Could the Crew of Columbia Have Been Rescued?
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- čas přidán 29. 10. 2020
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Although it has been accepted that there was nothing that could have been done to save the crew of Columbia but in the report in the disaster, it recommended NASA create a rescue/repair plan
to see what could have been done if information about foam strike could have been investigated by the crew as soon as possible. This video looks at what was recommended in Appendix D.13 the STS-107 flight Options Assessment and the options that might of existed.
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Written, Researched and Presented by Paul Shillito
Images and Footage : NASA
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The tragedy of the Shuttle program is 14 astronauts killed by the same thing - negligent management that refused to listen to engineers.
not ture, the real tragedy of the Shuttle program that it was 20x more expensive than it was planned, in the late 70's it was expected that the Shuttle would be able to lift 1 kg of mass for ~$500 into LEO, it was $22000/kg at the beginning and $11500/kg at the end of the program, this was the major contributor to the end, not the deaths
@@fixpontt Umm no the real tragedy was that people died you sociopath.
@@fixpontt
You are sociopath
" management that refused to listen to engineers." Doesn't this mirror the Trump administration politicians not listening to the doctors and scientists on how to deal with the coronavirus?
@@MuckyWaters No.
The simple fact is that the loss of Apollo I, Challenger, and Columbia were all due to the same exact cause:
Bad Management.
I don't know if you can compare those tragedies with another.
I think the only one where you can call (criminal?) negligence would be Challenger.
Management is sure not blameless in all of them but to be the deciding factor ...i don't think so
Frank Borman, in his testimony to the Senate (I think) after the Apollo 1 Capsule Fire, gave the reason as I think "a failure of imagination." No one ever thought that a disaster would happen not 200 miles up but just near the fire station. "We just didn't think of it."
@@akshaygowrishankar7440 exactly it is a tragic event that could have been prevented in hindsight.
@@hawlitakerful NASA knew of the danger of electrical fires in an almost-pure oxygen atmosphere, but they went ahead with Apollo 1. They knew the danger of cold weather in regards to Shuttle launches and the function of SRBs' O-rings, but went ahead with STS-51L. They knew of the problems with the adhesion of foam insulation and thermal tiles since the first Shuttle launches, but they didn't do anything until Columbia. Negligence was common in all three situations, to whatever degrees they may have been. So in that regard, it's probably comparable.
@@akshaygowrishankar7440 I see your point but have my problem with agreeing.
Sure I mean everybody can tell you that a pure oxygen atmosphere is dangerous. And it is. But in the circumstances of the space race it was considered "acceptable risk"... So the risk asessment was turning out a "go". While with challenger it was turned to be a "go" out of PR considerations.
Columbia: yes that's sort of a known weakness of the whole construction principle in general. That turned out to be fatal in those circumstances.
As said managment is sure not blameless but there is a considerable difference between the three. If anything you can compare Apollo 1 with Columbia but Challenger is something of a more extreme case.
NASA Followed the standard management "Four Stage No Blame strategy",
In stage one : Nothing is wrong.
in stage two : Something May be wrong but we should do nothing untill we look at the situation carefully.
In Stage Three : Something is wrong but there is nothing we can do at the moment.
In Stage Four : Maybe we could have done something but it's too late now.
@ Zero , it goes deeper than that, NASA doesn't even go anywhere, the only thing NASA sent to space were peoples imaginations. No one goes anywhere because you can't, naturally they do not want to kill this huge cash cow. Same with the so called "public education" which is actually indoctrination centers, all aimed at supporting evolution, which we ALL know is a load of crap. Evolution is the foundation of Communism, and that explains all the rioting looting little socialist commie tree hugging wannabes. The schools have been churning those idiots out for years just look at who half the country voted for, a brain dead old man and Commie Kamala. I know Trump was not the greatest but at least he did not want to totally sell out to the one world order like people now are. They all should be tried and shot for treason against the people at this point, including NASA and all the so called education centers.
Also applies to the following
- Climate change
- Healthcare
- School shootings
- Homeless
- Poverty
- Corruption
And every other issue the American government has to face.
@@juicebox9465 The faster people realize this process endlessly playing out in front of them, the quicker we can actually do what needs to be done to rectify it.
There was also the problem before anything even went wrong where management thought that the probability of losing a shuttle on any given missions has 1 in million. Engineering thought that the same probablity was 1 in hundred. This disparency was never reconciled in any way. As a result, management thought it was okay to accept "minor" risks when something went wrong.
And after something went wrong, it was time for "Four Stage No Blame strategy".
@Zero Off topic, but hello fellow Tenchi Muyo enthusiast! 😀
I was an engineer and worked for Lockheed Martin on the SEAT contract at JSC in the 90's. We designed and built a piece of equipment for controlled EVA called the Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER). The Columbia had two or three these units on board at the time. These were lighter weight replacements for the MMU to facilitate EVA's. These would have been available for the astronauts to use on a tethered EVA to inspect the damage. I do not know why they declined to do so.
We also built an inspection drone, it was round and looked like a soccer ball with two offset cameras, using the same technology as the SAFER that was flown and tested on a previous mission. However, it was not onboard on the ill-fated Columbia mission.
It seems it wasn't used due to the lack of urgency by management, being too late to send them out. Not sure.
They also could have photographed the shuttle using military satellites, but there was nothing the astronauts could have done to fix the tile if the damage had been confirmed. I guess the logic is grim but sound; it would be better to fly a successful mission and then die unexpectedly than to know you're going to die in a couple of days and can't do anything about it... not sure how I would feel but evidently how NASA felt.
@@miguelsuarez738 nasa management overrode the engineers - they wanted to inspect the damage using the military equipment but the management refused, like challenger, saying it was not an issue
@@KingSeagull-vo6lp it was obviously at least a potential issue but they had no way to fix it while the shuttle was in orbit. So they hoped for the best becuase that's all they could really do.... Sad but true.
wow yes I remember that drone, it's a shame they abandoned the project, I'm convinced they will make something like that in the future
“We have absolutely zero concern about the foam strike”
**holds 5 meetings in two weeks about it**
It was the Bush era... people in the US had collectively decided that they were above thinking 🤣
@@Goreuncle Space Shuttle falls out of the sky. Bush's fault.
@@Goreuncle Wow. So politics is the reason for the death of the seven space pioneers?????
Please consider deleting your post.........................................
@@karlbrundage7472 He is Al Gore's Uncle so he is going to be political.
@@ChessMasterNate Correct, I raised my eyebrows when he referred to "bail out" as well. From my understanding you'd need ejector seats to escape at that kind of airspeed (they're still traveling extremely fast even after reentry) and Columbia didn't have any. There also wasn't a guaranteed safe way of using a basic parachute either.
