. 3-88)

Recommendation L3-1. Future vehicles should incorporate a design
analysis for breakup to help
guide design toward the most graceful degradation of the integrated
vehicle systems and structure to
maximize crew survival. (p. 2-87, p. 2-139, p. 3-88)

Recommendation L3-2. Future vehicles should be designed with a
separation of critical functions
to the maximum extent possible and robust protection for individual
functional components when
separation is not practical. (p. 2-6)

Recommendation L3-3. Future spacecraft design should incorporate
crashworthy, locatable data
recorders for accident/incident flight reconstruction. (p. 2-36)

Recommendation L2-4/L3-4. Future spacecraft suits and seat restraints
should use state-of-the-
art technology in an integrated solution to minimize crew injury and
maximize crew survival in
off-nominal acceleration environments. (p. 3-53)

Recommendation L3-5/L4-1. Evaluate crew survival suits as an integrated
system that includes
boots, helmet, and other elements to determine the weak points, such as
thermal, pressure, windblast,
or chemical exposure. Once identified, alternatives should be explored
to strengthen the weak areas.
Materials with low resistance to chemicals, heat, and flames should not
be used on equipment that
is intended to protect the wearer from such hostile environments. (p.
3-46, p. 3-63)

Recommendation A1. In the event of a future fatal human space flight
mishap, NASA should place
high priority on the crew survival aspects of the mishap both during the
investigation as well as in its
follow-up actions using dedicated individuals who are appropriately
qualified in this specialized work.
(p. 4-5, p. 4-9)

Recommendation A2. Medically sensitive and personal debris and data
should always be available
to designated investigators but protected from release to preserve the
privacy of the victims and their
families. (p. 4-11)

Recommendation A3. Resolve issues and document policies surrounding
public release of sensitive
information relative to the crew during a NASA accident investigation to
ensure that all levels of
the agency understand how future crew survival investigations should be
performed. (p. 4-11)

Recommendation A4. Due to the complexity of the operating environment,
in addition to
traditional accident investigation techniques, spacecraft accident
investigators must evaluate multiple
sources of information including ballistics, video analysis, aerodynamic
trajectories, and thermal and
material analyses. (p. 4-9)

Recommendation A5. Develop equipment failure investigation marking
(“fingerprinting”)
requirements and policies for space flight programs. Equipment
fingerprinting requires three aspects
to be effective: component serialization, marking, and tracking to the
lowest assembly level practical.
(p. 3-35, p. 3-63)

Recommendation A6. Standard templates for accident investigation data
(document, presentation,
data spreadsheet, etc.) should be used. All reports, presentations,
spreadsheets, and other documents
should include the following data on every page: title, date the file
was created, date the file was updated,
version (if applicable), person creating the file, and person editing
the file (if different from
author). (p. 4-10)

Recommendation A7. To aid in configuration control and ensure data are
properly documented,
report generation must begin early in the investigation process. (p. 4-10)

Recommendation A8. As was executed with Columbia, spacecraft accident
investigation plans
must include provisions for debris and data preservation and security.
All debris and data should be
cataloged, stored, and preserved so they will be available for future
investigations or studies. (p. 3-85,
p. 4-11)

Recommendation A9. Post-traumatic stress debriefings and other
counseling services should be
available to those experiencing ongoing stress as a result of
participating in the debris recovery and
investigation. Designated personnel should follow up on a regular basis
to ensure that individual needs
are being met. (p. 4-12)

Recommendation A10. Global Positioning System receivers used for
recording the latitude/
longitude of recovered debris must all be calibrated the same way (i.e.,
using the same reference
system), and the latitude/longitude data should be recorded in a
standardized format.7 (p. 4-25)

Recommendation A11. All video segments within a compilation should be
categorized and summarized.
All videos should be re-reviewed once the investigation has progressed
to the point that a
timeline has been established to verify that all relevant video data are
being used. (p. 2-49, p. 4-23)

(recommendation A12 is apparently missing.)

Recommendation A13. Studies should be performed to further characterize
the material behavior
of titanium in entry environments to better understand optimal space
applications of this material.
(p. 2-46)"
(apparently, some titanium structure of the Columbia burned during
vehicle break-up.)

One reason the report runs to 400 pages is that it's profusely illustrated.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

Recommendation A13. Studies should be performed to further
characterize the material behavior
of titanium in entry environments to better understand optimal space
applications of this material.
(p. 2-46)"
(apparently, some titanium structure of the Columbia burned during
vehicle break-up.)

Okay, I'm in 166 pages so far... and _this_ is interesting.
The fact that the titanium would actually _burn_ and not just melt was
very unexpected.
But the recovered titanium parts showed far more damage than they should
have from simple heating during the failed reentry.
Burning was due to either severe oxidation in the hot air and plasma
generated by the reentry, shock wave impingment, or some combo of both.
What makes that interesting is that the Lockheed VentureStar SSTO was
supposed to use lightweight titanium tiles on its underside as a TPS
during reentry.
This indicates that that concept may not be workable, and it may have
been lucky that the X-33 got canceled when it did... before being
converted into a full-scale operational vehicle that would probably fail
during its first reentry.

Pat

On Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:11:48 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Okay, I'm in 166 pages so far... and _this_ is interesting.
The fact that the titanium would actually _burn_ and not just melt was
very unexpected.

....Which begs explanation of just how much high velocity heat testing
has been done to titanium alloys prior to the Shuttle, especially with
some of the reentry body concepts such as ASSET.

OM
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