If we could see then what we can see now?

[mcs_seattle]

I wonder if we could have inspected Columbia like we can inspect shuttles in orbit now, if the damage that Columbia suffered to the rcc panels on ascent would have appeared catastrophic/horrific or somewhat subtle? I know that the test shots of foam at the rcc panels showed a huge hole, but there is no way for us to really know the extent of the damage that Columbia experienced.<br /><br />Some of the discolorations and other anomolies that they have investigated further on Discovery this flight have looked, to my untrained eye, as very subtle. But since Nasa as confidently cleared these items, I wonder if the same people would have recognized the damage to Columbia as obvious and catastrophic?

 

[qso1]

Inspections could have been done prior to the Columbia accident but was not done because NASA did not believe it was warranted. One of the inspections that was performed in early shuttle flights was with spysats. That was no longer being done because of the cost of doing it. Of course, now NASA engineers and management wish they had done it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[pathfinder_01]

From what I had read in the papers about the Columbia investigation, it wasn’t just the cost that was the problem, but the quality also. The times when they had done it previously did not reveal any useful data and so they didn’t try to do it again. What I don’t understand is why a quick method of inspecting the heat sheild of a spacecraft had not been developed for the shuttle until the disaster. Esp. where the shuttle is concerned. <br /><br />

 

[vogon13]

Assuming the 'flight day 2 object' was inside the RCC cavity and floated out into space following a re-orientation maneuver (IMO, a pretty safe bet) the hole was pretty much the size the ground based test produced.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[gawin]

You also have to remember that untill the tests many of the engineers were saying that light weight foam could not have caused that much damage. They didnt belive that foam could cause critical damage. They thought ice could but not the foam.

 

[halman]

The engineers would have, but the management at the time probably would have dismissed it, like they dismissed every other warning sign, requests for on-orbit imaging, or anything else which threatened their perception of the program and its progress.<br /><br />Because the system had worked well in the past, it was assumed that it would continue working well, even though some of the parameters had changed, such as the composition of the foam. There was evidence that the system might fail, prior to the flight of Columbia, but it was ignored in favor of maintaining the flight schedule.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>