OK, I’ve arrived in LA, but after upgrading the memory in my computer, it ran much better and faster for a while, then died mysteriously while I was eating dinner.
Autopsy underway. Here’s hoping it’s vivisection…
[Update at 12:17 AM PDT]
It was a dissection. Dead power supply…
Over at The Corner, Rod Dreher has what he calls “big news” about Columbia, with a link to a Florida Today article, that resurrects the notion that the Columbia astronauts could have been saved, had NASA been more diligent in gathering data and understanding the true situation.
An internal NASA study done at the request of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board indicates it may have been possible to mount a rescue mission that could have had a chance of saving Columbia astronauts.
A senior investigator familiar with the study told Florida Today the plan would have to have been predicated on an immediate post-launch recognition by NASA that the shuttle was so badly crippled it could not make it home.
That would have allowed the crew to strictly conserve its life-sustaining supplies, hunker down and wait for the rushed launched of shuttle Atlantis, which was on its way to being ready for liftoff March 1 on another flight.
Atlantis’ crew then could have rendezvoused with Columbia and tried to bring the crew aboard through a series of daring spacewalks.
We’ll never know if this Hollywoodesque scenario would have worked. Frankly, it takes a great leap of faith to think it would have. But it was never even considered, because NASA managers failed to thoroughly examine the extent of Columbia’s damage.
I’ve written on this subject before, and pointed out that there was the potential here for a flight director’s nightmare, and there certainly may have been a subconscious reluctance to look for bad news, because they knew that broken tiles meant a lost Orbiter and dead astronauts. The problem here was not the Shuttle design per se, but the fact that our orbital infrastructure is essentially non existent, and we sent Columbia off into the wilderness, where a breakdown meant death.
That was the reality, as NASA understood it. Was it “possible” to somehow rescue the Columbia crew, given early understanding of the problem, and a sped-up Atlantis launch, and heroics on orbit?
Perhaps.
Was it realistic, or sensible, to make such an attempt?
Almost certainly not, but that’s where we have to put astronauts’ lives in the balance against, well, other things.
Many have compared this to what happened a third of a century ago, and claim that NASA missed an “Apollo XIII moment.” But that’s an oversimplistic comparison–there are many differences between Apollo XIII and Columbia.
First, the obvious one, of course, is that in the case of the latter, Houston didn’t know “we have a problem” until the vehicle started to come apart over the western United States. The critique here implies that that’s the only difference, and that had they known right after launch, the crew could have been saved, as it was then. This ignores several other significant differences.
Apollo XIII was fortunate enough to have a great deal of margin, in both time and equipment. Had the oxygen tank exploded on the way back from the Moon, the crew would have died, regardless of derring do and heroics on the ground. Their vehicle was essentially in good shape, and didn’t require repair–just reconfiguration. And for all of that, it was still a very close thing. While we should be thankful that we could save that crew, it’s had a bad side effect of presenting NASA as being ominipotent in the public mind, and capable of overcoming any adversity (despite abundant evidence to the contrary in the three decades since). The fact was, it takes nothing away from the skill and brilliance of actions at mission control to say that they were also damned lucky.
We now know that Columbia was badly broken during launch, and that the fate of the crew and vehicle were sealed once the decision was made to press to main engine cutoff, and orbit. They might have been saved by a trans-Atlantic abort, but there was no time at all to gather the information to make that decision, which occurs during launch itself. There was nothing in the vehicle that could be reconfigured, or duct taped, that would repair what was a broken primary and vital subsystem (the thermal protection system)–one that absolutely had to work in order to bring the vehicle back.
Some will argue (and apparently do, according to the article linked) that the vehicle could have been reconfigured to buy more time, but that’s not sufficient, because of the next, perhaps even more important difference, because it raises very uncomfortable ethical issues.
Apollo XIII had nothing to lose.
Other than lost sleep and fatique among mission controllers, there was no cost or risk to doing everything possible to bring that command module back from its misbegotten journey. Because all of the resources needed were already (at least in theory) aboard the vehicle, there was no need to send anything else up to it.
What the second guessers are proposing in the case of the Columbia disaster was to hasten the launch of Atlantis. Even they admit that without doing this, the chances of a rescue were probably non-existent. That means that we would have had to launch (and risk) another vehicle (one third of our remaining fleet, not counting the doomed Columbia) and, at a minimum, another two-person crew.
One of the reasons that we fly Shuttles so seldom is that the turnaround process takes a long time. Since the loss of Challenger, the procedures to do so have become even more stringent, further reducing the flight rate. Prior to Challenger, NASA was still deluding themselves that they might eventually get to a flight rate of a couple dozen per year. Since then, due to increased safety concerns, six in a year is a good year, and many years have been less. Rushing to launch is exactly the opposite of the philosophy of maximizing flight safety, and many might argue that it would in itself be playing Russian roulette with few empty chambers.