I remember being at a talk by Chris Hadfield a number of years back, and he was commenting that - in hindsight - the shuttle program was WAY more dangerous than anyone at the time fully understood. Frankly, it is amazing that we didn't have more disasters with the shuttle.
Only 50% of the original 4 orbiter fleet survived. I believe NASA estimated 1 loss in 400 STS missions.
NASA’s risk appetite back then, and more so in the Apollo days, was huge. Everyone accepted that space travel was dangerous and that people would most likely (and did) die. We no longer have any risk appetite. We no longer accept human sacrifice as an inevitable consequence of doing dangerous but worthwhile things. It is just the way we have evolved as a species.
@@vibrolax tbh calculating reliability by number of vehicles surviving is bad idea.
@@johnfisher747 I don't know if its that necessarily but more that the Shuttle program was too big to fail but at the same time under extreme pressure because of excessive expenses, consistent delays and the lack of continued political will to fund it. All of this placed the program under very strict constraints that demanded that they launch consistently and avoid delays at all costs to demonstrate to the government and people that the funding they were getting was worthwhile while at the same time not having the sufficient resources and time to continually respond to the safety issues that inevitably kept coming.
Some did understand, mostly the working engineers and technicians who saw the sausage made first-hand. Check out Richard Feynman's writings on the matter, Appendix F and the second half of "What do you care what other people think?". Also an article titled "Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap Scotty" that published before any shuttle had flown and outlined all of the probable loss of life failure modes.
"All sounds like too much effort, lets just not bother" - NASA
Linda Ham and her management style was against all the advice and suggestions from engineers.
She was to blame for the poor management at NASA, at that time
@@InCountry6970 fitting last name
Exactly smh! Such a disappointment.
There was no way to save them. They were dead the second the foam hit the wing.
@TinyBit rubbish.
The thumbs up is not for the loss of the crew but for the excellent production of the subject. Thank you Paul for bringing this up in a professional and dignified way
This was the first mission my daughter and I followed daily. She would go on the computer daily to watch the daily mission videos. We were both heartbroken when we saw it fall apart over our heads.
Your computer?
I still remember standing on my porch and watching as the shuttle was breaking up... I clearly remember asking my Dad, why is there multiple fire balls? (I was 15 at the time)
They should have done an EVA and tried to repair the damage. Maybe this tragedy could have been avoided.
I cried for days.
@@StellarSurge But the devil only exists in your mind as does God and his son Jesus.
I followed the shuttle from the beginning and I'll never forget watching the Challenger launch with my grandma.
She said "People feel too comfortable with this and one day they'll get a sad wakeup."
We got it a few seconds later.
She wasn't here for the next one but I was and I remembered.
I was in school that morning. My mom was a teacher, and her boss was the former chief chemical engineer at JPL. He was really upset, I remember him saying "they can't launch, the o rings won't hold." About an hour later the catastrophe was over.
Rick is the only Astro i have met,a good man. On a school tour in the 90's. Still looking for photo of me shaking his hand. RIP
Because the crew had no way to inspect the TPS in orbit, Col. Anderson requested that he be allowed to take approx. 60 lbs of technical climbing gear on the flight. A second astronaut in the payload bay would have assisted with belaying. That would have allowed the entire exterior of the vehicle to be inspected. Anderson practiced with a partner at the gym and was prepared to demonstrate the technique. The request was denied. Management suspected he was trying to pull a scam to create space collectibles as some other well known astronauts had done previously. A timely damage assessment could have made a big difference. Not only could the crew have been saved, a scenario could have then been developed to make a temporary repair in orbit in order to recover the vehicle.
My rigging gear is always with me. Never know, might have to rescue someone somewhere someday
@@davidmoore8741 Considering that taking 1 kg of extra stuff with you with the shuttle did cost between $10000-20000 per kg, it's no wonder the management defaulted to "no".
some other bloke who worked on it said there was EVA suits on board.
@@MikkoRantalainen Considering the lives of the crew were at stake not to mention the vehicle which cost approx. $1 billion to fabricate and as a practical matter probably could not be repkaced. The cost of the flight was probably at least $500 million. $600,000 was cheap.
@@EricHamm @EricHamm They had no way to maneuver in order to inspect the entire TPS and remain tethered. Would you want to go swimming in space?
Lesson learned: Never leave your life in the hands of a committee.
All in favour say 'aye'....
- if you fly commercially, you're doing exactly that. Happy flying!
Its almost like an extremely complicated engineering project involving thousands of engineers scientists and contractors would require some kind of centralized control, but we know better
Or let managers overrule competent engineers. The same reason the Challenge disaster happened.
Pithy, politically fashionable, but irrelevant.
I met the crew in September of 2002, while I was at NASA. God it hurts my heart to think of this.
@neil saich It was one of the best memories I had of my short stint out there...and it turned to ashes.
I imagine it must be crushing to think of the crew. Their deaths touched so many. We shall always remember them.
@neil saich It's not like they were my best friends or anything...but...again, during my brief stint there...well, I will tell you about the crew in a separate post/reply to CD's video here in a moment.
@@bobsagget823 yikes
@@bobsagget823 grow up buddy...
I was 15 and one Saturday morning I woke up much earlier than I usually would have. I had always taken a keen interest in space and the space shuttle in particular, but I wasn't very aware of the individual missions. After flipping channels on TV for a bit, somehow I settled on CNN, only a couple of minutes into Miles O'Brien's coverage. The shock and dismay I felt in that moment will never leave me.
Any loss of life is sad but seems a bit worse when there was a obvious problem that was ignored.
The crew were never given the opportunity to save themselves by attempting a repair and altering the angle of attack on reentry to protect that damaged section as much as possible.
The definitive book to read about the event is "Comm Check" which is becoming harder to find these days.
Correct. NASA rank and file was never even given a chance to try.
Apparently saving themselves... was deemed... above their 'pay grade.' 🙄
Thanks for the book recommendation, I’ll look out for it.
that but truh
if they had covered the damage with heat-resistant materials and had adjusted the approach angles
there would be at least one change to get over it
after all, slightly heat-resistant materials are better than nothing to protect yourself
I don't know if it's still online here
but you can watch the last few minutes here on youtube from the cockpit and one thing is certain they didnt know anything
no attainable angle of attack would have saved them
1:33 It is worth pointing out here that NASA had dodged a bullet with this before, namely on STS-27, the second flight of the Shuttle after the Challenger disaster. A piece of either foam or ice completely ripped off one of the insulating heat shield tiles and damaged 700 others. The only reason that one didn't result in the complete destruction of the Atlantis was because blind luck. That tile happened to be over the thick girder holding the L-band antenna in place, so the hot plasma of re-entry didn't damage the rest of the Atlantis' airframe. A few inches either way, it's the Columbia but in in 1988, and the Space Shuttle program ends right there.
