Category Archives: Technology and Society

Space, Technology and Society

Lessons From Shuttle

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…are being incorporated into Commercial Crew:

There is no way the Columbia crew could have survived the breakup of their orbiter after it lost its left wing to a crack in the thermal protection system caused by falling foam debris on ascent two weeks earlier. But forensic analysis after the catastrophe revealed “survival gaps” in cabin and crew-equipment designs that could give space travelers a better chance in accidents if they are fixed, according to Dr. Michael Barratt, a flight surgeon/astronaut in the NASA Human Research Program Office.

“This is really the only source of high-altitude hypersonic breakup information we have with regard to human response to it,” Barratt says. “It’s incredibly valuable, and it’s obviously information that came to us at a very high price, and something we are obligated to process.”

The data show all but one of the crewmembers died of blunt force trauma, and the nature of their injuries indicated their shoulder harnesses did not lock as the failing shuttle spun slowly in the thin upper atmosphere. That, and head injuries suffered inside the non-conformal helmets all but one of the crew were wearing during reentry, suggested redesigns of both the crew safety constraints and helmets.

None of the crew was able to close a helmet visor. The cabin decompression killed one of them outright, and the rest lost consciousness, which led to a requirement that crews on the remaining shuttle flights practice sealing their suits, Barratt told the annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington Feb. 5.

It was a very interesting talk, and first time I’d seen those forensic details. I’ll probably incorporate them into a new edition of the book, along with the NTSB report on SpaceShipTwo, when it becomes available. I gave Barratt a copy.

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Climate Skeptics

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How and when did you become one?

A lot of interesting responses.

As some note there, to me the biggest deal with the release of the CRU data five years ago wasn’t (just) the duplicity and unscientific behavior revealed in the emails, but the utter crap that was the source code of the computer models. It was clear that it was not done by anyone familiar with computer science, numerical methods, or modeling, and the notion that we should have any confidence whatsoever in their output was societally insane. In terms of Matthews’ paper, I’d put myself somewhere between “lukewarmer” and “moderate skeptic.”

[Update a couple minutes later]

Starting to read through the comments. Here’s just one horror story:

Most of the claims being made by climate change advocates appear to run contrary to basic meteorology. As I’ve been attacked personally and professionally for offering contrary views, I decided to leave the field. I will defend my Atmospheric Science PhD thesis and walk away. It’s become clear to me that it is not possible to undertake independent research in any area that touches upon climate change if you have to make your living as a professional scientist on government grant money or have to rely on getting tenure at a university. The massive group think that I have encountered on this topic has cost me my career, many colleagues and has damaged my reputation among the few people I know in the field. I’m leaving to work in the financial industry. It’s a sad day when you feel that you have to leave a field that you are passionately interested in because you fear that you won’t be able to find a job once your views become widely known. Until free thought is allowed in the climate sciences, I will consider myself a skeptic of catastrophic human induced global warming.

Yup. Totally, totally politicized. It’s not a science any more. Unless you think that Lysenko was a scientist.