CAIB Report on Columbia
Ad Astra: and if we rely on NASA, we will have to walk.
The CAIB report concludes that while NASA's present Space Shuttle is not inherently unsafe, a number of mechanical fixes are required to make the Shuttle safer in the short term. The report also concludes that NASA's management system is unsafe to manage the shuttle system beyond the short term and that the agency does not have a strong safety culture. ...that the NASA organizational culture had as much to do with the accident as the foam that struck the Orbiter on ascent. ...[The board] suggests that it is in the nation's interest to replace the Shuttle as soon as possible as the primary means for transporting humans to and from Earth orbit.
The physical cause of the loss of Columbia and its crew was a breach in the Thermal Protection System on the leading edge of the left wing, caused by a piece of insulating foam which separated from the left bipod ramp section of the External Tank at 81.7 seconds after launch, and struck the wing in the vicinity of the lower half of Reinforced Carbon-Carbon panel number 8. During re-entry this breach in the Thermal Protection System allowed superheated air to penetrate through the leading edge insulation and progressively melt the aluminum structure of the left wing, resulting in a weakening of the structure until increasing aerodynamic forces caused loss of control, failure of the wing, and break-up of the Orbiter. This breakup occurred in a flight regime in which, given the current design of the Orbiter, there was no possibility for the crew to survive.
The organizational causes of this accident are rooted in the Space Shuttle Program's history and culture, including the original compromises that were required to gain approval for the Shuttle, subsequent years of resource constraints, fluctuating priorities, schedule pressures, mischaracterization of the Shuttle as operational rather than developmental, and lack of an agreed national vision for human space flight. Cultural traits and organizational practices detrimental to safety were allowed to develop, including:
# reliance on past success as a substitute for sound engineering practices (such as testing to understand why systems were not performing in accordance with requirements); # organizational barriers that prevented effective communication of critical safety information and stifled professional differences of opinion; # lack of integrated management across program elements; # the evolution of an informal chain of command and decision-making processes that operated outside the organization's rules.
In other words, a bureaucracy grown insular, isolated, parochial, and detached from even sound engineering principles and the laws of physics.
Over the next several weeks, the Board expects to publish several additional volumes containing technical documents cited in the report or referenced as part of the investigation, as well as transcripts of the board's public hearings.
Ret. Adm. Harold Gehman, who chaired the investigation, said ...all members of the board endorsed a continuation of the nation's manned space flight program.
Rand Simberg has some astute observations today:
The real problem, of course, is that the political imperatives behind NASA have very little to do with actual accomplishments in space. Abolishing, or even restructuring the agency would break many rice bowls, in the districts and states of very powerful congressmen and Senators. The most frustrating thing to me, of course, is that we continue to discuss what to do with NASA without having the more fundamental discussion of what we're trying to achieve.
I believe governmentally funded exploration has a definite place. The payoff from the Pluto mission will be a long time coming and governments are designed to have the stability to await a return on investment that is further away than the next quarter. [Companies which wish to stay alive and profitable do, too, but that's a subject for another day.] Private enterprise in space exploration and development is the way in which the opportunities of space will become available to all of us. The available profits are obvious and the technology is extremely close to being fully developed. I have a difficult time understanding why there are not more farsighted companies and individuals working toward private space development. The profits are floating right there, ripe for the harvesting; if anyone is smart and brave enough to grasp them.
The shuttle’s left wing? I *knew* they had something to do with this!! It’s a vast leftcon wingspiracy!!
D
Posted by David Strain on 08/26/03 at 09:57 AM
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