Underrated comment. Remember this as well. It was a known issue but they did almost nothing because it would cost them a fortune to rework everything, maybe even risking the whole program. I mean we got away with a lot of successfull missions, but it had to strike them at some point and it did.
@@Gentleman...Driver its crazy how long they dragged out the program, reusing so many things beyond their guarantees... any astronaut that dared thread the cockpit of a shuttle is worthy of calling a Space Cowboy
It was neither foam nor ice that struck Atlantis. It was a piece of ablative insulation that had come off of the right hand SRB. Subsequent flights were delayed while a fix was put in place and the problem never occurred again.
I was thinking on that... czcams.com/video/VVMdJkFJEPA/video.html
It seems like nearly all the shuttle's major issues would have been solved by placing the orbiter atop the stack rather than on the side. It wouldn't get struck and it could then abort.
It also doesn't make much sense to me that there would even be engines on the orbiter for liftoff - just place them below on the tank. They only worked while the orbiter was connected to the tank anyway. I guess they couldn't reuse the tank.
Hey Paul, if you ever pen a novel it simply has to be called "Normalisation of Deviance". It'll pretty much write itself.
Yes. The Columbia and Challenger disasters could both have been avoided
Columbia incident could have only been avoided before the flight. Once it was up and launching, the engineers couldn’t do anything. The Challenger incident had a very low chance of being saved.
@@silentasamouseiaminsideyou6865 If standard launch rules had been used Challenger would not have had that SRB sealing ring fail. The damage to Columbia was known and NASA even did paper work talking about the known damage sadly they have done a good job of making that paper work near impossible to find now.
Not really, short of the POS death trap never making it to production. There were multiple inherent design flaws with the vehicle that were never before or after accepted in manned spacecraft engineering, and a culture that acted like a vehicle with a easily damaged heat shield, no real abort modes, boosters that routinely burned partway through O rings, etc. was ok, because that was the only way to get the stupid concept off the ground. If bad booster joint design hadn't killed Challenger there were plenty of other things that may have, bad weather or not. By any sane standards EVERY shuttle launch was ill advised.
@@Broken_Yugo What do you mean the shuttle made it to production? They had more of them then they had a need for, building more would not have gained anything. I'll agree it had some flaws but to be fair those were force on NASA by the air force wanting to launch payloads with it. Also to be fair it was designed back when moon landings were still happening. For the heat shield to be damaged it had to be hit by as much force as a sledge hammer, that is not easily, and true of all heat shields. About was planned but was not added due to cost, again Air force to blame. Seals being burned part way through is common even with todays standards, really SpaceX is the only one that does not have seal problems on their engines. By your standards all space flight is ill advised.
@@silentasamouseiaminsideyou6865 Last I checked the Challenger could have been saved entirely if the launch was done at warmer temps (which the engineers stressed but were ignored). It was said that the low temperatures made the O-rings fail on launch. Not sure where you got your info from.
3:07 "Normalisation of Deviance" is a term that I will add to my daily vocabulary usage from now on.
Allow me to also suggest its antidote:
"Hypervigilance"
The term comes from a socialogist named Diane Vaughan who coined the term to describe the corporate culture at NASA which led to the loss of Challenger and crew.
I'm a normally operating deviant.;)
Its a terrifying concept, because its something that humans are very bad and combating. It's the old frog in a pot theory
@@Musikur 🎯
#cognitivebias #normalcybias #overtonwindow
Your voice with no background music is the best concept for these kind of videos.
Awesome production as usual!
Actually, I miss the background music. It wasn't drowning the video, only enhancing it
I agree!
when you are too proud to ask for help... things like this happens
or when you are too proud to recognize you HAVE a problem, and do nothing about it
- so instead of trying to do everything they could, they just let Columbia burn
You have a crew of Engineers, fighter pilots and Ph.Ds and NASA thought they could not fix the issue.
I remember waking up the morning Columbia was to come back, thinking to myself "Oh yeah! Columbia comes back today!! I need to see how things are going!"....Only to turn on my TV, and see the video of it breaking up. I started crying as soon as I saw the first bits of material breaking loose, I knew we had lost the crew. And to make it worse, I was living in Galveston, Texas at the time, so I was so much closer to the flight path of a shuttle mission than I had ever been before. And it is so hard to believe it has been nearly 20 years already, as it still feels fresh in my memory. To every man and woman that has been to space, continues going to space and is currently in space, I have the utmost respect in all of them. And knowing the risks, I wish I could join them because going to space has been, and always will be, my ultimate dream.
My heart sunk when I watched Columbia breaking up on TV. It was a really sad day.
I was living in Tyler Texas (where I was born and lived my whole life up to that point) and I heard Columbia break up. I had been sleeping and a weird noise woke me up. It sounded like a high-flying jetliner but it was lower-pitched and much louder. I listened to it for about 30 seconds then went back to sleep. About an hour and 20 minutes later I woke up and went into the living room where my sister told me about the disaster. After I saw the flight path and the debris having been picked up by the weather radar in Shreveport, I instantly knew what I had heard.
I was in San Antonio looking at the north sky when it happened, and I couldn't believe my eyes. It was too far away to hear anything and it didn't last long, so I thought I had imagined it, but I still had a sinking sick feeling that still comes back whenever I think about it.
When it comes to saving everyone's life, doing a Eva, and looking about, for damage, it should have happened,
I thought they did.
@@mbbb9244 It's pretty easy to find out. Average NASA employee age is 52-56 today. However a lot of downgrading happened AFTER the shuttle programme ended. Space X has a much more younger age range, high percentage are under 35.
So you could be onto something. But I think the bureaucracy of NASA and its tight ties with government is its downfall.
@@mbbb9244 what has candidate migration got to do with confirmation bias? It's simply to lean towards favorable information that supports a person's prior values. It's a form of Cognitive bias which purports to interpret others' views in a way that helps to breakdown societal norms by distorting evidence-based decision-making.
Try government pressure, and contract renewal. That's the tree you should be barking up.
I'm still surprised they didn't bother. How complacent can you get!?
I'd imagine with a more seasoned staff that they'd be less willing to take risks. So in that case I think a group of older employees would offer better judgement.
Thanks for answering the questions that has been bugging me for years..
