Columbia astronauts weren't told of malfunction

[MRT144]

Was Columbias fuel and O2 situation unexpected or according to plan?

[Zevico]

They should have told them. No question. Let them communicate with their families, no words left unsaid.

They were professionals, damnit. Give them the respect they deserved.

Maybe something could have been done, maybe not, but give them the options.

This.

[Zevico]

Because it did a lot of things that nothing else in the world could do.

The engineering wasn't bad - it was the management and culture. The O-ring issue was known and ignored, the fragility of the tiles was known and discounted, the icing/foam issues on the ET were known and ignored. A proper safety culture among management would have directed that those issues be fixed and no launches out of window, period, and schedule be damned. I'd say you had a deathtrap culture and mindset, and a vehicle design with some flaws, but all fixable.

Richard Feynman's book, "What do you care what other people think", in addition to being thoroughly entertaining, has a section on this.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Was Columbias fuel and O2 situation unexpected or according to plan?

According to plan. Fuel is heavy, and the STS was never intended to insert into one orbital path and then maneuver into a totally different and significantly higher orbital path - that's a complex manuever that would require a pretty huge sustained burn. The intent of the onboard engines was limited maneuver within the pre-planned orbital path, alignment, decay prevention (occasional short firing to maintain speed and altitude on longer missions) and reentry alignment.

They has sufficient O2 for days - plenty of margin over the planned mission duration. They didn't have it for the several weeks it would have taken to get another STS ready for launch.

After Columbia, all but one STS missions were ISS servicing missions or otherwise in the vicinity of ISS' orbital track, so that they could use the ISS as a lifeboat. The one exception was the final servicing mission for Hubble, but that was widely discussed within NASA, JPL, and among the crew and backup crew before that mission was authorized.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Richard Feynman's book, "What do you care what other people think", in addition to being thoroughly entertaining, has a section on this.

Feynman Yeah, the bit about the vise and O-ring material in the glass of ice water was classic.

[DanS]

If the rocket goes kablooey, you won't even have time to kiss your ass goodbye. Those cute little escape rockets they had on Mercury, etc., were just feel good items.

The escape towers can be effective -- they are not difficult to do, when attached to liquid-fueled rockets. It's the difference between a 1-in-50 loss of crew versus 1-in-500 or 1-in-5000.

[MichaeltheGreat]

I think you need to add a few zeros to all your survival rates. IIRC, the LES were designed to separate the crew module only when the spacecraft and booster were in a controlled attitude either still on the pad pre-launch or very shortly after liftoff. So there's a really narrow window of problems it can address which have never occured on any US manned space flight. I think the Russkies successfully used one, but that was a result of an issue that's specific to horizontal assembly, which we've never used.

. All of the new spacecraft in development are planning to use totally different systems due to crew compartment size and design, IIRC.

[DanS]

Thank you for summing up my argument nicely.

Why are the new spacecraft using launch escape systems? Because they looked at the Shuttle and knew that they shouldn't do it that way.

The Russkis have never had a cosmonaut fatality on launch due to the rocket. The reason is because they used a launch escape system and kept their spaceships away from the business end.

You are unrealistic about the reliability of rockets. You would have come up with a design that was an astronaut-killer, just like NASA did.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Whether those pusher and other systems will be effective in use (if they are ever used), or just good PR, is another story. Cost plus

We've never had to use an LES. No LES ever designed or proposed would have addressed the Apollo 1, Columbia or Challenger losses. We would still have 17 astronaut fatalities.

[giblets]

Why hasn't Albert Speer shown up so he can blame the disaster on the Israeli crew member?

[MichaeltheGreat]

I hate to be in the position of defending Albie, but I think he's misinformed and misguided, not actively malevolent. He wouldn't sink that low, although, IIRC, Fred Phelps or someone of his ilk did - at least they tossed the two heathens in there (Ramon and Chawla) along with Gawd's divine punishment of reprobate America.

[SlowwHand]

Of course he's misinformed and misguided. I think all know that. And the point is...?

[MichaeltheGreat]

I was contrasting that with the sort of spiteful, wilful malevolence that would be needed to single out in any way Col. Ramon.

[SlowwHand]

Col. Ramon was a brave person, doing his job. No different than the rest of the crew. I would hope Al is capable of seeing that fact; but I don't waste TOO much hope.

[DanS]

Cost plus

Oh God, where's my wooden stake?

We've never had to use an LES.

That's a pretty way to put it. If you designed the spaceship to have an LES, neither Challenger nor Columbia would have happened.