I found this video today. It’s illuminating to see just how sketchy the Shuttle was. I wonder how much more attention this would have received if today’s social media were in existence, and how much it would have impacted the program.

I just finished a pretty well written book called. Challenger by Adam Higgenbotham.

I am not sure of the complete accuracy of his research but it was an eye opening read for me on the decisions that were made leading up to the fatal flight.

It’s well worth a read.

Always felt that the shuttle was far too vulnerable to damage of the fragile insulating tiles. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo had escape mechanisms in case of any trouble with the boosters below them. Not so with shuttle (except the first few flights with ejection seats).

Too many problems with insulation from the tank and/or bossters coming loose in chunks and striking critical portions of the wing and other points on the shuttle. No way to repair once in flight which to me was ridiculous based on the risk of a burn-through (which happened on a later shuttle flight, forget which one) that broke up on re-entry.

Dan

STS 107 (Columbia).

The events of that flight are made sharper and clearer in light of the events described in the video above.

I was shocked as more reporting came out about the number of times the STS was damaged during flight, and the number of times that it came to near-catastrophe.

Hoot Gibson described one of his flights (on Atlantis, I think) how several heat shield tiles were damaged to the point that the only thing protecting the orbiter and crew was a steel plate that withstood the heat of reentry. If the damage had been found on another section, they surely would have been lost.

Another astronaut described the dream of routine shuttles between the surface and orbit was never achieved. He described every flight as an experimental flight, with the outcome never quite being certain. There was always some new technology, some new technique, some new kind of wear or damage... something that hadn't been encountered before.

Shuttle was the space system of my childhood and I still love it dearly. But I'm sorely disappointed in NASA management.

Everything on the shuttle exterior needed to be handled with care. I was privileged to be allowed up close to the shuttle (underneath and walk around on the scaffolding - literally 1 to 2 inches away).

Prior to being allowed inside the facility, everything had to be removed from your person that could possibly damage the tiles (pockets emptied, no watches, rings, badges, belts, phones or cameras - I had clearance to take pics, but not to bring a camera, which could possibly cause damage).

At the front desk, two guards, with M-16s, signed people in. If you had glasses, there was a spool of twine for you to tie your glasses around your head.

So, I got to walk around the wing LE, nose, and engines at the tail, being close enough to breathe on the shuttle but not touching it.

A truly amazing technological marvel, regardless, especially up close.

That very thing is featured in the middle of the video.


Part of me thinks if they'd waited for perfection then it wouldn't have flown for years to come. Either way, they bit off a lot by going ahead with this program!

Paging Jay Apt...

Hood Gibson interview that directly talks about this. It's worth watching all three episodes.

There is a bit of time when people get older where they will talk about what happened with no fear of career backlash or who they piss off. I'm sure there is more unsaid or still classified but it's direct from the man who was there. Hearing Burt and Dick Rutan a few years ago at OSH was similar. No worries about what people think just what it was and what they remember.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh7inH3E5z4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nk7qSvOaLo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1cQtJ9iCtw

You can get a really good layman's sense of the complexity of STS from two books and a blog:

- Rowland White's INTO THE BLACK
- Higginbotham's CHALLENGER
- Wayne Hale's blog

It was an amazingly complex vehicle and, in many respects, it's surprising there weren't more LOCV accidents.

An interesting perspective was also written by Allan McDonald who was a director at Morton Thiokol and had responsibility for making the solid rocket booster (SRB). Not everyone wanted to fly that day, but the political pressure to not be the "cause" for a delay was significant. There was a hefty search for an appropriate scapegoat.

Truth, Lies, and O-Rings
https://www.amazon.com/Truth-Lies-Rings ... 0813041937

The shuttles was fragile. The book also discusses a few near-disasters that were only discovered upon review of the spent SRBs, which were not always recoverable.

One of the biggest surprises was NASA's insistence on safety margins, except for sections of the shuttle that could not technically meet the required margin and instead had a list of standard safety exceptions for every flight.

You don't have to read the whole book; by the last 1/3 it gets quite repetitive to show McDonald as a beacon of light among scavengers. But the technical discussion on how hard it was to do this safely is wild.