"Normalization of deviance" seems to be the motto for the 21st century, honestly.
lol I like your name. So classy... 😂
@@TheDrunkenMug Just what I was thinking... but they deserve it, these days.
In the White House, it's called normalization of deviants.
@@jsmariani4180 I was thinking rioters looting the stores for 5 different shades of purple hair dye and lefties calling it "peaceful protesting."
Especially in 2016.
Fascinating. Thank you for this analysis. My dad was an engineer on the test stands for the SSMEs at Stennis since before the first launch, so the Shuttle was always an important topic at our house and still an important to me to this day. I recall Dad talking about how the early engineers (many of them WW2 vets who grew up in a time of inventive tinkering to find out how to make impossible and unheard-of things work) tended to be more versatile in their thinking than the younger workers who were more highly educated and very capable but less open to trying things out, less apt to think outside of the box. This sometimes made a difference in how things were done and with what was considered possible. Indeed, as an example of this very thing: when Dad finally retired at age 70, he had to be called back to work because no one else could perform the creative style engineering he was so good at; it was a further 18 months before management could find two new engineers to replace him for that one job. There was a gap about 23 years' time between Apollo 13 and the Columbia explosion; during that period, there was a large turnover of NASA staff and the old guard was gone. Could they have made different decisions? Maybe; maybe not. But I've always remembered what Dad said and wondered whether a different type of inventive think could have saved the flight crew.
"Nothing is as firmly lodged as the ignorance of the experts."
-F.A. Hayek
@@HuntingTarg It was uncertainty that forced creative thinking in the early days. Too much certainty makes for lazy thinking and, worse, lazy actions.
It’s worth tossing this out there as I memorized the entire rescue plan and the prior events sl here goes. The ground team suspected a foam strike and said they wanted to get it checked out by a good quality USAF spy sat 2 days into the mission. NASA’s female head administrator ( who had only just gotten her job but was allegedly part of the team that ok’d the challenger launch) denied the request stating “ nothing was wrong” only upon re-entry did they notice the problem when heat sensors in the damaged wing started to go offline. As Colombia started to hit denser atmosphere the RCS system disengaged and the regular flight controls tried to take over. At this point on IR photos more then half the damaged wing was melted away. Columbia went into a spin and broke up over Texas. This you know. The rescue plan had they ok’d the photo and seen the hole they would have realized a repair would be impossible and a rescue would have been the only way, there was no way anybody short of Macgyver could have saved that ship. With the abbreviated launch time NASA would have insisted on its most experienced people and they would not have hesitated to volunteer. The 4 people is right and Atlantis would have launched risking a foam strike too. Upon arrival the crew of Columbia would have had a bit of excess C02 but otherwise unharmed and they would transfer them over 2 at a time . The last thing to do would power Columbia back up, set the control to ground mode and connect up the 6 feet of coiled antenna to let the ground de orbit the stricken shuttle. Final result they loose a shuttle but save the crew and Atlantis and her crew are hailed as the biggest heroes since Apollo 13, Book Deals and movie rights are discussed, though those 7 who died did herald some useful changes. After Columbia all shuttles carried an ISS adapter and operated in an orbit where they could get to the ISS if need be. They also did the roll maneuver to inspect the thermal tile system. For shuttles operating away from the ISS they had gear to check their tiles themselves and another shuttle had to be on a nearby pad ready to go if there was trouble.
how would have they done the tranfers between the shuttles?
@@JihaneMez with spacesuits bringing the crew over 2 at a time then going back with empty suits to do it again.
Why did you find it necessary to mention that NASA's head of administration was female? You don't mention the sex of any of the other people involved.
"NASA's female head administration", why'd you feel the need to include female? Would you have said NASA's male head administrator if it were a man in that role? Just curious, that was weird.
@@kevmehl The Columbia disaster was a classic woman moment
This is one of the most informative comment sections in all of CZcams. Seriously ...
Knowing that crew didn't get a chance to perform a repair just unbelievable hurts
Realistically, a repair with the materials they had most likely still wouldn’t have held. If it were a thermal tile, maybe, but it was the Carbon-Carbon leading edge. The leading edge absorbs some of the highest stresses from reentry. Those crew members might as well have been dead the second that piece of foam hit. The mission was doomed every second after that.
John Smith you have it wrong: not “didn’t get a chance”, rather “didn’t have any way to carry out a repair”.
Even after huge further study after the accident, they still had no way to fix such damage in orbit.
@@FutureSystem738, the question is why don’t they carry spare parts on board? A shuttle mission should have all parts needed to repair any damage.
@@sunderjirahim Each extra 1 kg did cost between $10000-$20000 depending on lauch. And every extra kilogram of spare parts would have reduced other cargo. How many spare parts would you take? Management decided zero.
@@MikkoRantalainen, I guess it depends upon how much 7 lives are worth.
I remember when I spend hours watching and reading stuff about this incident. My conclusion was: Typical manager behavior overriding engineers evaluations. Like it's happening a thousand times all over the world in all big corps. But this time, life were lost.
By far the most thorough youtube channel of these events. Love it
I never knew of some of these options or that they were even considered. Awesome video!
Long answer a difficult yes. Short answer Yes.
@3SGE 😔
After the damage had happened there was realistically no chance at saving them
@@MacTac141 They wood of had 2 rush Atlantis
@@TheMrPeteChannel “They would have to rush Atlantis”. You’re welcome.
@@TheMrPeteChannel They would have had to rush the reconfigurations and then skip the safety checks to launch Atlantis in time. Skipping safety checks is never a good idea which is why they take so long to do. So instead of potentially losing 7 people and 1 Shuttle you’d potentially lose 2 shuttles and 11 astronauts. Can you imagine how much worse it would have been if the public was given hope and then they nearly doubled the loss of life and lost half of America’s spacecraft? It would have been so much worse
It would've been totally badass if they really pulled off a rescue mission with the second shuttle
CAIB laid out the broad outline for how a rescue mission *could* have been attempted, but more detailed planning showed it would be far harder than Apollo 13. It would be the riskiest shuttle mission in history, with zero room for error. Yet I don't think it would have been hard to find four astronauts to volunteer, knowing the odds would be against their coming home.
I enjoy listening to Curious Droid. His patient and measured style helps make difficult topics easily understood.
The most lethal of any modern space launch system. 135 launches for 14 fatalities.
Until a SpaceX BFR with a full load of colonists goes up like a small nuke at least.
I believe he means out of a single program, IE Shuttle vs. Soyuz and not Shuttle versus the entirety of the Russian/Soviet program.
Honestly, that's pretty amazing, considering, you know, rockets.
