Shuttle Lost?

[jerry]

God rest thier souls. Thankfully no one hurt on the ground (as far as we know)

[dhermesc]

Just wondering, they say this happened when they where at about 12,000 mph. How many feet per second? While talking to my wife I told her they where probably moving at about twice the speed of a 30.06 bullet, just a WAG. At that speed a minute deviation would send the ship spinning on all axis and immediately rip it apart.

For some reason it has never accurred to me that the launch provides nearly all the speed for the entire mission and it is still being bled off during the landing.

Watching the tragedy I remember a news story I read last year. Someone on Ebay was looking for hard drives for some old IBM computers from the early 1980's (IBM 8088s if I remember). They would buy all that could be found. Turned out it was NASA looking for replacement parts for the computers they where still using in the shuttle program. I am embarrassed an appalled that we ask astronauts to risk their lives while using such antiquated equipment to support them.

God bless and may their families find comfort in their time of need.

[oneastrix]

I was outside during all of this, but was able to hear or see anything over San Antonio or to the north west.

[Doglips]

dhermesc The local newspaper runs stories every few months or so about the age of the shuttle parts...NASA buying parts off Ebay.....some stuff still uses tubes and such..the older shuttles were RUMERED to still be useing TRS-80 (very old tandy) computers...Some of the enginears that built it have long since retired....newer enganiers only read about some of these parts in old science books....never seen the antique stuff for real. I was told by a few enganers at work that some of the old stuff is less susebable to EMP and the stress placed on the parts (G forces and tempatures) than the modern stuff.

[NRAJOE]

Oldest Shuttle, But 'Not Much Different'

By Tom Incantalupo
STAFF WRITER

February 2, 2003


It was the oldest shuttle in an old fleet. As recently as July 2001, the space agency was considering parking the Columbia because it was built in 1979.

"It's questionable whether it would be cost-effective to keep Columbia fully operational," a NASA spokeswoman told Aerospace Daily, an aviation publication.

Dennis R. Jenkins, a former shuttle engineer and historian of the shuttle program, said, "There were a lot of early issues, but she was the first vehicle and she got repaired." Some of the issues included a tendency for the ceramic heat tiles to fall off the shuttle's skin.

Now as NASA tries to sort out what caused the Columbia to disintegrate over Texas, experts said it was no more troublesome than any other of the complex spacecraft.

Jerry Grey, director of Aerospace and Science Policy at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said that because it was the first to fly, *Columbia had been fitted with more instrumentation than its sister ships. But, he said, the equipment had been removed in 1999 during a refitting*. "Other than that," he said, "Columbia is not much different than the others."

The Columbia was completed at Rockwell International's Palmdale, Calif., facility in 1979, the product of seven years of work.

At the time, the ship seemed to represent the fulfillment of a dream for the world of science: a reusable vehicle that promised to make space travel routine. Until then, trips beyond the atmosphere had been aboard relatively small vehicles that could be used just once.

The Columbia arrived at Florida's Kennedy Space Center on March 24, 1979, piggybacked on a National Aeronautics and Space Administration Boeing 747. There was trouble along the way; 40 percent of the ceramic tiles that line shuttle orbiters' skin and protect the craft from the searing heat of re-entry had blown off during the trip. Engineers worked the problem for two years and found a better adhesive, but the problem never was entirely solved, Grey said.

Jenkins was in the mission control room at Cape Canaveral on April 12, 1981, when the 178,000- pound, 120-feet-tall Columbia blasted skyward the first time with a rumble that shook the ground miles away. "We'd been working on it a long time, " he said, "and it was nice to see it go somewhere."

The Columbia flew the first five shuttle missions. Other shuttles were built throughout the 1980s with Endeavour coming in 1991.

After the shuttle Challenger exploded after takeoff in January 1986, Columbia and the three other remaining orbiters were grounded for two years, receiving upgrades to their main engines and other systems.

During 1991 and 1992, the Columbia was the first of the shuttles to undergo what NASA called an inspection and retrofit; about 50 modifications were made, including the addition of carbon brakes, improved nose wheel steering and an enhancement of its thermal protection system. Columbia's last major overhaul was in 1999.

