I was wondering if anyone knows more about this than I do and can possibly explain. . .

When Ron Dittemore discussed NASA's awareness of possible damage to the left wing of the shuttle, he said 1) that they did not believe the damage was threatening, and 2) that there was nothing that could be done anyway.

Yesterday, in my local newspaper (of all places) I read an Associated Press article explaining how a couple of years ago, when somewhat similar damage was suspected to have occurred to the right wing of Atlantis, the re-entry angle was modified. In short, the suttle was angled slightly to the right so the drag on the damaged wing was reduced (as the article said, imagine a football player turning away from a tackler so his injured knee isn't hit). I believe the process is called "thermal conditioning."

Here is the URL to the story: http://archive.columbiatribune.com/2...208News019.asp

Unfortunately, the diagrams are not included, but the article contains a more detailed description of the maneuver. I've tried to find other stories on this, but my local paper is the only place that I have found anything more than a passing reference to this story.

I'm not attempting to be a conspiracy nut or point the finger at anyone, but does anyone know why this wasn't considered in Columbia's situtation, given the possiblity of damage to the left wing? Perhaps it was too risky or deemed ineffective?

I wouldn't be surprised if there were some minor alterations that could be made to alleviate some of the stress on a specific area, but I doubt there's a lot that would have made a huge difference overall.

As for what was said during the interview, that was an off-the-cuff remark, so I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't aware of all the possibilities.

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

There is the possiblity that after inspecting Atlantis on the ground that the 'favoring' of one wing over the other didn't make much of a difference. I would like an official explanation of why it wasn't used on Columbia though.

Kizarvexis

Also, taking the load off of one area would mean increasing the load on others. Maybe the trade-off just wasn't safe in this case.

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

Keep in mind that NASA's review of the foam incident concluded that there was no chance of significant damage. Therefore there was no need for special measures on reentry.

It's still uncertain whether that conclusion was or was not correct.

You all make very good points, it's very possible that given what they knew at the time, it didn't seem like the risk was warranted.

My real concern is that NASA is making an effort to be more open about what happened here than they were with Challenger, which is good, but they have created an appearance in this case of not being forthcoming. I wish that they had been more open about the fact that this possibility (favoring the left side on re-entry) existed, but was ruled out; rather than simply saying that even if there was something wrong there was nothing they could do.

I think they HAVE to be totally forthcoming in order to prevent the investigation from becoming more of a political football than an actual problem solving effort.

I think this accident shows that the safety of people on the ground must come into discussion.

To land on Florida the shuttle has to fly over thousands of miles of land. LA, Phoenix, New Orleans, and even Dallas and Houston, were at risk in the last Columbia flight.

I believe it would be a good idea to work on this problem. Spain, a place reserved for an emergency landing should be explored as a permanent site for landing of shuttle missions, at least for those ones connected to ISS, an international project. To land in Spain, the shuttle would approach in the final leg flying over the sea. At the critical phase of reentry it would be over the Atlantic. The risk of casualties on the ground due to accidents on reentry maneuvers would be reduced to a minimum. The downside is the extra amount of fuel required to alter the orbit inclination by some degrees, and the costs of transporting the shuttle back to the US.

Anyway, Florida has shown to be the worst place for a shuttle landing.

If you don't want the re-entry and approach over country, just always land at Edwards. Then most of the critical stuff happens over the pacific ocean.
But then, in case of an accident, not very much evidence would be salvaged. And, as the current accident proofed, the chances to be hit on the ground are pretty small, even in denser populated area.
Some ten years ago, two Canadian F-18 fighters crashed into each other over Karlsruhe, the 270000 inhabitants city where I live. Debris rained down all over the city (some impact sites within view of my flat). Roofs and cars were damaged, but no one was directly hit by the debris. There are also plane crashes from time to time, but rarely people on the ground are affected.

Harald

One possible difference is alluded to in that article. The location of tile damage on Atlantis was described as the top of the wing just in front of the elevon. The damage on Columbia was suspected along the bottom of the leading edge.