@@redenginner Thing is though, for the Starship program to achieve it's goals, that rocket HAS to be way more reliable than the Shuttle (isn't that hard to do) and even more reliable than Soyuz (most reliable rocket to date). Though I do wish they would include an escape system in case of failure because it's always better to have one for that like .0001% chance of failure (not exact numbers, just for example) so that the crew isn't instantly screwed. But it will definitely be more reliable than the Shuttle due to not using SRBs or having the orbiter hang off the side, which lead to strikes to the heat shield tiles.
@Bad Cattitude The early Soyuzes were dangerous, as the Soviet leadership were pressuring their technicians to cut corners mostly everywhere. After their share of disasters and a much needed change in leadership, the right priorities were set and nowadays it's the safest rocket in existance - if you take into account the numer of launches vs the number of failures. The only 2 times a modern manned Soyuz has had problems during launch, the automatic abort system has worked like a charm and the crew have been rescued safely, as should always happen.
Watching the mission control film and the capcom calling “Columbia, Houston UHF comm check” multiple times.
Can’t imagine how sick they all felt knowing Columbia was lost.
When the flight controller says “ Lock the doors “ you know a casualty event has occurred
Yeah it's really serious when he says lock the door
@@matthewcaughey8898 Yep.
I would have hated to be the person on capcom when they realized what had happened.
Dude your intro is the best on CZcams. Just love the graphics and editing
"Normalization of deviance" - sounds like the perfect description for modern times.
@Shukriyadhan they didn't forget, because that wasn't in the design. The numbers here don't add up - orbital velocity is about 9000 m/s, there is no way two SRB's could produce that much delta-v for the shuttle. Also, that would completely nullify any advantage of the shuttle's landing capabilities, as there would be insufficient velocity to glide to the landing destination.
That’s a pretty good synopsis of the lefts agenda actually
@@mk6315 Ah yes because wanting to normalise people being able to live the lives they want without having others persecute them for it is a bad thing.
@@TheAkashicTraveller it is when it contributes nothing good for society
@@TheAkashicTraveller FORCING People to think the way you want them to think is definitely a “bad thing”! “If you don’t agree with us....we will persecute you, socially, and morally, and MAKE you accept what our terms are” yes....ITS A BAD THING.
If there were men and women willing to try and willing to die, then they should have tried. It would have been their finest hour.
Nah, it was an immense, gigantic waste of human potential. These very refined human beings, pretty much at their peak performance capabilities have died because of stupidity. They say it was something 'inevitable' to a huge abnormality. It's the exact opposite of calling 9/11 evitable.
Money, politics, cowardice
kirk on atmos 5
There was nobody "willing to try" because that report and the options it suggested were written long after the disaster had occurred. Maybe could have helped a future crew in a similar situation (which luckily was never needed) but way too late to help the crew of the Columbia.
I have no doubt that had NASA realized the shuttle was badly damaged, they'd have moved heaven and earth to save the astronauts. They simply assumed everything was okay and didn't take the necessary steps to check on the condition of the shuttle.
Saving a crew in a broken ship headed for the moon? Totally doable. Bring them home at all costs!
Saving a crew in LEO with a damaged heat shield? Impossible
Edit: To clarify, I'm not saying that there was a guarantee of success, but that NASA should have put forth a better effort to save the crew. I understand not wanting to risk Atlantis, but I think some effort to patch the heat shield should have been made.
They changed philosophies between the 2 times. The older foam was not green compliant. Richard Hoaglund has talked about this in great depth on Art Bell's Coast to Coast show.
Completely different scenarios. In one they were able o work with the craft they had and come back to earth. With the Columbia they couldn't repair it or return to earth with the damage so their craft was done for
If Apollo 13 had a damaged heatshield, they would have been doomed as well.
The Apollo 13 crew largely saved themselves. Sure there was a lot of technical support on the ground but ultimately the crew had to put it all into practice alone. With Columbia there was simply nothing the crew could have done had they even been aware of the severity of the damage they had sustained..
@@TDChannelKSP Apollo's heatshield was protected during launch as would the shuttle's have been if the orbiter had been mounted above the launch system as was originally designed. Another compromise.
I love your vids, Curious Droid. Thank you.
I remember seeing it live on television when it happened. The photos still give me chills.
Nothing is impossible if you go all out for it! ;). if they were able to come out of apollo 13, anything was possible! Too bad they didn't consider the problem enough.
They could have easily repaired it
@@Awilgu It wouldn't have been easy, but at least they could have tried.
The obstacle wasn't the repair, the obstacle was admitting that something had to be repaired.
The crew wasn't even giving a fighting chance, because "nah it's fine!". Regardless of whether repair was feasible or not, not even giving the crew an opportunity to TRY to survive is just dark.
The difference is, the Apollo program was given all the money it needed and left to scientists and engineers to create. The shuttle program had neither of those things. Too many people had a say in it who had no concept of what was involved. It would be the equivalent of FDR saying, hey we would really like an atomic bomb but I think the Congress should have a say in how it’s built. No, you assign the goal, you assign the budget needed to complete the goal, and you hand it off to people who know better than you. Anything else is just asking for trouble
@@Awilgu How? Stuffing a bunch of stuff in the hole?
@@twistedyogert It only had to survive a few moments at super temps. Ice when heated that fast turns directly into vapor which would do a decent if temporary job of shielding that spot. Plus they could have taken plenty of other things apart like the video says. It's just a sign of how far the world had fallen that they didn't even get the chance to try.
So it was a managerial decision that caused all this. Like it was for the Boeing 737 Max.
And lives were lost...
Yet, no manager had to pay for their gross negligence and lack of respect for human life!
If it had happened to Japan I imagine the managers might have ceremoniously fallen on their swords.
Pioneering is always dangerous, whether it's land, sea, air or space. We are but infants struggling to learn to walk in comparison with our efforts at space exploration. All of the astronauts who have made the ultimate sacrifice have earned our greatest admiration. R.I.P. all of you from whatever nation you are from.
Oh we have "normalization of deviance" at my firm. We call it "being lazy."
“Dodged a bullet”... let’s carry on
Often it's the opposite. Something comes up and you have to rush and take shortcuts to meet a dealine. Management sees this and thinks hey you did it that fast last time why can't they do it that fast all the time. When you explain the shortcuts and the consequences they'd have they just call you lazy and to stop making excuses.
Some time later you get Cyberpunk 2077 or say all the issues Boeing has been having. Also insert joke about McDonnel Douglass buying Boeing with Boeing's money here.
That man at the end. Thats the sort of brutal honesty that every body needs in life. Like wow, that hurts but i needed to hear that.