So here are the options, assuming that NASA had been as diligent in getting the data as its critics would have had them do.
1) Let them come in as they are, and cross your fingers. This was essentially the option taken, except with fingers in normal configuration (that is, always slightly crossed, Shuttle flights being what they are, but digits twisted no more than normal) because they didn’t have the data.
2) Attempt to do an on-orbit repair with available crew and equipment. Despite Apollo XIII fantasies, this was never a realistic option. Even if they had the equipment and materials available (they didn’t), it still would have necessitated finger crossing on a planetary scale.
3) Try to extend life support as long as possible, put together a tile repair kit of some kind on the ground, change the next Atlantis mission to go repair the vehicle, launch it on or close to schedule, and bring it back with a minimal crew. Oh, by the way, this probably results in dead crew, but offers the possibility of returning the vehicle, albeit at the risk of two more astronauts. This is probably the one that makes the most sense, given the value of the hardware, but would be totally politically unacceptable.
4) The option suggested by the critics: extend life support as long as possible, and plan to launch Atlantis in time to get there before they run out of air. This is the highest risk, because now you’re rushing the launch. In other words, we’ve probably already lost a quarter of our Shuttle fleet. The crew is likely going to die regardless of what’s done. But in our determination to save them, we’re going to risk a third of the remaining fleet and more astronauts.
The interesting question to me is not which of the four options have the highest probability of getting the crew back (that’s probably option four), but which one has the highest probability of ending the manned space program?–a subject that is rarely very far from a senior Johnson Space Center official’s mind.
Option 4 is a real roll of the dice. If it works, NASA is a hero again, a la Apollo XIII. If it fails (worst case, Atlantis is lost due to the rush), we’ve lost several astronauts, and half of the Shuttle fleet. Is the Shuttle program viable with only two vehicles, particularly given the circumstances in which the others were lost?
On the other hand, having lost the crew and the vehicle, few people are talking seriously about ending manned space flight or even just the Shuttle program (though some, inevitably, are).
I’m not smart enough to predict what the public reaction would have been to any of these scenarios, and I doubt that anyone else is, either, though many no doubt think they are.
There’s an old saying that it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission. In a sense, by remaining institutionally ignorant of the vehicle’s plight (whether willfully or subconsciously), NASA spared itself a horrible dilemma, and one that they must now be grateful that they didn’t have to confront, painful as the loss of Columbia and crew must be.
[Update at 4:21 PM PDT]
Here’s a more detailed account from MSNBC.
But again, they miss the point.
The chairman acknowledged that any rescue mission would have been risky not only for Columbia?s seven crew members but also for Atlantis? four crew members. But he drew a parallel to military operations, where it is routine to risk scores of people to try to rescue one downed pilot.
?It?s kind of a contract we have with the people who go into harm?s way,? the retired admiral said. ?NASA and the nation have that same contract with astronauts, and it is my opinion, and from my personal background, that if there had been any erring, we would have erred on the side of taking the chance and going after them.?
He said astronauts would have been ?standing out in the hallways to volunteer? ? a sentiment that was echoed by former astronaut Norman Thagard.
?The astronaut corps would certainly sign up for a mission like that,? Thagard told NBC News. ?You don?t want to leave your buddies stranded.?
No argument, but this misses the point, because of the disastrous nature of our space program, in which we have such a trivial amount of activity that we have zero robustness in the system. If we only had three helicopters in the entire Pentagon inventory, we’d think twice about risking one for a rescue mission, regardless of how willing the troops were to go rescue comrades. It’s not risking more astronaut’s lives that’s the issue–it’s risking another orbiter, which, if you lose it, will result in having only two left. Until we develop a policy that doesn’t put us in such an untenable position, our space policy will continue to be an expensive failure.
Uday wants to surrender to the Americans, according to Fox News.
Apparently he’s afraid that, for some unexplained reason, the Iraqi people, who he’s raped, tortured, imprisoned and gruesomely murdered over the years, may not treat him as gently.
But I found this little bit interesting, if true.
Saddam is also alive and in suburban Baghdad, the person familiar with Uday’s surrender discussions said he has been told by a Saddam relative. He added that the deposed leader is in questionable mental health.
If the part in the last sentence is true, does anyone think that it’s a recent development? I am willing to believe that his mental health problems may have changed in kind in the last few weeks, but I’ve not seen any evidence that Saddam was ever mentally healthy, at least for certain values of “mental health.”
Ever wonder what the earth would look like from Mars? Wonder no more.
NASA’s taken a picture.
