US Space Shuttle Missing - Worst Feared
Discussion
SUPRAMAN said: I read somewhere, on one of the aircraft message boards that it did have an escape capsule, anyway at that speed and altitude it wouldn't have been much use.
Reminds me of the Challenger disaster in 1987
Think it was 28th Jan 1986 - watched it live on the TV after getting in from school.
Initial reports are pieces falling over east Texas and Louisiana...
Derestrictor - The first thing that the White House did was to issue a statement saying that this is absolutely not terror related.
Prayers for the crew's families...
ErnestM
>> Edited by ErnestM on Saturday 1st February 15:47
Derestrictor - The first thing that the White House did was to issue a statement saying that this is absolutely not terror related.
Prayers for the crew's families...
ErnestM
>> Edited by ErnestM on Saturday 1st February 15:47
Supraman- you picked up some duff information there. The Shuttle was notable in that it was the first American manned spacecraft designed with no emergency escape system. Mercury had a rocket on a tower to pull the capsule off an errant booster, Gemini had ejector seats amd Apollo had a more powerful version of the Mercury "tower" system.
Also, the Challenger accident was in January 1986.
Interesting point is that NASA have some crew on the International Space Station at the moment. They will not be able to ground the Shuttle fleet for 2 1/2 years like they did after Challenger if they want to get those folk home.
And for those of you conspiracy theorists out there, the Israeli crew member was a former Israeli Air Force fighter pilot who took part in the Israeli bombing raid on an Iraqi nuclear power station in 1981.
Also, the Challenger accident was in January 1986.
Interesting point is that NASA have some crew on the International Space Station at the moment. They will not be able to ground the Shuttle fleet for 2 1/2 years like they did after Challenger if they want to get those folk home.
And for those of you conspiracy theorists out there, the Israeli crew member was a former Israeli Air Force fighter pilot who took part in the Israeli bombing raid on an Iraqi nuclear power station in 1981.
Latest report says the vertical tail fin came off. Once that departs, the Shuttle would have started to yaw presenting its side to the airflow precipitating the break up. This is eerily reminiscent of the X-15 accident I mentioned earlier. That happened when the pilot, Mike Adams allowed the craft to rotate sideways during re-entry causing it to disintegrate.
Just been watching Chicken Noodle News who had 'ear-witnesses' on the phone. Bits of the spacecraft appear to have fallen onto their ranch in Texas. Not good.
The stresses on an airframe that has to survive both extremes of temperature must be huge. I suppose it's really wrong to speculate what caused the 'anomaly' at this stage - must be so many things that can go awry. The fact that the TV images showed it seeming to break up in a non-explosive manner suggests to me a catastrophic structural failure of some manner.
Terrorism...? No chance. Very few nations have the capability to take something out at that altitude.
Survivability...? Nil. I believe that one of the shuttles had ejection seats for the two up front that literally blew them through the roof, but NASA decided there was not feasible to build in ejection systems for 7 people so no curent shuttles have any escape method apart from crack open the doors and bail out. Getting out at 200k' and 12'500mph...? No chance. You know what it feels like to stick your hand out of a car window at 70mph. Try getting out at shuttle speeds and temperatures of probably -100degC. I expect hitting an airstream at that speed is like hitting a brick wall at 1000mph.
The stresses on an airframe that has to survive both extremes of temperature must be huge. I suppose it's really wrong to speculate what caused the 'anomaly' at this stage - must be so many things that can go awry. The fact that the TV images showed it seeming to break up in a non-explosive manner suggests to me a catastrophic structural failure of some manner.
Terrorism...? No chance. Very few nations have the capability to take something out at that altitude.
Survivability...? Nil. I believe that one of the shuttles had ejection seats for the two up front that literally blew them through the roof, but NASA decided there was not feasible to build in ejection systems for 7 people so no curent shuttles have any escape method apart from crack open the doors and bail out. Getting out at 200k' and 12'500mph...? No chance. You know what it feels like to stick your hand out of a car window at 70mph. Try getting out at shuttle speeds and temperatures of probably -100degC. I expect hitting an airstream at that speed is like hitting a brick wall at 1000mph.