NASA's management got so comfortable with success that when shit hit the wing, they just stuck their heads in the sand
And then proceeded to use the "primitive" (e.g. simple but well proven) Soviet/Russian Soyuz for the next 20-so years as their only means of reaching space.
@@szlatyka they've only been relying on Soyuz capsules for a little under a decade, not 20 years. Also, after the cancellation of the Constellation Project, NASA knew they were going to have an awkward period where they relied on the Russians until SpaceX or Boeing were able to build a new working rocket.
NASA management should have been managing EVERY mission as if they or their family members were on those shuttles....They obviously didn't.
@@szlatyka The Shuttle's problem was its complexity; it would never be possible to make it as safe as the traditional method, at least without a near infinite supply of resources and time that was far from being available to NASA at the time. The Shuttle is arguably the most ambitious and complex piece of technology and machinery that humanity has designed, but those were also its downfall: it was overambitious and too complex. The Soyuz is primitive relative to the Shuttle, but it is undeniably safer and cheaper than the shuttle.
6:13 This has always been my personal "what if?" regarding STS107. While the paint layer wasn't intended to hold the foam in place, I've always wondered if it would have reduced the incidents of foam falling off.
Short answer: Technically? Yes. Realistically? No.
Also, if a rescue mission was to be launched using Atlantis, given the fact it required 4 people crew to go up and Columbia had full crew of 7 people, 4 members of Columbia's crew would likely have to ride out the reentry in... the cargo bay. As far as I know, reentry and landing with someone in the cargo hold was actually considered a contingecy scenario in case of cargo bay doors not closing properly prior to reentry.
Their potential plan had the other crew members sitting on the floor. But it wasn't reasonable. The assumption was that they would have diagnosed the issue in time, and that they were willing to throw another crew and shuttle up, without knowing if the next would come down. The CAIB looked into that as an appendix to their investigation report, and it was concluded that it wasn't possible. It was a catch 22. If they knew that the shuttle would fail, they could have sent a replacement. But the eva's required to confirm that question closed the door to waiting long enough for a rescue mission, due to the amount of oxygen dumped for the eva
@@martenkerkhoff6600 So the only potential solution was to attempt in-situ repair during that (or perhaps follow-up) EVA. And just like the temporary sludge plug in Challenger's SRB in 86 that held the plume until that massive wind shear, there was a chance it could held up through the reentry.
@@CrazyChemistPL - cargo bay doors not closing properly prior to reentry.?? is the last place i would want to be, at 25000mph that would be harsh
@@CrazyChemistPL I remember reading that while it could be done, there was a lot of risk because an astronaut riding in the cargo bay could've been injured because he/she wouldn't be wearing a seatbelt.
Hands down the most underrated channel on CZcams, been watching since high school!
All NASA had to do was to paint the 1/3 of the external tank so that the foam would not fall off and hit the orbiter.
yeah I'm wondering why there's no machine that can just de ice the ice like a commercial airliner So they don't have to put the foam on
@@steveissexy The foam isn't applied to the external tank to keep ice off of it, they spray foam on the external tank to keep the Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen from boiling off from inside it. The Insulatiom is used to maintain the extremely low temperatures needed for the fuel inside the tank.
Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen are both Cryogenic- gasses that can only be liquefied at extremely low temperatures - 423 degrees Fahrenheit, which poses enormous technical challenges, To keep them from evaporating or Boiling off any fuel tank, rocket, or in this case the Space Shuttle's external tank must be carefully insulated, so as already stated the foam that is sprayed on the fuel tank is done so as to maintain the extremely low temperatures needed to maintain the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen within the fuel tank, one of the results of which is ice Crystal's can form on the outside of the tank especially if there's any moisture in the atmosphere, as the external tank when filled with fuel would be freezing cold., It's also one of the main reasons why they only fill the main fuel tank around 6 to 8 hours prior to a launch, they also fit the beanie cap to the top of the tank on an arm attached to the launch pad which is lifted off and retracts away prior to launch.
I remember that day. My wife and I were watching the return on TV. When the news crew said that the Columbia was 30 seconds overdue on its landing time I looked at my wife and said "They are all dead". The time sequences in such events are projected down to the second. You just don't have a space shuttle that is "running a little late".
Thank you for the great videos! This was such an amazing crew. My heart breaks when I see the archive documentaries. Mike Massimino shares in his book Spaceman that his flight was given priority to the unfortunate STS107 and they took the slot previously allocated for the STS-107 crew. I can't imagine how horrible it must be to know that they escaped this fate by this change in the flight sequence
Thank you for doing this story. I have been asking Vintage Space to do this one for over a year.
A family knows everything about the car they drive in , the mechanic knows even more .
Many other times the Shuttle was on the edge of disaster, but mistakes were caught before they happened. Some by accident
The shuttle was just too damn fragile.
Few were saved by sheer luck.
@@tryithere and too expensive to move 7 astronauts to LEO. 4 Crew Dragon with Falcon-9 still require a fracture of money required for each launch of Shuttle. Also after each trip engineers need to change 200000 heat shields on the ship, each of them cost 500000 USD to make. Not count for other complex stuff on Shuttle
you can tell the ad is coming when these youtubers say the word "skills"
People don't use adblock, wow.
@@8-bitsteve500 He meant the sponsorship message, which is an advertisement baked into the video itself by the content creator in agreement with the sponsor. Namely, he's talking about the advertisement of Brilliant at 13:05 and not a youtube generated ad.
@@8-bitsteve500 if ad block stops it then must have a good one, I use ad block for a lot of sites but still get ads from them
Properly Good at Explaining Things for Kids and Adults. Awesome.
Thanks for sharing your videos✨✌️
Thank you for a very well done episode OP. All these years later and I STILL can barely watch the video of Columbia breaking apart. It is just that horrible.
Always look forward to the CD vids such amazing quality!
Rest In Peace. Must’ve been the worst last few moments I can think of
Very interesting topic. Hope you will reach 1 mil. subscribers by the end of the year.
Amazing how you produce a full series of well-researched, professionally made educative videos.
My day definitely needed an amazing CuriousDroid video, thank you for that!
I'll never forget this as a kid in school in east Texas. We heard the explosion and had no idea what it was. My friends mother was an emt that found one of the crew members, they were propped up against a tree like he was just sitting there resting.
Thank you for getting this rite. My Father was a Launch Director when the Challenger met its Faith Not by his fault but the Higher ups that basicly forced him to go for Launch despite the O rings not rated for the freezing temps that day, was about Money. He later retired and was not surprised at all about Columbia Tragedy .
If anyone could handle the delicate subject of this video, Paul Shillito has the right stuff for it.
May the brave crew of STS-107 rest in peace.