The rest of the day. I’m driving up to San Bruno, and I’ll be attending the International Space Development Conference this weekend. Hope I’ll see some of you there.
Maybe some posting tonight or tomorrow.
The war on model rocketry by the ATF continues.
[via Michael Mealing]
The recent war in the sands of Mesopotamia was won, in a sense, hundreds, even thousands of miles overhead.
Surveillance satellites provided valuable intelligence, in spectra both visible to human eyes, and those only viewable by computers, in real time.
Communications satellites relayed that data to those who needed it, from generals and admirals in Doha, to special forces in the north, down to the lowest ranking soldiers who needed to know if the enemy was across the river, or around the corner, and how many there were, and where their comrades and reinforcements could be found.
Navigation satellites told our troops where they themselves were at all times.
This did more than shorten the war and thereby save the lives of both our and the enemy’s troops. It also saved many civilian lives, by the precision with which targets could be taken out, injuring few bystanders. It saved (and continues to save) lives in other ways.
In wars past, power plants and lines, water treatment plants, dams and hospitals, might all have been destroyed, not because it was necessarily a war goal, but because our crude warfare techniques would have devastated the incidental with the targets. The precision allowed by our satellites spared critical non-targeted infrastructure, necessary to restore life-saving services and utilities quickly, relative to a more old-fashioned, conventional war.
It was the first total communications, digital war, and it couldn’t have been won, or even fought remotely like it was, without billions of dollars worth of hardware in orbit, assembled painstakingly over the past several decades.
It’s becoming clear that the new high ground of space is critical to America’s ability to, for better or worse, project both force and humanity on terra firma. As Britannia once ruled the waves, if America is to maintain its own sense of security, and ability to prevail in future such conflicts, it must rule the void above, as some members of Congress recognize.
This is not as radical or unilateral a notion as it may sound.
After all, our nation currently rules the air and the sea, in the sense that if we apply our will to it, we can dominate any other nation on the planet in a battle in those environments. It doesn’t mean that no one else is allowed to fly, or to ply the oceans–it simply means that if we, for whatever reason, decide that we must prevent them from doing so in a particular place and time, we have the ability to do that.
Whether or not that’s a good or bad thing, for either America or the rest of the world, is an interesting discussion, but one for a different column. Regardless, it’s currently reality. Now some are simply saying that we must extend the fact of that primacy above the atmosphere, where we are currently relatively impotent.
No one, with the possible exception of the Russians, has the actual ability to interfere with the missions of any of our satellites, particularly the high-altitude ones, short of launching a nuke into orbit and detonating it, which would result in massive and comprehensive damage from the electromagnetic impulse of the explosion, at least in low earth orbit, which is where many of our surveillance satellites reside. But if someone were to develop such an ability, we have absolutely no current capability to negate it.
Our space assets are almost totally defenseless, and we are relying on our potential adversaries’ (temporary) weakness, rather than our own strength and technological prowess, to ensure their continued availability. Certainly, it’s much easier (and within easy technical reach of many advanced nations) to come up with an offensive weapon against our satellites, than it is to defend them.
No doubt there are many who believe that we should rely on a “multi-lateral United Nations transnational” defense force to ensure that no one should place weapons, or systems that can enhance or even, heaven forfend, enable weapons, in space, to protect it for the pristine purposes of science.
The reality is that space is a place, and this doesn’t just apply to uses for entertainment and commerce, but military endeavors as well. Given the UN’s track record in keeping weapons out of terrestrial areas, the notion that it should be in charge of maintaining a peaceful cosmos is laughable.
In some perfect, ideal existence, there would be a universal peace force that would patrol “greater metropolitan earth” to ensure that no rogue nation could get a march on innocent countries, disable their defenses, and bombard them from above of some terrestrial location. Sadly, that is not the existence in which we live. The US isn’t perfect, but it’s probably the best we’re going to do on the planet, absent a massive global educational initiative.
This may sound arrogant, and perhaps it is, but if there is going to be a superpower, even a hyperpower on earth, what would you choose it to be? A nation founded on at least the principles of accountability and balance of power between the rulers and the ruled, or an entity on the bank of the East River of New York, consisting mainly of the votes of a number of satrapies and kleptocracies that perversely demand the rights of democracy, which they deny their own people?
Again, our nation is not perfect, but it has at least the mechanisms in place to achieve such a state, or at least approach it. “Britannia rules the waves” was not perfection, but in many ways it advanced civilization for a century or two. We will continue to improve on the American experiment, but while we’re doing so, we could do a lot worse than to bask in the benefits of a “Pax Americana Cosmos” as we continue to work out the bugs. The world has to ask itself: would we prefer the domination of space by people whose credo is death and destruction of anyone who believes not in Wahabbism, or those who are pluralistic and tolerant of other religions that are tolerant themselves?