Bolding mine.

If Columbia had been headed for Edwards, we would have even less evedence than we do now (Scant and inconclusive as it is.).

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Of all the landing sites currently availble, Iberic peninsula is the one with lesser area of dry land to fly over.

I would prefer a single tax-payer protected from falling debris, than a neat investigation.

Ah - taxpayers are a dime a dozen! If the investigation is compromised by inaccessibility of the wreckage, how would it be possible to ensure that future astronauts (and taxpayers) aren't at risk because of a failure that wasn't identified?

It is a false dilemma. Astronauts know the riks of the enterprise (no pun).

The responsibility of NASA (as anyone else) is to operate without threatening civilians. If there´s room for cutting the overall risk for the external public, NASA (as any other entity) must act accordingly.

Here is an IDEA!!

What about using one of our ground based telescopes to inspect the shuttle before re-entry.
They could make the tiles reflect light therefore making them easier to see.

Maybe even go as far as putting small transmitters on each of the tiles. I realize it might be $$$ but to save lives?

*sigh* I was wondering when a NIMBYist would show up. God forbid a taxpayer in another country suffers, eh? Better yet, who cares what really happened, we can just dump the wreckage in the ocean and wash our hands of it. Very selfish... The shuttle is an American bird, she has every right to land here. Any crash in another country opens the doors to all kind of political crap, and fights over salvage of debris, think of the looting happening now in Texas being fought in the international courts. If it has to go down, better it go down on the home field, at least then we retain control of the situation from launch to landing.

There will always be some risk to innocent bystanders. For this one incident, using Spain as a landing site would have dropped virtually all the wreckage in the Atlantic Ocean. But if the loss of integrity of the spacecraft had happened at a different point in its landing approach, or indeed while it was still in orbit, the choice of planned landing site may have made no difference to where the wreckage came to Earth. Overshooting the mark in the Iberian Peninsula could drop the shuttle on some pretty populated parts of southern Europe. That may be just as much of an issue as coming up short depending on the type of failure. There just isn't a zero risk option for the Earthbound, although the risk is obviously much less than it is for the astronauts.

I'm not sure this would have made a difference. From what I heard (and I could be wrong), it sounds as if it was the underside that was possibly damaged. When the shuttle is in orbit, it travels upside-down; therefore, the the underside would have been facing away from the Earth. Once the shuttle flips over for re-entry, I do not think there would be enough time for an inspection.

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"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece

You are probably right about the not enough time issue. I think it would be justifiable to make time for a pre re-entry inspection.

The only thing they would need would be a high resolution image of the underside.

There are many things NASA could do but I feel a change needs to be made to their re-entry procedures.

NIMBYist. What is it? Do I look like one? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]. Sighing is a common reaction of who encounters a silly argument. Do you regard my concern for (American) civilians as silly, or futile? Well, maybe I´m too heart-bleeding...

I´m not a selfish. I´m talking from a universal point of vantage. I think i´m expressing a very reasonable concern. As you know, ISS is an international project(*) suject to an international agreement. The spanish "tax-payer" is part of the process. The burden should be equally distributed. And no matter where the "tax-payer" or human being lives. The risks must be reduced at any cost. Spain should be less risky for everyone.

NO discussion, sir. I hope the worst case scenario I consider never turns into fact.

(*) I just don´t know if Spain is part of the deal.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Argos on 2003-02-10 15:12 ]</font>

Regarding the risk of falling debris. We're overflown by all manner of aircraft all of the time, craft flying at much lower altitudes with much less time for debris to disperse and break into smaller pieces. Remember, when Pan-Am 103 was bombed, people on the ground were killed too, as with the crash in NYC shortly after the WTC attacks.

Compare the prevalence of jumbo commercial jets and other civilian flights to the relative rarity of shuttle overflights. Even though the Shuttle is more likely to have a problem than other aircraft (unless Courtney Love is on board the other aircraft), the sparsity of overflights adds little to what people have going on over their heads everyday.