What's Galaxiki?Galaxiki is a science fiction galaxy created, maintained and owned by its Community. Membership is free - sign up now and start editing stars, planets and moons, or get your own personal solar system. Sign Up Now! Your own solar systemYou may name and edit as many community stars and solar systems as you like. Would you like to get your own solar system that only you will be able to edit? Get your own star Solar system widget
 Use a solar system widget to display any Galaxiki solar system on your website or blog! Get widget code StatistiquesMembres: 5932 Etoiles: > 1.1*106 Etoiles régisttrées: 30149 Trous noirs: > 5500 Pulsars: > 1400 Etoiles neutron: > 8100 Messages dans les forums: 10505 Films et livres: 344 Films et livres uniques: 253 Community BlogWant to post news in our Community Blog? Simply login (or sign up) and write about solar system(s), science fiction, movies, books, science, astronomy or anything else related to this site! Recent Posts Last comments Categories Archives
|
 |
Galaxiki Community BlogSubscribe via RSS 5 Years Ago: The Space Shuttle Columbia DisasterFebruary 01, 2008by joskirps On February 1, 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. All seven crew members were killed, it was the second fatal Space Shuttle disaster after the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986.  During the Columbia launch a piece of foam broke off the main tank and struck the leading edge of the left wing, damaging the Shuttle's thermal protection system (TPS). The piece of foam had been detected by cameras during the launch, and NASA engineers suspected that the TPS could have been damaged. But the problem was not further investigated as the NASA management thought a slightly damaged TPS wouldn't cause any major problems.During many Shuttle launches piceces of foam stroke the Shuttle, and this never caused any serious damages. But this time, hot gases could penetrate the left wing and destroyed the interal wing structure, which finally resulted in the desintagration of the entire Columbia Space Shuttle. Shuttle debris and crew remains were collected in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. The Space Shuttle program was suspended for two years. Columbia was the first Space Shuttle that had ever been launched into space, therefore it had - unlike all other shuttles - a flight recorder on board which had never been removed and was still functional during this mission, 22 years after it had been installed. The flight recorder was found on March 20, 2003 and helped to analyze the progress of structural desintegration of the left wing. Many people blamed the NASA management for the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, as manager had ignored concerns expressed by engineers, a behaviour that already led to the Challenger disaster 17 years earlier. Engineers requested that the astronauts should inspect the left wing in orbit, which was refused by the NASA management. In fact NASA managers believed that analyzing the problem wouldn't help as nothing could have been done to repair the wing in orbit, and that it would be improssible to launch a rescue mission if damaged would have been severe. But the Apollo 13 mission showed that even the hardest problems may be solved, and experts later on found out that both repairing the wing or rescuing the crew using Space Shuttle Atlantis would have been possible. Space Shuttle Atlantis was already being prepared for a launch on March 1 and could have been readied for a rescue mission on February 10. Columbia still had enough consumabled to remain in orbit for another two weeks which means that a rescue mission would probably have been successful. Repairing the wing would have been a bit more difficult. Astronauts were not trained to inspect the wings or to repair the Shuttle, but general emergency spacewalks are always part of the training program. But the biggest problem would have been the lack of equipment and materials to repair the wing - metal parts from the crew cabin could have been used, although it remains unsure if it would have been possible to fix the wing so that it would have survivied the reentry.
0 Comments - Read comments - Leave a comment |
 |
|