Perhaps the choice isn’t that stark, but given the current state of the world, it’s incumbent on those who think otherwise at this point to make their case.
In a column titled “Mainstream media still treating Bush with kid gloves,” a Democrat hack named Ed Garvey (who apparently lost an election to Tommy Thompson) demonstrates that he is totally looneytunes.
Wouldn’t it be refreshing if Fox News, CNBC, CBS and others were to make the same apology for the what can only be described as “journalistic fraud” as they slant the news to favor President Bush and his factually unsupportable justification of the invasion of another country?
Substitute Bill Clinton for Bush over the past six months and you will see my point. What would TV talking heads be saying today? William Kristol, Sean Hannity and the others would be demanding Clinton’s impeachment. They would be screaming that there were no weapons of mass destruction and Clinton knew it. He lied to the U.N., to the American people, and he deliberately and unnecessarily placed American troops in harm’s way.
Well, with Bill Clinton, it would all sound pretty plausible, seeing how much else he lied about, and given the fecklessness of his military policy. But of course, this is a true fantasy, because Mr. Clinton would not have invaded Iraq. The thought of him standing up (as opposed to sucking up) to the UN, and France, simply beggars my imagination.
And if that was insufficient to start an impeachment proceeding, they would be screaming that he did all of this without a congressional declaration of war.
Ummm…he had congressional approval. Did you miss the vote last fall? The one that you folks demanded last summer?
This would be “Wag the Dog” all over again. A war to divert attention from a flagging economy. And, to top it off, Clinton did not secure the Iraqi nuclear sites to prevent looting, did not protect the national museum, did not capture Saddam or his sons. He led people to believe that the invasion of Iraq was about Sept. 11, not oil.
Sure, there would probably be some partisan Republicans who’d do that. But Fox and the other “right-wing” news outlets you’re complaining about are letting hordes of Democrats do it now, as is the Capital Times, with your insane rant.
What’s your point?
They would save the best until last. Do you remember the famous haircut on Air Force One? Clinton supposedly had his hair cut while planes were diverted around Los Angeles International Airport. It didn’t happen, but Clinton was condemned on right-wing talk shows throughout America for this alleged waste of funds.
Imagine if Bill Clinton had slowed down an aircraft carrier and had landed on the deck in a jet for photo ops for his campaign. Oh, my goodness! The folks at Fox would be in cardiac arrest. Rush would froth at the mouth.
“Slowed down an aircraft carrier”? My understanding is that carriers generally go at full steam in order to allow aircraft to land on them–it reduces the relative velocity and makes for a safer landing…
Mr. Bush may get some nice campaign footage out of it, but the purpose was to make a nationwide speech and boost morale of the troops, the latter being something that Mr. Clinton tended to achieve in reverse.
And actually, Mr. Clinton did delay air traffic at LAX for a haircut, to the best of my knowledge. I’ve never seen a persuasive debunking of the story. And no one was complaining about a “waste of funds.” The complaint was that he was so inconsiderate as to delay hundreds of passengers’ departures for his personal vanity.
My recollection was that unlike the troops who were cheering for the President on the carrier, the passengers waiting on the tarmac were fuming. Other than that, the two incidents are exactly the same, of course.
When the right-wing forces control the media, what chance is there for the truth to raise its head? And the concentration is only getting worse. Those who control the electronic media can keep the Dixie Chicks off the air, praise Bush for bush league antics, and yet find time to take swipes at the Democrats.
Amazing. I don’t have time to do the whole thing, but there’s plenty more for folks to chew on.
Alan Boyle has a good rundown on upcoming attractions at Epcot and Universal. Disney is shooting for a space experience that may do a fair job of simulating almost a minute of weightlessness.
I don’t think that this will detract from the market for true weightlessness, such as Zero G Corp will offer, because you’ll be able to actually move around and do weightless stuff in the airplane. It’s really a different market. (By the way, despite the hype on their web page, they won’t be the first private provider of weightlessness in the US–as far as I know, the late Lee Weaver and I were, but they may be the first financially successful one.)
Alan asks a question at the end:
In the wake of Columbia?s loss, ?Mission: Space? may well be as close as paying customers will get to space flight for the foreseeable future. What do you think?
I think that Columbia is utterly irrelevant to how soon we get paying customers into space. The folks working X-Prize, and those developing suborbitable passenger vehicles, such as Jeff Bezos, don’t seem to be deterred, and in fact, NASA is in such disarray right now that it will probably actually encourage a lot of the entrepreneurs, because it’s too busy with its own problems to get in the way. Getting rid of Art Stephenson was a good step toward making NASA less of a problem.