A Space.com project from June 2003, shortly after the book "The Crash" was published but before the official publication of the investigative committee's report. The dates and other details have been updated according to the developments * In the coming days we will also bring the five additional questions
Amit Oren (translation and update)
NASA remembers her death in three disasters that coincidentally clustered in one week at the end of January.
1) After flying this craft for 22 years, doesn't NASA know how to fly the shuttle?
– The shuttle Columbia [Columbia] took off for the first time on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. It was the first time two astronauts flew a US-made shuttle on a maiden flight.
After only three more test flights over the next two years, NASA declared its space transportation system operational, removed the evacuation chairs from Columbia, and began using the shuttle as a comprehensive solution to the nation's commercial, military, and scientific needs in space.
With each mission, NASA gained more confidence in its all-capable flight vehicle. The crews grew and satellites were launched, repaired and rescued by "spacewalkers" who floated with the help of jet backpacks.
Then, in 1986, the Challenger disaster burst NASA's bubble. A presidential team of investigators found a flaw in shuttle technology and NASA's decision-making. It took NASA nearly three years to fix the booster rocket problem and reorganize its operation.
On September 29, 1988, the space shuttle Discovery returned America to space. It was not long before the shuttle program regained its confidence, resumed its status as a symbol of technical superiority, and continued its role as an icon of the American spirit of research.
Then on February 1, 2003, Columbia and its seven astronaut crew members were killed.
The Columbia Disaster Commission of Inquiry will say that despite the success the shuttle program enjoyed, NASA became too "accustomed" to the program, like an old friend whose friends turned a blind eye to its odd habits and flaws. And in one word: operative. Instead, NASA should treat each mission as a test flight.
The committee noted that NASA's historic aircraft, the X-15, flew 199 missions from 1959 to 1968 and each mission was considered an extremely dangerous test flight. The shuttle, however, flew 113 times in a 22-year period. As a result, NASA has more experience with the vehicle that led to the shuttle than with the shuttle itself.
2) What happened on February 1, 2003?
- On February 1, 2003, the seven crew members of the Columbia flight completed a scientific mission that lasted 16 days, and which was the product of international diplomacy, politics and the desire to keep scientists busy while waiting for the final assembly of the International Space Station [ISS ].
More than eighty experiments, ranging from the topic of developing new skies to building stronger foundations in sandy soils, kept the team busy around the clock in two shifts. There were few problems.
At the beginning of the second day of the flight, military radar observed a small object drifting from the shuttle more than 3,000 times before it burned up in the atmosphere as DHA.
On February 1, at 13:15 p.m., Columbia's interceptor missiles were fired and the shuttle left its orbit and prepared to land at the Kennedy Space Center. When the spacecraft passed over the USA, observers noticed glowing parts falling from the Columbia.
At 13:59:32, Flight Commander Rick Husband acknowledged a call from mission control and cut off mid-transmission, the last time we heard from him. At the same time, sensors on the left wing recorded increasing heat. The shuttle stayed on track but worked harder than it ever had to in order to stay that way.
After about a minute, the vehicle began to disintegrate, killing the seven astronauts and raining debris over Texas and Louisiana. Within an hour, NASA implemented its "emergency plan", which included the establishment of a committee to investigate the Columbia accident. As the nation learned about the tragedy, meetings were convened to decide what had gone wrong and an effort to pick up the pieces began.
NASA acted according to its plan, became entitled to credibility in the eyes of the public for the way it handled the release of information and helped the nation mourn the loss of seven heroes.
Ron Ditmore, the former shuttle program manager, should be reprimanded for the way he represented NASA these past few days.
3) What went wrong at Columbia and caused the tragedy?
- The shuttle Columbia and its crew were lost while entering the atmosphere, when the extremely high heat caused by friction in the atmosphere penetrated the inside of the left wing, causing it to melt from the inside until it failed and was released from the spacecraft. When this happened, the spacecraft went out of control and disintegrated.
