Feb 1 was the 20th anniversery of Columbia

[kdahm]

Two good articles on it in Ars Technica

Eric Berger on the safety culture in NASA: https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02 ... ure-fixed/
Summary: Doesn't answer the question, but insiders say that there is an an awareness that they need to be eve vigilant against complacency.

Lee Hutchinson with an updated 2013 article on a possible rescue mission: https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02 ... olumbia-2/

Summary: Barely possible, but probably not and with risks through the roof.


Overall, nobody working at NASA is really speaking on or off the record. The PAO is essentially giving a 'no comment' comment. And the journalists can't really get information on whether or how soon another incident will occur.

[brovane]

Summary: Barely possible, but probably not and with risks through the roof.

They would have probably said the same thing about the Apollo-13 rescue. The fact that certain high level managers in NASA failed to even respond to NASA engineers requests for further imaging of the wings to determine damage is in my opinion a criminal act. Those bureaucrats instead tried to pretend everything was fine when it was not.

[Craiglxviii]

There was a really interesting Quora answer on Columbia’s loss. I’ll see if I can find it. Basically outlined that about 12 things went wrong, some of which down to poor process, some down to poor design or cost cutting (E.g. one bracket, which stood in the way of the hot gas jet as it first entered the wing structure. Had originally been designed in titanium, was replaced in design with aluminium as it saved $3-4k… had it remained in Ti it likely would have withstood the gas jet long enough to get through re-entry). But, a lot of it more than just NASA having a poor safety culture; there were poor quality decisions littering the Shuttle programme.

[kdahm]

Summary: Barely possible, but probably not and with risks through the roof.

They would have probably said the same thing about the Apollo-13 rescue. The fact that certain high level managers in NASA failed to even respond to NASA engineers requests for further imaging of the wings to determine damage is in my opinion a criminal act. Those bureaucrats instead tried to pretend everything was fine when it was not.

One thing is that the quote bit was for a rescue mission. It would also involve putting another four astronauts at risk.

This is very different from Apollo 13. The three were up there in the capsule, there were no additional astronauts or assets at risk, and if what they tried didn't work, it only moved the literal deadline one way or another. The only downside would be the after analysis finding that there was something else which could have saved them, but which wasn't thought of in time. And even with all of the effort that was put in, NASA didn't know if the heat shield had been damaged and it wouldn't have worked regardless.

Columbia was the result of a poor safety culture, an over-bureaucratic agency, and a lack of vision and drive at the uppermost levels. As you said, not imaging the wings. Not having a plan for if the shuttle is stuck in orbit. Not already having an expedited checklist set for sending a shuttle up on short notice, having done things like asking which checklist items are essential and which ones can be skipped with only a little bit of extra risk.

Looking at the history of the SLS program and its precursors, I'm not sure that has really changed too much.

[brovane]

A Alternative History for a Columbia Rescue.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/ ... le.270106/

One thing I find interesting is the proposal to lighten Columbia which would reduce the re-entry stress. Also packing the hole in the wing full of scavenged material to hold out just long enough to allow it to survive re-entry.

[brovane]

There was a really interesting Quora answer on Columbia’s loss. I’ll see if I can find it. Basically outlined that about 12 things went wrong, some of which down to poor process, some down to poor design or cost cutting (E.g. one bracket, which stood in the way of the hot gas jet as it first entered the wing structure. Had originally been designed in titanium, was replaced in design with aluminium as it saved $3-4k… had it remained in Ti it likely would have withstood the gas jet long enough to get through re-entry). But, a lot of it more than just NASA having a poor safety culture; there were poor quality decisions littering the Shuttle programme.

Originally the Shuttles would have used a Titanium structure but the USAF objected because at that time we were so dependent on titanium from the Soviet Union. The use of Titanium would have eliminated all the thermal blankets and other thermal protection on parts of the shuttle because of the how much higher temperature that Titanium melts at, compared to Aluminum.

[Craiglxviii]

There was a really interesting Quora answer on Columbia’s loss. I’ll see if I can find it. Basically outlined that about 12 things went wrong, some of which down to poor process, some down to poor design or cost cutting (E.g. one bracket, which stood in the way of the hot gas jet as it first entered the wing structure. Had originally been designed in titanium, was replaced in design with aluminium as it saved $3-4k… had it remained in Ti it likely would have withstood the gas jet long enough to get through re-entry). But, a lot of it more than just NASA having a poor safety culture; there were poor quality decisions littering the Shuttle programme.

Originally the Shuttles would have used a Titanium structure but the USAF objected because at that time we were so dependent on titanium from the Soviet Union. The use of Titanium would have eliminated all the thermal blankets and other thermal protection on parts of the shuttle because of the how much higher temperature that Titanium melts at, compared to Aluminum.

I did not know that. Suddenly a lot more makes sense. Thank you!

[Micael]

The space shuttles were on the one hand an amazing technical achievement given the era they were designed in, and on the other hand they were also a design with inherent safety compromises which manifested themselves through the two losses. It is however understandable why they would have gone with some choices they did given constraints of the time, various conflicting priorities and so on.

What should be criticized more heavily is the present day decision to reuse a variant of the space shuttle solid rocket boosters on the SLS. Something done only for industry support and political reasons. This means an extended period during ascent during which the launch escape system can’t reliably function due to the inability to throttle down the SRBs before they burn out on their own. I’m concerned that we’ll see a catastrophic failure during this window on one of the launches, and which will lead to a loss of crew that could have been avoided with an all liquid rocket setup.

[brovane]

A video showing what could have been.

https://youtu.be/sWwh1NoNM_k

Basically a 1st stage from the Saturn V as a flyback booster and a external tank for the upper stage attached to a shuttle with a disposable external tank and would have probably been 4-J2S engines optimized for vacuum. Not 100% sure how about the boost back for the 1st stage. I am assuming they would use some type of airbreathing jet engines that would turn on once they got low enough in altitude instead of using the engines to perform the boost back like SpaceX does. Looks like they also had a cockpit in this concept so the fly back booster would have been manned. That could have been probably dropped fairly quickly as computer technology advanced. During the STS development a similar concept to this was examined but instead they went with the Solid Boosters instead.

[Kunkmiester]

Or this:
https://youtu.be/cVYbbWAd2WA

I've been told the shuttle was supposed to be an aggressive hardware based development program, and so the ones we had should have been retired after just a handful of flights and replaced by new designs. Instead we flew the first prototypes for 20 years past their intended lifespan.