Enjoy my daily feed of your wit and honest examination of history.
The Columbia disaster is an example of a failure of NASA management and of imagination.
At T+81.7 seconds, a piece of foam approximately 21 to 27 inches (53 to 69 cm) long and 12 to 18 inches (30 to 46 cm) wide broke off from the left bipod on the ET. At T+81.9 seconds, the foam struck the reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) panels on Columbia's left wing at relative velocity of 625 to 840 feet per second (426 to 573 mph; 686 to 922 km/h).
This was seen on cameras during launch as pretty much all shuttles had damage from insulation debris hits.
The biggest failure was the NASA mission director, Linda Ham’s failure to request imaging from the DOD. She also squelched concerns from the engineers responsible for debris analysis.
Typically no one was singled out, as the shuttle, as magnificent as it was, was a cluster fuck committee design. That we only lost two, is damn lucky.
Per ardua ad astra.
RIP, courageous explorers.
Today's my birthday. Remember waking up to this horrible news. An awful day. 😥
Enjoy my daily feed of your wit and honest examination of history.
The Columbia disaster is an example of a failure of NASA management and of imagination.
At T+81.7 seconds, a piece of foam approximately 21 to 27 inches (53 to 69 cm) long and 12 to 18 inches (30 to 46 cm) wide broke off from the left bipod on the ET. At T+81.9 seconds, the foam struck the reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) panels on Columbia's left wing at relative velocity of 625 to 840 feet per second (426 to 573 mph; 686 to 922 km/h).
This was seen on cameras during launch as pretty much all shuttles had damage from insulation debris hits.
The biggest failure was the NASA mission director, Linda Ham’s failure to request imaging from the DOD. She also squelched concerns from the engineers responsible for debris analysis.
Typically no one was singled out, as the shuttle, as magnificent as it was, was a cluster fuck committee design. That we only lost two, is damn lucky.
Be well
Roger