Soldato
- Joined
- 11 May 2007
- Posts
- 9,178
- Location
- Surrey
Hells yeah.
Would you go on a privately owned spaceship?
- Thread starter Merlin5
- Start date
Neither accidents are a simple as negligence, they represent systems failures whose origins can be traced back to political decisions make in the '70s.
Columbia: The strike on the wing was made apparent to NASA part way through the mission after high definition of the launch footage had been developed. Three requests were made by NASA engineers for the defence department to take high resolution images of the shuttle in orbit to allow engineering to assess the damage, NASA higher ups denied all three, a request was also made for a space walk to assess damage, it was denied, either of these would have revealed the damage and saved the crew.
The investigation into the accident not only stated that had NASA allowed the extent of the damage to have been revealed that a space walk could have been done to attempt repairs. It also stated that if that space walk was unsuccessful that space shuttle Atlantis was being readied for its next launch and acceleration of the launch would have allowed Atlantis to reach Columbia and rescue the crew before their life support would have been depleted.
Challenger: After the asbestos ban in the USA the O-rings in space shuttle boosters had to be replaced, the problem being that while unhealthy to work with asbestos was the best tool for the job. The new O-rings were not as affective and on the morning of the launch a large amount of ice had formed around the base of the boosters. Engineers immanently requested a hold on launch due to fears for the untested O-rings however this was denied and a delay was implemented to give the ice team time to remove as much as possible.
The engineers again lobbied for a hold but were overruled by NASA higher ups and the launch took place, the O-rings failed on launch allowing rocket fuel to spew out. Miraculously the fuel did not ignite and the aluminium **** in the fuel sealed the leak however just seconds from booster separation the shuttle was struck by an almighty crosswind which side slammed it causing the horizontal swerve in its smoke plume and freeing the aluminium **** causing fuel to leak into the rocket stream and ignite, the resulting explosion caused catastrophic damage to the shuttle and the pilots attempt to gain control proved futile as it hit the ocean surface at over 200 mph killing the crew instantly.
Tell me neither of the above 'accidents' were due to negligence, if NASA was a private company their higher ups would have ended up in court in both cases...
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ubersonic, sure, but that's not looking deep enough at the whole system. Why were solid rocket boosters needed at all? What was the original design specification and how did the final vehicle compare to it? Did management fully understand the impact of the differences between what was initially envisaged and what they got.
I said they weren't as simple as negligence, not that negligence didn't play a role.
I said they weren't as simple as negligence, not that negligence didn't play a role.