[MLUG - DISCUSSION] more news about shuttle

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

I thought the third one, the "cultural divide" one that talks about
Richard Feynman, was most interesting.  At this point, it is clear that
the NASA engineers were more accurate in their risk assessments than were
the NASA managers.  --Mike


SHUTTLE TESTING SUGGESTED WINGS WERE VULNERABLE
from The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 - Studies conducted by NASA over the last four years
concluded that damage to the brittle, heat-shedding material on the
leading edge of the space shuttle Columbia's wings posed one of the
highest risks of a catastrophic accident.

The studies focused largely on the tremendous damage that could be caused
in the unlikely event that a tiny meteoroid or other bit of orbital debris
hit the leading edge of a wing, which is made of a lightweight material
called reinforced carbon-carbon. That is still one of the theories about
what might have happened to the Columbia eight days ago.

But in interviews, engineers for NASA and one of its leading contractors
said there was comparatively little testing to determine if slower-moving
debris - perhaps of the kind that fell off the shuttle's external tank
about 80 seconds after liftoff on Jan. 16 - posed a similar hazard.

As a result, said one engineer familiar with the discussions that took
place at NASA in mid-January, the engineers who saw little risk from the
debris that hit the Columbia's left wing had scant information to back up
their assertion.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/10/national/nationalspecial/10SHUT.html>


BREAKUP OCCURRED IN MYSTERIOUS PART OF ATMOSPHERE
from The Associated Press

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- The space shuttle Columbia broke up in a
mysterious area of the upper atmosphere once so little understood and
difficult to study that scientists dubbed it the "ignorosphere."

The region is of particular interest not only because that's where the
disintegration occurred but also because of a time-exposure image taken by
an amateur astronomer showing a snake of purplish light corkscrewing
through the shuttle's hot glowing trail as it crossed over California.

Former shuttle astronaut Tammy Jernigan collected the camera and the image
from the photographer, who has requested anonymity while NASA analyzes the
shot. It's not clear whether the flash is real, or an aberration of the
camera.

<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/02/10/national0300EST0438.DTL>


CULTURAL DIVIDE PLAGUES NASA
from The Washington Post

HOUSTON, Feb. 9 -- After the space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986,
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard P. Feynman asked NASA officials what
risk of failure each mission carried. NASA engineers said about 1 in every
100 flights was likely to experience a catastrophe. NASA managers put the
risk closer to 1 in 100,000.

As accident investigators pore through mountains of data to determine why
the shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas on Feb. 1, the most
difficult questions may lie not in telemetric data, risk analyses and
high- temperature physics.

Rather, they may lie in the agency's discordant internal cultures, and in
asking whether gaps in communication and perception might have caused the
shuttle's demise.

Feynman suggested that the managers' role in selling space exploration to
Congress, the White House and the public might have clouded their own
perceptions about how risky the technology was. "For a successful
technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature
cannot be fooled," he wrote in a report to President Ronald Reagan.

The gap between engineering and managerial perceptions persists today.

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49325-2003Feb9.html>
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