Yes, *and* Nasa should've taken more precautions in crew safety from the beginning and they definitely should've been asking questions after sts 27's close call
You have an excellent voice, tone and manner of presentation for a narrator Paul .
Wow...I remember that day like it was today. That Saturday will live with me forever.
When I see a new curiousdroid video in my subbox, I always get so excited!
It would have been Nasa’s finest hour.
It could have been -
but alas, was not.
One of the most interesting things about space or about anything I've seen on CZcams.
A horror story. The Shuttle was supposed to be the savior of the US space program. Instead, it turned into the messiest, most dangerous project of them all.
It seems to me that the US space program just asked too much of the shuttle.
Another huge problem with the shuttle was the 27,000 unique foam pieces. Why have so many different pieces? Job creation. That is all.
@@klassensj2 I've always wondered about that, and have read some complicated explanations from NASA that made little sense. Also, I think I understand why launches take place in Florida - direction of rotation of the earth and proximity of an ocean on the correct side, in case the launch goes wrong. However, Florida generally has a lot of rain and cloud cover, which forced many landings to take place in California, with a very expensive cross-country ferrying operation. There had to be a better solution.
The Shuttle never lived up to the expectations placed on it, it wasn't possible to make a truly "reuseable" spacecraft that would be safe to fly.
@@JCBro-yg8vd Elon Musk would beg to differ. SpaceX and the Falcon rocket have proven numerous times that reusable rockets are a thing.
Excellent video, perfect coverage of the topic, I've been very interested in the disaster ever since it happened.
“Normalization of deviance” would be an awesome title for my biography.
No one will read it
@@georgedawson235 it was a joke, duh.
I was joking too hun x
@@georgedawson235 great joke. Hilarious in fact.
It was my please your
Good content. Subscribed.
I worked as a lowly admin officer at Boscombe Down in the early 90’s. Rick Husband was the squadron’s USAF exchange pilot, working with the RAF. He was subsequently selected by NASA (on his second attempt I seem to recall) and went back to the USA to begin astronaut training.
Several years later I was surprised to be invited by him to his first Space Shuttle launch (STS-96) where he would be the pilot for the mission. I put all my savings together and travelled out to Florida and watched the launch in 1999 as a personal friend of one of the astronauts. Me! An admin officer that filed sortie reports from test pilots!
Over 20 years later I still see that launch as one of the most incredible experiences of my life. It was an awe-inspiring and emotional moment for me.
I was invited again by Rick to the Columbia launch in 2003, but I chose not to go. 911 had happened by then and the rules surrounding the launch were very different. As well as money being an issue for me, I also didn’t think that the launch could live up to the experience of 1999 when I was just a few miles away across Banana Creek. I chose not to go.
The Columbia disaster in 2003, in which 7 astronauts lost their lives, is etched in my memory. I have nothing but happy memories of Rick, he was a wonderful and charming, mild-mannered Texan gentleman who always had time for me. I’ll never forget him. ❤️
You started out with an error in the background info that affects much of the rest of your video. The foam on the tank was not the issue. It was the aerodynamic foam ramp covering on the bipod that was shed. This foam served no purpose other than as an aero surface to smooth airflow past the bipod. It was not there for insulation. It was later determined that it was unnecessary even for that purpose and eliminated from future flights.
It is unlikely that the foam ramp would be held on by the paint as it had to bear aerodynamic loads. The paint's purpose was to reduce thermal load from sunlight.
This incident always disturbed me. I don't remember much of it, but back when the Challenger disaster occurred, I was a young child. They kept replaying the explosion and I don't know why, but I wouldn't stop watching the replays of it. I've also been interested in the stars and space exploration and seeing what happened to Columbia and how it could have been avoided has always bothered me. This was negligence to a deadly degree.
Same. I was 7 or 8 with Challenger. I remember it being played endlessly. I remember thinking like: wow this is actually people dying on TV.. Surely an abrupt lesson in mortality for a kid and also that the adults didn’t quite have things as under control as they let on.
Former Shuttle Engineer here, brought on in 2004 to work the Return-to-Flight effort. In rudimentary terms, an improvised “Bodge-Job” type repair would’ve been the only feasible play, IMO. (if the crew had been adequately warned)
I was brought-on to bolster manpower needed to support integration of the MANY changes, on a VERY truncated timetable. I was ultimately kept-on, not simply as a “Pinch-Hitter” - but because many organizations continually saw people leaving in Columbia’s wake.
We’re talking extended or permanent medical leaves, often due to stress, emotional crises, and depression. There were suicides. At least one man I know of even *”fell”* from launchpad 39A.
After the Columbia disaster, there was A LOT of uncertainty. Would Shuttles ever fly again? If they would, clearly not for much longer.... And NASA really showed no clear direction where, if anywhere, Human Spaceflight would continue. No transition. No “next.” Just the Shuttles’ end.
For the highly skilled, dedicated workforce of around 15,000 people - it was like watching friends and family endure a gruesome, slow-mo car crash in a tunnel. At some point, soon, the end was coming - and there wasn’t much light at that tunnel’s end.
Sorry to get so heavy. It was an amazing place to work. I’d always secretly pinch myself, visiting the pad with a stack-on. Things like walking under the “bell” of a main engine, looking-up into that almighty thrust chamber. Or standing at the base, just a few yards from an SRB - my eyes trained skywards, trying to gulp-in the machine’s enormity. I even have a photo of myself standing at the tippy-top, where the dubious little (and very see-thru) service bridge stretched over to the ET’s “Beanie-Cap.” Just to name a few memories.
I was but a young pup, fresh-out of college. Virtually all of my colleagues were, at the youngest, older Gen-Xers. Most were Boomers. Some went all the way back to Project Gemini!!! All had done nothing else for a career, nor could they imagine doing anything else - anywhere else.
Columbia was, in a way, the ultimate in foreshadowing.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to write this, Hans. Also, thank you for your work while there. Blessed Be.
@@themittonmethod1243 - Absolutely. Working on the Shuttle Program was much more a *PRIVILEGE* than service.
Perhaps as America’s next (and more exciting) adventures into space take flight, I may consider returning to KSC. Though today’s workforce is a whole lot leaner, and the culture less fun (so I hear).
Shuttle (co)workers were very much like extended family. After a rollout, launch or other major milestone - there were parties. Never a shortage of parties! We even had “Layoff Parties” celebrating the program’s end. (depressing as that sounds)
So, while today’s hardware and the missions’ future is every bit as cool - it’s just not the same. Florida is still, just as HOT though. And those hurricanes, paid breaks as they were, were stressful to endure. (2004 saw a record THREE hurricanes crisscross the peninsula!)
