Columbia Shuttle disaster - 2 h lecture, MIT

[Bucic]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster

 

Too bad there is now view on the presentation... On the other hand even though the lady does the lecture for MIT students, she often uses very simple language to get through with her point e.g. hand outside car's window to explain some aeroelasticity element.

 

Anyway, if you're on DCS forums you're geeks anyway, so there's no shame in that and you can sit back, relax and enjoy. :smartass:

 

Edit:

Directly related

Edited March 7, 2011 by Bucic

[Sulman]

Great links. I read both the accident report and the crew survivability report a while ago. Whilst covering an arguably tragic event, they are fascinating and incredibly educational. The accident report in particular is a fascinating exposition of NASA and the shuttle program thus far, and the technical efforts to understand what happened were amazing.

 

The Crew Surviveability Report (perhaps a misnomer, after you read it...) is just mind-blowingly comprehensive, and yet in all the technical details I caught myself losing sight of the physics involved in the accident, because the numbers are repeated so frequently they start to lose their meaning, like repeating a word constantly.

 

It was interesting to learn that the STS programme had a checklist for orbiter breakup, but only on the ascent (post-Challenger) where the forces and thermal environment are not lethal.

 

You realise at the end of it all - and the reports are very careful to avoid directly mentioning the casualties themselves - that interesting as it is, there's realistically almost nothing that can be done. There's no practical protection measure for a human being exposed to mechanical forces and thermal events at hypersonic speeds.

[Bucic]

Could you provide links to the reports you mention? That would supplement the topic nicely.

[Sulman]

Sure.

 

Accident report http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/home/CAIB_Vol1.html

 

Crew Surviveability Report: http://history.nasa.gov/columbia/columbiacrewsurvival.pdf

[Bucic]

Thanks!