In email correspondence before the crash, the possibility of a bone injury in the left wing was raised; Boeing: 3 blocks of foam hit the shuttle * NASA engineers warned of damage to the Columbia shuttle * Protective tiles were found near Lubbock, Texas * Apparently fragments were also found in Nevada
A NASA image shows what appears to be debris that hit the left side of the shuttle 80 seconds after liftoff
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said on Sunday, 23/2/2003 that an independent panel examining the Columbia events will examine in depth what was the degree of significance that should have been attributed to the email messages of a NASA engineer who warned days before the Columbia disaster that the damage to the tiles The shuttle's isolation would have left it in borderline conditions for landing.
"I will live with every decision of the independent team, and I will follow their every determination so that they tell us what we could have done, should have done, must do and do things differently than we knew," O'Keefe said in an interview with CNN.
However, O'Keefe insisted that the e-mail exchanges regarding the ferry were not unusual. "It's a type of debate that takes place every time, during every mission," he said. "We want to encourage these types of dialogues and we expect to publish everything and we will do everything we can to reach the extraction of all the evidence and facts and connect them."
The engineer, Robert Doherty of the Langley Research Facility in Hampton, Virginia, wrote in the journal before Columbia's breakup that an expert on the shuttle's insulation tiles warned that the conditions on the shuttle would cause it to survive, but only marginally, after being hit by debris on liftoff. The email was released in its entirety after news organizations requested it under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
For the full text of the emails on the NASA website, in PDF format
An independent 10-member panel, headed by retired Admiral Harold Gehman, is investigating the accident.
O'Keefe told CNN that the cause of the accident has not yet been located despite the evidence that the shuttle was hit by fragments of foam from the fuel tank during takeoff. "We are all looking into everything and not ruling out any possibility as to the cause," said O'Keefe, who added that this is not the cause currently at the top of the priority list.
"This is just one of many theories, and not the top one at this point." We are all looking at every possibility to know what caused this, "it is almost certain that this is part of the general investigation," he said.
Meanwhile, fragments of the insulation tiles were found in a remote area in the state of Nevada, about 250 km north of Las Vegas. If indeed they are finally identified as such, they will be the most distant fragments, and therefore among the first to fall, found so far.
It is a very light foam, but you have to check if it included something heavier (water?) and if at the speed with which these pieces fell they could have caused damage to the wing.
The scientist found out about these inflations already on 16/2 - about a week before 'the rest of the world'. Here is the link to the news in which the Houston Chronicle newspaper was quoted: An email from an engineer at NASA, days before the disaster warned of a problem in the landing gear area, the scientist, 16/1/2003
Three foam blocks hit the left side of the Columbia
22/2/2003
When Space Shuttle Columbia circled Earth on its final 16-day mission, a NASA safety engineer emailed colleagues saying he was concerned that foam that fell from the shuttle's external fuel tank shortly after launch could have caused an explosion near the shuttle's left wheel. .
Meanwhile, senior NASA officials confirmed last night (Friday, 21/2/03) that Columbia tiles were found by a man working his field near Lubbock, Texas, the westernmost area where fragments of the shuttle were discovered.
Although senior NASA officials maintained that they had assessed the damage that could be caused by the foam and decided that it could not pose a significant danger to Colombia, the latest document, including e-mail messages and three reports from engineers at the Boeing Company, which serves as a subcontractor for NASA, - indicate So there may have been a greater internal concern than we have believed so far.
Three days before the shuttle disintegrated on February 1, Robert Doherty, a shuttle steering expert at NASA's Langley Research Center, sent an e-mail expressing his frustration that not enough had been done to simulate the possible impact of the damage to the landing gear. Colombia.
And this is what was published yesterday, 21/2 in "Haaretz" by the news agencies:
Safety engineer: NASA ignored warnings
In a letter sent by e-mail three days before the Columbia space shuttle crash, a NASA safety engineer claims that the shuttle's mission managers ignored information that the shuttle was damaged during takeoff by an object that hit the left wing.
In a series of email correspondence revealed yesterday (Friday), Robert Dufferty, an engineer working at the Space Research Base in Langley, Virginia, claims that the mission managers at the control base in Houston did not perform simple tests that could determine whether the shuttle was indeed damaged as some officials in the agency feared.
According to Dougherty, the agency's engineers in Houston used words like "negligible" and "residual" to assess the chances of the shuttle landing safely, without examining the damage. It is clear from the correspondence that during the flight several scientists and engineers expressed concerns about the safety of the shuttle. According to them, these concerns were not adequately addressed.
Dufferty claims that some of his colleagues at NASA expressed specific concern that a block of foam that broke off during takeoff from one of the shuttle's fuel tanks, damaged the insulation shell of the left wing and punched a hole in it large enough to allow hot gas to enter the shuttle.
Yesterday, NASA revealed a report prepared for it by the Boeing company that built the shuttle, from which it appears that during the liftoff of Columbia, the shuttle was hit by three blocks of insulated foam that were detached from the external fuel tank, and not by one large block as reported so far.
Whereas the GLA website reports today (22/2/2003) that the head of the external investigation committee appointed to look into the disaster said this week that the ferry began to disintegrate already over the coast of California, however it will be difficult to find the remains that fell in the first stage due to the high altitude at which the ferry was. He also said that the committee headed by him will investigate the freeze in NASA's safety budgets.
The committee will examine whether employees who were responsible for safety issues were fired, and whether the positions of safety inspectors, who are responsible for quality assurance and risk management, were eliminated. The investigation includes all possible aspects: both technical and human.
Meanwhile, about 4000 pieces of the shuttle have been collected so far, and they have been transferred to a collection and testing center at the Kennedy Center in Florida. This is a very small part of the shuttle, and efforts to collect the fragments are ongoing.