In the time since my original comment, I came across musings from @thedungeondelver - and while he(?) was before my time.... Occasionally, my responsibilities took me to (what was called) the SSPF, where each partner nation assembled their respective module for the space station. (one can spy a quick look inside, as it was featured in Iron Man 2)
I’m not sure what the “Kiba” (horse) module does, specifically, but I saw it built in there! Those little boy-sized Japanese guys tooling away in “Bunny Suits,” rarely straying outside their designated / marked rectangle on the floor. Heh, heh. 😁
Could it be a better documentary? Absolutely not! The quality of this channel is amazing!
Thank you for this video. I'm of the idea that the crew could have been saved if NASA had decided to acknowledge the problem, and asked the DOD to take some pictures of the Shuttle underbelly.
At that point, an enormous number of highly capable individuals would have developed a reasonably safe rescue plan, without necessarily sending a second Shuttle in a hurry.
There was a famous demonstration / simulation during the subsequent inquest, where the engineers on the ground shot a piece of foam at supersonic speed (the same speed when the foam struck during ascent) into the thermal shield: many were surprised that ultra-light polystyrene foam was able to punch an hole in the thermal panel.
But many other engineers on the ground didn't need any demonstration, they knew about E=1/2mv^2. And their word wasn't taken into consideration, much like more than a decade earlier, when they said that the Shuttle SRBs (the solid fuel boosters) couldn't operate below 53 °F - and one booster leaked during ascent, and made the liquid fuel tank explode.
In both incidents, the voice of reason, based on some good calculations, wasn't listened. Deadly administrative stubbornness. Things have changed now, thankfully. Rocket travel is still dangerous, but there isn't anymore any form of contaminated thinking.
Again, I appreciated your video a true lot, both for the details of the analysis and the quality of research. Many Thanks...
Did they never try shooting the foam at a wing mock-up before the accident? It seems like an obvious thing to have done, now.
@@MarkTheMorose > Pretty sure they didn't need to, it was obvious to most that the foam shedding problem had turned the Shuttles re-entry into a game of Russian roulette, and tragically as noted on other occasions the program became a tug of war between concerned engineers wanting to fix the obvious problems versus bean counters and bureaucrats who just wanted the Shuttles launched already at the lowest cost possible.
@@MarkTheMorose They did that in a test after the Columbia disaster. The foam made a hole in the aluminum the size of a basketball. The Columbia crew didn't have the materials on board to repair that much damage.
I think they could have been rescued if the crew were given the chance to do a spacewalk to inspect the hull
And then what?
@@ArKritz84 Then NASA could have launched a shuttle to transfer the personnel and return to earth
@@williamsanders5066 I saw that in a video on CZcams
@@williamsanders5066 Sounds great, but no single shuttle was ever turned around in less than 54 days, and no two launches were closer together than 16 days, so... probably not. As of STS 114, the STS 3xx LON missions were set up, so then it *was* possible. But not before.
While we like to think that may have been possible, it was highly unlikely they could have been saved.
6:37 is absolutely terrifying.
I imagine both would be tethered to the shuttle incase they lost their grip so they could just pull themselves back, but still scary indeed haha
Right? Wth happened to cables?
Shirt and the content is sharp in this one
*Space Fact :*
Attempting to view Pluto from Earth is like trying to see a walnut from 30 miles away !!
Ok.
Thank you for your great videos! I was ten years old when I watched this happen on television. It was so shocking to see a space disaster in my lifetime, I hope it is the last.
I hope your right but it won't be. We're increasing our progress in space. Accidents given enough time and opportunity are unavoidable.
I was working this sad Saturday in Feb. at NASA/DFRC (now NASA/AFRC) as a contractor. I was supporting a different mission that day but my co-workers were on the console supporting the STS mission. We were called off of landing support since it was going to the Cape and not Edwards AFB. My co-workers stayed on console just to track the Shuttle as it went over the USA. I'm glad they did. They were able to help Mission Control and send re-entry data to them as NASA/DFRC was the first West Coast Radar to pick them up at the horizon. Wish things were different and of course a better out come. I'll always remember hearing Mission Control calling the crew over the COMMs.
The most practical fix was reprogramming shuttle landing software to do initial descent at a yawed angle subjecting other wing tip to all the heat load so that stagnition heating doesn't build up on defected wing & be subjected to only skin friction heating which shuttle entire upper surface handles anyways without a heat shield.......
Another option could be detaching heat shielding tiles from wing tips & apply on this critical wing base, as even if wing tips melt shuttle could still fly
It was a complete and utter failure from NASA Management.
There is no way a contingency plan couldn't be created by all the amazing Engineers that work for NASA and NASA's contractors. Even if it required a rescue mission by the Shuttle Atlantis, I guarantee that to a person every single Astronaut would gladly risk their life to save the life of the crew.
In this situation Failure is not an option.
Failure became the mission
You are exactly correct. This Apollo 13 moment was cheated from NASA by a few individuals and their names are in the CAIB report. To begin with, in such a National Emergency Congress has give the President the ability to issue a letter order for "Immediate and Compelling Urgency" procurement that can be used to direct US Govt contractors to begin work immediately and without contract (their costs are reimbursed later on very liberal terms). Thus literally every US company that would have been needed to peform any needed task no matter hw big or small could have IMMEDIATELY (within hours) started work on verbal orders. Everything else is put aside, all the capabilities in the US are immediately brought to bear. In this environment NASA engineers, scientists, and technicians and its many skilled NASA Contractors could certainly have prepared Atlantis and produced any necessary tools. I know these engineers and I can assure you they would all have gladly worked to exhaustion for this. The other Astronauts to a man and woman would have jumped at the opportunity to put it on the line for their fellows on STS-107. The worst part is we were never given this chance to even try to pull off something heroic.
The white "paint" on the first 2 launches was intended to protect the ET insulation from UV rays over the more extended pad time expected on the early development flights.
I think CuriousDroid is right though. Multiple thick coats of paint would sort of seal in all of the foam. Most high performance paints act very, very well as adhesive(or an adhesive shell.) Bean counters gonna count beans.
@@upgrayedd9732
It was entirely possible, in light of the Challenger incident, and subsequent invesigation and report, to
1. Investigate modified application techniques for the insulative foam
2. Modify/add QC procedures to assess the foam application's integrity before clearing it for assembly
*3.* Investigate formulation and application of a paint that would enhance the foam's integrity during liftoff and ascent
But none of this was done. NASA 'fell from grace' by allowing a known statisical risk factor to persist until the Probability Principle exploited it.
great vids look always to your new vids