I found this article on the New York Times site:
Experts Wonder if NASA Erred in Ruling Loose Foam Was Benign.
New York Times, February 3, 2003
"…Two directors of Department of Defense telescopes said that major
technological leaps in the last few years could have allowed them to
capture images of individual tiles on the space shuttle under optimal
weather conditions.
"Both of those telescopes — at the Maui Optical and Supercomputing
Site in Hawaii and the Starfire Optical Range at Kirtland Air Force
Base, south of Albuquerque — actually took pictures of the Columbia,
either in space or during its re-entry.
"But Lt. Col Jeffrey McCann, commander of the Maui site, said that
because NASA did not request high-resolution pictures of the craft,
his technicians took pictures only of the top of Columbia when it was
in space. And they did not use the most powerful telescope available.
Colonel McCann said the shots of the top "just looked like the normal
images we take," and no anomalies were visible.
"NASA asked that a telescope at the Maui site take images of the
space shuttle when John Glenn went into orbit in 1998. NASA even
reoriented the shuttle to give the Maui telescope a better view. But
during the latest Columbia flight, NASA made no request for images.
"Dr. Robert Q. Fugate, a senior scientist and technical director at
the Starfire Optical Range, said that one of his telescopes tracked
the Columbia as it re-entered the atmosphere. The glow around the
spacecraft made it impossible to see individual tiles at that point,
but Dr. Fugate said that they too might have been able to see the
tiles if they had been asked while the craft was in space…"
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/03/national/03WRON.html
And this one after a web search:
Hawaii Telescope May Aid Columbia Investigation
Air Force Telescope Can Track High-Speed Objects
POSTED: 12:13 p.m. EST February 3, 2003
UPDATED: 12:57 p.m. EST February 3, 2003
"HONOLULU — NASA officials hope Air Force telescopes on a volcano
crater on the Hawaiian island of Maui offer clues to what caused the
space shuttle Columbia to break apart Saturday.
"The telescope atop Haleakala Crater on Maui have the unique ability
to track fast-moving objects. The telescopes took a series of images
of the space shuttle as it flew over the Pacific Ocean. Those images,
taken before the Saturday tragedy, might provide some answers as to
what went wrong.
"The Air Force telescope atop Haleakala was installed six years ago
at a cost of $150 million. The 12-foot wide telescope took images of
the shuttle as it flew overhead…"
http://www.nbc4.tv/sh/news/stories/nat-news-195296220030203-
110241.html
Plus, I wonder what would have been the resolution if the truly big
ground based astronomical telescopes were used that have mirror
diameters of 8 to 10 meters, 24 to 30 feet. This use would be in the
daytime so shouldn’t take away from astronomical observations.
They wouldn’t have the sophisticated motion compensation digital
processing of the Air Force telescopes but my guess is this digital
processing could be applied after these astronomical telescopes took
the images.
Also I don’t agree with NASA that NOTHING could have been done.
If it were known that the damage to the tiles possibly was fatal, I
think you would have scientists and engineers all over the world
brainstorming coming up with ideas to save the crew.
I do believe that something would have been devised.
Bob Clark
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
"charleston" <charlestonch…@choochoo.com> wrote in message <news:svj%9.12209$XB.720973@news2.west.cox.net>…
> The Columbia disaster has brought up a lot of new questions about the
> Thermal Protection System (TPS)–the famous tiles.
> The following is a reposting here on S.S.S. from just about 21 months ago.
> When I reread the post it placed the loss of Columbia in a completely
> different light, namely how NASA engineers addressed possible TPS damage
> then and now.
> I think we must ask ourselves what changes occured in the last 112 missions
> that led to the significantly different handling of possible impact damage
> to the orbiter’s sensitive heat protection tiles. One reason Challenger STS
> 51-L was *almost* not launched was the concerns of several engineers that
> the sensitive tiles on the orbiter might be impacted by icicles hanging on
> the Fixed Service Structure during main engine start-up and early lift-off.
> Such concerns did not prevent the fateful launch of Challenger. What we
> need to learn are the details and adequacy of the assessment of possible TPS
> damage to Columbia STS 107.
> While we do not yet know (and may never know for sure) if a tile system
> failure initiated the loss of Columbia, I suspect that at the very least it
> may well have propagated into the loss of the orbiter Columbia. It is
> possible of course that a stress induced wing crack occured during a banked
> turn unzipping a section of tile, the fact that initial telemetry reports
> that the sensors detected failures in the left wing is indeed troubling
> given ascent photography revelations. Whatever the cause of the Columbia
> disaster, NASA must reexamine the assessment and handling of potential TPS
> damage during launch and ascent and on-orbit repairs for same. Without
> major changes to the process, unnecessary flight risks (in my opinion) may
> be taken in the future.
