NASA Releases Report on Shuttle Columbia Disaster

Disclosure: Columbia Space Shuttle Commander Rick Husband and I were classmates at Texas Tech University in the U.S. Air Force ROTC program there. While Astronaut Willie McCool attend high school in Lubbock, Texas, I never met the man and only knew about his connection to Lubbock, Texas, in the weeks leading up to the January 16th lift-off of the Shuttle Columbia. The above photo is a AP picture.
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On December 30, 2008, NASA releases its report on the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster of February 1, 2003.

For those not keeping up to date with things, the Columbia was the oldest shuttle of the shuttle fleet and she was returning home that morning when the heat of re-entry further damaged the left wing that was hit by a large piece of foam on lift-off 16 days before. She broke up over the state of Texas. Many residents, including this blogger, heard that sonic boom that morning. The 400-page document gave a detailed account of how Columbia's seven crew members last few seconds were like before the total break up of the shuttle happened.

Columbia's crew was killed in seconds and had only a brief 40-second time window between the shuttle's lost of control and its de-pressurization and destruction. By that time, the crew was being flung about the cabin as the shuttle tumbled and broke apart. Bottom line: while crew members tried to work the problem, the accident was not “ultimately survivable.”

The NASA report made 30 recommendations and cited some lessons to take away from this accident. Mostly related to to the crew's spacesuits and seat restraints.

1. One of the most immediate safety changes made was in the current inertial wheel lock modifications on the crew seats. The mechanism locks an astronaut's seat restraint due to external forces much like the current seat belts on cars today during a sudden stop or impact. In this accident, those seat locks did not lock as designed, subjecting the astronauts strapped in place to extreme forces and trauma. Seat modifications will also be employed on the new Orion Capsule.

2. Launch and Landing Pressure Suits for Orion crews will also be designed to be sealed during re-entry. The current orange partial pressure suits seep pure oxygen into a shuttle cabin when the visors are sealed – which violate NASA's flammability rules. During the Columbia accident, one of the crew members was not fully strapped into place. Another did not have a helmet secured, while the six that did have their visors opened. Also, three of the crew members did not have their suit gloves locked in place.

3. NASA has also update pre-landing milestones to allow astronauts to focus on their own preparations in addition to getting the orbiter ready for re-entry.

4. NASA also has adjusted its training process for de-orbit. Before, there was more concern about getting the vehicle ready for landing than about the crew. Now its suppose to be 50/50.

Wayne Hale stated that “Spaceflight takes eternal vigilance. Our goal here is to do our best to prevent accidents in the future and that is not a subject that is ever going to be closed.” This report is expected to be NASA's last investigation into the Columbia disaster.

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Ref> Space.com article by Tariq Malik “New Columbia Accident Report to Help Astronaut Safety.” December 30, 2008.

Moon Landing Hoax Claims Tackled by TV series Mythbusters!

I am 48 years old as I write this article. I was nine years old when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The moon landings came to an end with Apollo 17 – when I was in the 6th grade. And as a young boy, I felt betrayed by my country when the news came out that there would be no more moon landings. Skylab came and went – the Russians were back to racking up long endurance space records with their space station program. Then came the long stand down from Apollo program to the Space Shuttle program which re-launched American's Manned Space Program.

Then came the two space shuttle disasters. The last one – the Columbia's commander, Rick D. Husband, was a former Texas Tech University Air Force ROTC classmate of mine. My one and only claim to infamy I can make.

The turn of the century takes place and it seems to me that more and more people are claiming that the United States of America never did land on the moon. That it was filmed on a sound stage (ala “Capricorn One” – the movie), or that it was filmed out in the desert near what is now known as Area 51! Or that... well, insert possible claim here to try and explain how it could be done without actually traveling to the moon.

I don't know how else to explain it, but that I was born before the age of Watergate, etc. The baby boomer generation of which I was born at the tail end thereof, and Generation X which came after, have been 'programmed' from the mass media to disbelieve EVERYTHING that the US government does or says.

Being a avid listener to Coast to Coast Am radio with George Noory, every now and then he would invite Dr. Phil Plait who goes by the name of “The Bad Astronomer.” His website, Bad Astronomy, would every now and then take on the folks who claim that the moon landings were hoaxes. Well one day, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage who both worked as special effects people for the movies and now are hosts to the Discovery Channel's popular TV series “MythBusters,” decided that now was the time to try and take on that project – to dispel the dispellers. I don't have access to cable or satellite TV anymore and thus unable to view the program when it aired. I only heard about it on Coast to Coast AM when Noory was interviewing Dr. Plait. But on http://www.collectspace.com/ posted there dated August 26, 2008 that went into some detail. The program itself aired on August 27, 2008 on the Discovery Channel.

They went about determining which myths that needed and could be tested here on earth. Hyneman and Savage settled on three major subject areas that the hoaxers claim support their argument. One – How light reflects off the lunar surface. Two – How the astronauts appeared to move in the low gravity of the moon. Finally, how items behaved in an vacuum.
The part of the article that I liked the most was about the American Flag and how it was “able” to wave in the airless vacuum. First off, I actually remember the TV coverage of the moon flights and the experts who came on for every mission. For Apollo 11, I remember one man who explained how there was a tiny cross wire that stuck into the top of the mast that allowed the flag to be stretched out to full as if it was flying in a full breeze back on earth. MythBusters went to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. And at Marshall, they were able to obtained copies of the original plans for making the lunar flag and how to assemble it.

I had fun looking at the offical government website with the Apollo 11 images and chose one of the few images that show Neil Armstrong in it to go along with this article. It shows him working near the Lunar Module's desent stage and the American Flag out on the surface of the moon. Remember, almost all of the other Apollo 11 pictures that were shown to the public were the ones that Armstrong took of his companion Buzz Aldrin.

Other Reference websites:
( http://history.nasa.gov/ap11ann/kippsphotos/apollo.html )All photographs on this website are courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, specifically the NASA History Office and the NASA JSC Media Services Center.
Photograph AS11-40-5886 (Neil Armstrong works at the LM )