Around that time, said Grey and Jenkins, wiring problems were discovered in all of the shuttles - and elsewhere in the aerospace industry. "The insulation was getting brittle," Jenkins said. He says a short circuit during a launch in 1999 caused a malfunction of a controller for one of Columbia's three main engines.

In July scientists found three cracks in Columbia's stainless steel liners that direct the flow of super-cold hydrogen fuel to the main engines. Similar cracks had been discovered in other ships in the fleet.

Columbia's final flight was its 28th and was the shuttle program's 113th.

"The whole shuttle program is still considered experimental," Grey said. "It's still a flight vehicle that has to be delicately handled - given lots of tender loving care."

COLUMBIA PROFILE

Space Shuttle Columbia 56 ft., 8 in. and 78 ft., 0.68 in.

CREW ON CURRENT MISSION: Seven

Orbital speed: 17,600 mph

Re-entry: Decelerates until speed at touch down is under 300 mph.

Nominal touchdown speed: 212-226 mph

Features:

n Lifts off vertically with boosters and re-enters atmosphere after mission for unpowered aerodynamic landing on airfield.

n Materials on outer skin are designed to perform a minimum of 100 missions, in which temperatures will range from -250 degrees F in space to re-entry temperatures of nearly 3,000 degrees F.

Columbia, the oldest orbiter in the shuttle fleet, was named after the Boston-based sloop captained by American Robert Gray. In 1792, Gray maneuvered the Columbia past a sandbar at the mouth of a river through present-day southeastern British Columbia and the Washington-Oregon border. The river was named after the ship. The name is derived from the explorer, Christopher Columbus. Columbia was the first shuttle to fly into Earth's orbit in 1981. Four sister ships joined the fleet over the next 10 years: Challenger, arriving in 1982 but destroyed four years later; Discovery, 1983; Atlantis, 1985; and Endeavour, built as a replacement for Challenger, 1991. A test vehicle, the Enterprise, was used for tests and did not fly in space. In the day-to-day world of shuttle operations shuttle orbiters go by more prosaic designation. Columbia is commonly referred to as OV-102, for Orbiter Vehicle-102. Empty Weight was 158,289 pounds at rollout and 178,000 pounds with main engines installed.

Upgrades and Features

The shuttle underwent approximately 50 modifications, including the addition of carbon brakes, drag chute, improved nose wheel steering, removal of development flight instrumentation and an enhancement of its thermal protection system.

Milestones

7/26/72 Construction contract awarded.

4/12/81 First flight.

6/25/92 First flight after refurbishing.

SOURCES: Associated Press; NASA; Jane's Information Group
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

[Big Dog]

My co-worker was at St. George Island this weekend. She says two different people there reported seeing a "fireball" in the sky at the time of the accident - from the northwestern coast of Florida! Whether they saw the Shuttle . . . ?
At 200,000 feet, it might be possible.

Our prayers go out to the crew members and their families.

As to Iraq's predictable response - just another good reason to "take 'em down". A glased over Iraqi desert might make a good emergency landing area in the future.

[dhermesc]

I'll really show my ignorance, I thought the Enterprise was the basis for the Endeavour. I know the Enterprise was built with no engines but I thought it had been stripped and rebuilt as the Endeavour or is it sitting in a museum somewhere?

What ever became of the replacement vehicles for the space shuttle? I recall seeing pictures of one under construction a couple years ago.

[NRAJOE]

Endeavour (OV-105)
Background
Endeavour, the newest addition to the four-orbiter fleet, is named after the first ship commanded by James Cook, the 18th century British explorer, navigator and astronomer. On Endeavour's maiden voyage in August 1768, Cook sailed to the South Pacific (to observe and record the infrequent event of the planet Venus passing between the Earth and the sun). Determining the transit of Venus enabled early astronomers to find the distance of the sun from the Earth, which then could be used as a unit of measurement in calculating the parameters of the universe. In 1769, Cook was the first person to fully chart New Zealand (which was previously visited in 1642 by the Dutchman Abel Tasman from the Dutch province of Zeeland). Cook also surveyed the eastern coast of Australia , navigated the Great Barrier Reef and traveled to Hawaii.
Cook's voyage on the Endeavour also established the usefulness of sending scientists on voyages of exploration. While sailing with Cook, naturalist Joseph Banks and Carl Solander collected many new families and species of plants, and encountered numerous new species of animals.