> "Search Result 1
> From: Daniel (search…@lvcm.com)
> Subject: Re: In-Orbit Photo of Orbiter Belly
> View: Complete Thread (51 articles)
> Original Format
> Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
> Date: 2001-05-04 17:08:40 PST
> "Marshall Perrin" <mperrin+n…@arkham.berkeley.edu> wrote
> | Daniel <search…@lvcm.com> wrote:
> | > maybe the news media was right. It is well documented that the Hawaii
> | > observatories could have made these observations in enough detail to
> | > draw good engineering information from the ground. I will stand by my
> | > statement as it relates to STS 1. For all other missions I can provide
> | > no evidence to support my claim. If any of you have doubts about USAF
> | > telescope capability from Hawaii, think again!
> |
> | I -would- like to see documentation of that.
> Read the AvWeek article shortly after STS 1 flew in 1981.
> Or you can e-mail the USAF on Hawaii, I doubt that they will tell you
> just exactly how good their optics are so the Russian’s and Chinese will
> know too, but you can ask.
> |A six-inch tile seen from a
> | distance of 300 km subtends an angle of 3 milliarcseconds. Good
> | astronomical seeing, even on Mauna Kea, is around half an arcsecond.
> | Adaptive optics can improve that substantially – see the Air Force’s AEOS
> | telescope on Maui. But I don’t believe that has been around long enough
> | to capture the early shuttle flights. Beyond that, I’ve seen images taken
> | of satellites today using AEOS, and while you can certainly make out the
> | general shape, I wouldn’t call them "engineering quality", especially not
> | for things like looking for missing tiles. Those details are just too
> | small to see from the ground.
> Sounds good, but on a clear winter’s night on a dark island you can see
> Orion’s nebula quite well. I know, I used to live in the Azores when I
> was in the USAF. How many arcseconds is that nebula? My eyes are not
> telescopic but on a good winter’s moonless night I can just make out the
> Andromeda galaxy from northwest Las Vegas, a city of many, many lights.
> Sounds silly does it not? But have you seen the USAF’s Hawaiian island
> optics? **All of them?** I don’t think so. Do we even know about all
> of them?
> There were 16 missing tiles on Columbia STS 1 and 148 damaged tiles
> according to Dennis Jenkins latest book. NASA could only see 16 of
> these tiles with the payload bay cameras. If a significant tile failure
> had occurred on STS 1, what would the result have been? Worst case
> scenario–loss of Orbiter.
> So what what was NASA to do? It was a good ship lollipop story as NASA
> said everything was fine but at the same time rushed to evaluate the
> underside of the Orbiter. Don’t take my word for it. The following is
> a partial and pertinent transcript from ABC evening news, April 12,
> 1981.
> April 12, 1981
> 5:34:40 p.m. ET
> Frank Reynolds at KSC speaking:
> "The tile problem is being closely watched at Shuttle control
> headquarters at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and for the latest
> word on what the experts think about it, here’s Max Robinson, Max"
> Max Robinson at JSC speaking:
> "Frank, scientists here at Mission Control in Houston continue to
> maintain the missing tiles are not a serious problem…
> …the question is are there any more tiles missing from the
> Orbiter? Today’s pictures from space show the tiles missing on the rear
> section of the Columbia’s tail."
> Robert Crippen speaking:
> "…looks like a few little triangle shapes that are missing, we’re
> trying to put that on TV right now."
> Max Robinson speaking:
> "As for what the the space camera can’t see"
> Neal Hutchinson, NASA Flight Director speaking:
> "Oh we have no reason to believe that we have any other tile
> problems anywhere."
> Max Robinson speaking:
> "But despite their confidence, NASA is scrambling to take high
> resolution pictures from the ground to make sure no tiles are missing
> from the Columbia’s underside…
> …those tiles are crucial to protecting the astronauts from the
> intense heat of re-entry. Just one missing tile in a critical area
> could result in a burnthrough of the spacecraft…
> …As for what caused the the handful of tiles to fall off today, NASA
> officials say it was probably a shock wave during launch that they did
> not anticipate…."
> end 5:36:20 p.m. ET
> Now let’s dissect this.
> Facts:
> 1. There
…
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