Heat insulation tiles and thermal "blankets" cover most of the shuttle in order to function as its heat shield. The nose of the shuttle and the tip of the wings are protected by strips of reinforced carbon [RCC – reinforced carbon carbon], a composite material that can survive at 1650 degrees Celsius. A small hole in the tip of the left wing allowed heat to enter the wing. As the material burned, the breach grew until the wing was finally eaten away.
The Columbia Disaster Commission of Inquiry will say they are certain, but cannot definitively prove, that a piece of insulating foam fell from the shuttle's outer canister about 82 seconds after liftoff, striking the left wing tip and damaging a carbon-carbon strip. (In the end this was indeed the proven conclusion)
Apparently the object seen on the military radar, flying from Columbia during the second day of the mission, was part of the shuttle's heat shield, which caused the hole in the left wing or contributed to its enlargement.
Assembling or rather rearranging the remains of the shuttle at the Kennedy Space Center, analyzing the information recorded during takeoff and reentry, as well as the results of tests where insulating foam was fired at a heat shield; All of these independently strengthen the theory.
4) How could NASA let this happen?
- The only part of human space flight that takes place in a vacuum is the space flight itself. The rest of the mission takes place among a dense collection of people and organizations that are sensitive to every human strength and weakness.
So when there is an omission in the importance of the Columbia tragedy, investigators sometimes find that the culprit is more than a random technical failure. Someone or some organization probably failed as well. People screw up. The Columbia Disaster Commission said just that.
The disaster has many more factors than a piece of insulating foam that hit the wing during takeoff. The US Congress and the White House, previous NASA administrators, outside experts and defense committees - as linked together through the annual budget process, all contributed to creating an environment that allowed the tragedy to happen.
In particular, the whole way the shuttle program is organized between NASA and its partners, who enable the lines of authority and channels for communication, should prevent disaster. And still seven astronauts lost their lives.
The Columbia report offers a solid history lesson regarding how the agency's organization has changed over the years, especially after the Challenger disaster and during the last attempt to transfer the shuttle operations to a private entrepreneur, namely - the United Space Alliance.
So here is the big question: when the dust settles, will the management of the shuttle program be centralized at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, or at NASA headquarters in Washington?
The pendulum has swung both ways throughout the history of the shuttle program.
Which way will the Columbia Disaster Commission say NASA should swing now?
5) The signs of disaster seem clear now. So what was NASA thinking?
- The Columbia Disaster Investigation Commission took great pains to avoid falling into the trap, because what seems clear now was not before the tragedy.
The burning of Apollo 1 in 1 is a prime example: pumped pure, compressed oxygen into a spaceship, locked three guys inside for a whole day and only cared about the miles of wiring in the spaceship. In the case of the Columbia tragedy, no one saw the whole picture. The clues were there, but no one understood that there was a problem to solve at the beginning of everything.
First, the outer tank was designed with a foam-insulating layer that should not come off during the launch. It's designed to stick to the tank, so if it doesn't stick then something isn't working the way it's supposed to.
Second, the shuttle's heat shield made of tiles, RCC - reinforced carbon strips and thermal "blankets" were not designed to be damaged in any way for any reason. This is why the spacecraft must not fly through rain, remain outside during hail or be at risk of workers dropping tools on it. The tiles are extremely fragile.
But for some reason, when the foam fell on liftoff and damaged the tiles, NASA managers didn't seem concerned. When the shuttle returned and there was no apparent damage, managers convinced themselves that there was no flight safety issue. After 112 flights in which foam fell seventy times and in which tiles returned damaged each time, the ferry operator got used to it.
Some call it the "gambler's dilemma", the roulette wheel came out red 112 times in a row, so there is no reason to believe that it won't come out red again. Writer Diane Vaughan, writing about Challenger, called it "the normalization of deviance."
We call it stupid. On the other hand, in covering the space program for two decades, we never connected the dots or had the same information.
The committee told NASA to form a security group that would take a step back and be especially sensitive in order to diagnose when the hardware is not working as required, a group that would look for "unknown disappearances".