The shuttle cockpit is the escape and life module of the craft and is designed to withstand major failures.. But not at this altitude.
The single mostfact that killed the crew of Challenger was the shock and change in acceleration due to the explosion. The crew module was found in one piece but all crew had been killed.
The same may happen here, my presumption as a spacecraft engineer would be that the damage from the external fuel tank had removed several ceramic heat tiles on the wing, this may of contrabuted to the hull being heated up to a critical temperature and breaching the hull structure. Pressurised cabin at 200000ft in a near vacuum, can cause something which looks like a catastrophic explosion.
Steve
The single mostfact that killed the crew of Challenger was the shock and change in acceleration due to the explosion. The crew module was found in one piece but all crew had been killed.
The same may happen here, my presumption as a spacecraft engineer would be that the damage from the external fuel tank had removed several ceramic heat tiles on the wing, this may of contrabuted to the hull being heated up to a critical temperature and breaching the hull structure. Pressurised cabin at 200000ft in a near vacuum, can cause something which looks like a catastrophic explosion.
Steve
The first three shuttle flights (ironically all flown by Columbia) were two man test flights and ejector seats WERE fitted. The envelope within which these seats would have been safely usable was very narrow. From the fourth mission onwards, the Shuttle started carrying larger crews and the two ejector seats were disarmed. The subsequent Shuttles never had ejector seats and Columbia's were eventually removed too.
MoJocvh said:
derestrictor said: Oh sh1t; one of the guys here reckons the scanner showed an object moving towards the Shuttle before it all went tits up...
Yes it's called the planet earth.
However on reflection I remember seeing a program on satelite that stated that the shuttle flightpaths are "vectored" around all the debris that's floating around up there (by NORAD actually). So it is concievable that a navigation glitch or error could have put the craft into the path of one of these objects.....................MoJo.
>> Edited by MoJocvh on Saturday 1st February 16:51
cnh1990 said: The Columbia is the oldest of the shuttles.
Built in 1981, many airlines don't have planes that old in their fleet.
Calvin
True, but its virtually rebuilt after each flight..
Looking like a failure of the insulation; poor sods onboard probably wouldn't have felt a thing at least..
There are personal egress packs onboard, STS-51 (Challenger) also had them and IIRC several were activated. In both cases, I think they would be ineffective.
It's debatable that using rockets has "cost a lot of lives". The death toll from manned space flight is actually very low.
1967 - Vladimir Kamarov killed when his Soyuz capsule crashes to earth after re-entry
1971 - Three cosmonauts suffocated after their Soyuz undocks from the Salyut 1 space station and accidently vents all the cabin air
1986 - Challenger explodes killing seven astronauts
2003 - Columbia breaks up on re-entry killing seven astronauts
I make that 18 people in all. Not bad for 42 years of manned spaceflight.
I have not included the Apollo fire of 1967 as that happened during training nor the dozen os so astronauts and cosmonauts killed in aircraft accidents - some related to their respective space programmes and some not.
>> Edited by Eric Mc on Saturday 1st February 19:01
1967 - Vladimir Kamarov killed when his Soyuz capsule crashes to earth after re-entry
1971 - Three cosmonauts suffocated after their Soyuz undocks from the Salyut 1 space station and accidently vents all the cabin air
1986 - Challenger explodes killing seven astronauts
2003 - Columbia breaks up on re-entry killing seven astronauts
I make that 18 people in all. Not bad for 42 years of manned spaceflight.
I have not included the Apollo fire of 1967 as that happened during training nor the dozen os so astronauts and cosmonauts killed in aircraft accidents - some related to their respective space programmes and some not.
>> Edited by Eric Mc on Saturday 1st February 19:01
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