Columbia Investigators Criticize NASA for Botched Photography During Shuttle Launch

On Tue, 01 Jul 2003 19:58:51 GMT, Jay wrote:


The evaluation "was hampered by lack of high-resolution, high-speed
cameras," the investigators said in a statement.


This is irrelevant criticism. Its already been shown that knowing the
extent of the problem would not have prevented the accident.



The board expects to release its final report by the end of the month.


I sure hope this excerpt isn't the best recommendation they could come
up with.

edward ohare wrote:

The evaluation "was hampered by lack of high-resolution, high-speed
cameras," the investigators said in a statement.

This is irrelevant criticism. Its already been shown that knowing the
extent of the problem would not have prevented the accident.

Bull****, Ed. Even if the photography had not prevented the loss of the
shuttle and crew, it would have been invaluable in determining the cause
of the accident. And it's not at all clear it couldn't have saved the crew.
If it had led to prompt inspection that had revealed the gravity of the situation,
the astronauts might have been rescued.

Paul

On Thu, 03 Jul 2003 09:09:19 -0500, "Paul F. Dietz"
wrote:

edward ohare wrote:

The evaluation "was hampered by lack of high-resolution, high-speed
cameras," the investigators said in a statement.

This is irrelevant criticism. Its already been shown that knowing the
extent of the problem would not have prevented the accident.

Bull****, Ed. Even if the photography had not prevented the loss of the
shuttle and crew, it would have been invaluable in determining the cause
of the accident.


Seems like they've gotten it pretty close without the pics. Y'know
the deal about a pic being worth a thousand words? Well, I think
having the affected piece in your hand is worth a thousand pics.

It seems sufficient debris was recovered to allow for a good
investigation.


And it's not at all clear it couldn't have saved the crew.
If it had led to prompt inspection that had revealed the gravity of the situation,
the astronauts might have been rescued.


How? Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought it was acknowledged here there
was no rescue mechanism in place. Please correct me if I'm wrong (not
that I doubt you will! G).

edward ohare wrote:

Bull****, Ed. Even if the photography had not prevented the loss of the
shuttle and crew, it would have been invaluable in determining the cause
of the accident.


Seems like they've gotten it pretty close without the pics. Y'know
the deal about a pic being worth a thousand words? Well, I think
having the affected piece in your hand is worth a thousand pics.

Perhaps it would have saved time, provided more details, and increased
the confidence that the correct cause had been identified and the proper
fixes applied.

Saving time is not to be dismissed -- it costs billions of dollars a year
to maintain the shuttle infrastructure, so even a small savings in time
would pay for a lot of photographic equipment.

And they are *not* going to be able to say precisely how the RCC was
damaged. Knowing that would have helped them add reinforcements, or
provide data for design of future vehicles.


How? Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought it was acknowledged here there
was no rescue mechanism in place. Please correct me if I'm wrong (not
that I doubt you will! G).

You're wrong. If they had known early enough they could have rushed
Atlantis into space fast enough to have had a good chance of saving the
crew. This has been covered in the press.

Paul

In article , says...
edward ohare wrote:

How? Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought it was acknowledged here there
was no rescue mechanism in place. Please correct me if I'm wrong (not
that I doubt you will! G).

You're wrong. If they had known early enough they could have rushed
Atlantis into space fast enough to have had a good chance of saving the
crew. This has been covered in the press.

Along with a good chance of losing two shuttles and crews, instead of
one.

They would have had to *know* within four days of launch, IIRC, to be able
to stretch consumables long enough to wait for Atlantis (and that means no
spacewalks, even for inspection). They would have had to cut a lot of
corners, including safety-related issues, in order to launch Atlantis in
that window. And it would still have been vulnerable to parts failure,
bad weather, etc.

You want to talk about NASA overlooking safety concerns in order to
launch? What would the pressure have been like to launch Atlantis in
the face of almost any safety concern? It would have been go-fever on
steroids. Any manager who said "no" to launching Atlantis under those
circumstances would be run out of town on a rail.

It's just amazing to hear arguments on the one hand that NASA needs
a better culture of safety, at the same time that there are serious
suggestions to rush a launch under such pressure in full view of the
entire world. You can't have it both ways.

Diane

It's just amazing to hear arguments on the one hand that
NASA needs a better culture of safety, at the same time
that there are serious suggestions to rush a launch under
such pressure in full view of the entire world. You can't
have it both ways.

You're comparing apples and oranges. A rescue mission isn't
just another routine mission. I think most people would consider
it reasonable to bend some rules and take some additional risks
if it's the only hope of rescuing a crew.

James

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote in
:

edward ohare wrote:

How? Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought it was acknowledged here there
was no rescue mechanism in place. Please correct me if I'm wrong (not
that I doubt you will! G).

You're wrong. If they had known early enough they could have rushed
Atlantis into space fast enough to have had a good chance of saving the
crew.

"Good chance" is overstating the case considerably. The CAIB directed a
number of extremely optimistic assumptions in NASA's analysis, and a *lot*
of things would have had to line up just right to make it possible.

This has been covered in the press.

Covered badly, you mean. When the CAIB released the results, they admitted
that the assumptions were optimistic and that the actual odds were very
poor. The press tended to play that down, if they reported it at all.


--
JRF

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