Endeavour and her crew reportedly made the first long-distance voyage on which no crewman died from scurvy, the dietary disease caused by lack of ascorbic acids. Cook is credited with being the first captain to use diet as a cure for scurvy, when he made his crew eat cress, sauerkraut and an orange extract.

The Endeavour was small at about 368 tons, 100 feet in length and 20 feet in width. In contrast, its modern day namesake is 78 tons, 122 feet in length and 78 feet wide. The Endeavour of Captain Cook's day had a round bluff bow and a flat bottom. The ship's career ended on a reef along Rhode Island.

For the first time, a national competition involving students in elementary and secondary schools produced the name of the new orbiter; it was announced by President George Bush in 1989. The Space Shuttle orbiter Endeavour was delivered to Kennedy Space Center in May 1991, and flew its first mission, highlighted by the dramatic rescue of a stranded communications satellite, a year later in May 1992.

In the day-to-day world of Shuttle operations and processing, Space Shuttle orbiters go by a more prosaic designation. Endeavour is commonly refered to as OV-105, for Orbiter Vehicle-105. Empty Weight was 151,205 lbs at rollout and 172,000 lbs with main engines installed.

Upgrades and Features
Endeavour features new hardware designed to improve and expand orbiter capabilities. Most of this equipment was later incorporated into the other three orbiters during out-of-service major inspection and modification programs. Endeavour's upgrades include:

A 40-foot diameter drag chute that is expected to reduce the orbiter's rollout distance by 1,000 to 2,000 feet.

The plumbing and electrical connections needed for Extended Duration Orbiter (EDO) modifications to allow up to 28-day missions.

Updated avionics systems that include advanced general purpose computers, improved inertial measurement units and tactical air navigation systems, enhanced master events controllers and multiplexer-demultiplexers, a solid-state star tracker and improved nose wheel steering mechanisms.

An improved version of the Auxiliary Power Units (APU's) that provide power to operate the Shuttle's hydraulic systems.

Construction Milestones
07/31/87 Contract Award
02/15/82 Start structural assembly of Crew Module (yes 1982)
09/28/87 Start structural assembly of aft-fuselage
12/22/87 Wings arrive at Palmdale from Grumman
08/01/87 Start of Final Assembly
07/06/90 Completed Final Assembly
04/25/91 Rollout from Palmdale
05/07/91 Delivery to Kennedy Space Center
04/06/92 Flight Readiness Firing
05/07/92 First Flight (STS-49)
The orbiter Endeavour underwent a 8-month Orbiter Maintenance Down Period (OMDP) in Palmdale, CA. The most significant modification will be in the installation of an external air lock making Endeavour capable of docking with the International Space Station once construction begins late 1997. (Reference KSC Shuttle Status 7/30/1996).

Endeavour's Flights to date:
01. STS-49 (05/07/92)
02. STS-47 (09/12/92)
03. STS-54 (01/13/93)
04. STS-57 (6/21/93)
05. STS-61 (12/02/93)
06. STS-59 (04/09/94)
07. STS-68 (9/30/94)
08. STS-67 (3/02/95)
09. STS-69 (9/07/95)
10. STS-72 (1/11/96)
11. STS-77 (5/19/96)
OMDP to Palmdale


12. STS-89 (1/22/98)
13. STS-88 (12/4/1998)
14. STS-99 (2/11/2000)
15. STS-97 (11/30/2000)
16. STS-100 (4/19/2001)
17. STS-108 (12/05/2001)
18. STS-111 (6/05/2002)

19. STS-113 (11/11/2002 Estimated)

Endeavour's Flight Logs to date:
17 flights