Columbia 10 years later

I haven't posted on here in a while but I kind of want to get back into it and I thought this might start an interesting discussion.

Ten years ago on February 1st 2003 I was a senior in high school and I woke up that Saturday morning to some crazy news...the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry. I remember being glued to the TV waiting for more information on why this happened and what this would mean for the future of the space program. At this point in my life I was accepted to college to study aerospace engineering and I knew I wanted to work in some aspect of the space program. I couldn't help but think that perhaps my chances of working in the space program disintegrated along with it.

I remember going to school that Monday getting a lot of questions from friends about it, I didn't know too much about the Space Shuttle at that point but because my friends knew what I wanted to study they considered me some sort of expert on such matters.

Flash forward to college, I remembered when the Columbia Accident Investigation Report came out citing the foam strike on the wing as the cause, I remember being excited when Pres. Bush announced the Constellation program to take us back to the moon and to design a new spacecraft that will take us there, and be much safer than the Space Shuttle. I remember watching a Shuttle night launch from my campus in the winter of 2006. At that point I was applying to jobs to work on the design of the new Orion capsule.

Come spring of 2007 I graduated with my BSAE, still looking for a job. I found an interesting position at the Johnson Space Center that was looking for people to work in the mission control center and train astronauts for either the International Space Station (ISS) or the Space Shuttle so I figured what the hell, I'll apply for it and see what happens. I always thought myself a design person, never really even considered working at mission control. My only exposure to mission control at that point was the movie Apollo 13.

The next few weeks of that summer were pretty interesting for me, 1) I got a chance to drive down to Kennedy Space Center and watch a Shuttle launch up close since a friend of mine was working there and go some passes and 2)The next day after watching the Shuttle launch I got a call about an interview for that mission control job. 3)I got to fly down to Houston for the interview and take a tour of the control center about a week after that Shuttle mission ended.

Well long story short, I got the job and started out working as a Space Shuttle flight controller in the summer of 2007. I still can't believe I had the incredible opportunity to work in the Shuttle Mission Control center, oversee the completion of the ISS, and take part in the Space Shuttle program at the end of its run. Along the way I got to learn a lot more about the Columbia accident, I even had to read the accident report for part of my training.

This year I've really been reflecting on the journey I've had since that day 10 years ago, I think about the crew who's lives were lost that day, and I think about how close it all came to being over for our space program and how much of a shame it would have been to lose it all and that crew's sacrifice to have been for nothing.

Since the retirement of the Space Shuttle, I was fortunate enough to transfer over and become a controller for the International Space Station. For those of us that work at NASA, especially in the human spaceflight area, this last week of January and first week of February is a somber time for us. All three fatal human space flight accidents occurred during this time of the year. Columbia is the one that had an impact on me since I was actually aware of what was going on when it happened.

For anyone else out there, do you remember where you were during these tragic events, what thoughts you might have had, and if they had any impact on you? What are your thoughts on the current state of the US Space Program?

 

supersix2 , what a great story. I do remember the morning of the Columbia disaster. I was in a Best Buy picking up something and the images of the debris spraying across the sky was being played on a wall of TVs.

I remember thinking, Not again. I vividly remember the Challenger crash and had hoped it wouldn't happen again.

I am not sure how I feel about today's space agency other than I wish there was more funding available. I am heartened by the private money being put into space flight but also concerned at what privatization of space could mean for those who can't afford to take part.

 

supersix2 i remember that. I remember hearing about it on the radio and going to the computer to see live streaming video.

I don't really know much about the space program now, other than im not sure we dont have one anymore. Dont really know why...

 

I was in my Saturday history class (being the slacker I am, the weekday classes were all full by the time I signed up.) I missed a few calls during the first half of class and called home to see what was so important on a Saturday morning that my mom was calling when I was in class. She told me that the Shuttle broke up on reentry, and the video didn't look like anyone could have survived. I checked the news and it was typical post-disaster stuff, nobody really knew what had happened and they were all wildly speculating. Turns out it was once again something that should have been preventable but wasn't because the procedures weren't in place to properly evaluate and report risks.

We still haven't learned a damn thing and if SLS goes ahead and runs for decades like the Shuttle program did, it's going to happen again.

 

OMG, has it been 10 years......and now we (NASA) has to ask the Russians to take us to the international space station.....look how far we have fallen ! ! ! ( I hope what I typed is not too far off topic ?).

 

I've read a lot about the Challenger disaster as well. I've been to a few lectures where both Challenger and Columbia are analyzed. The thing that strikes me about both is that they were caused by the same mentality. We are always very reactive to problems. It is unfortunate that the because of political haggling and decades of budget problems has really crippled NASA to the core. Even with Space Station, we try to be proactive in dealing with potential future threats, design weaknesses, and so forth but we are always having to choose which ones to address now because of the money available.

The Space Station is pretty amazing, it took over 20 years to design, build, and assemble. Some may remember when Pres. Reagan first layed out the direction of NASA to build a Space Station in the mid 1980's. This was Space Station Freedom, the design of which is almost identical to the ISS now (minus the Russian modules). Then in the early 1990s the Space Station program was almost cancelled (saved by 1 vote in Congress) but sadly it was a Congress that had to choose between a Space Station or a Super Collider. Then the Space Station Freedom became the International Space Station when we decided to buy down risk and work with the Russians. The Russians had technology that we had to still develop (a return vehicle for the crew that could stay in space for moths at a time, the Soyuz; an unmanned resupply vehicle that could dock automatically with the station, the Progress; and a guidance an propulsion module, the Russian Service Module). All of this would have been way too much money for Congress to swallow and would have extended out the development and construction of the Space Station for many more years. NASA knew it had to get something up there and fast else it would be cancelled and by adding in foreign partners it would make it more politcally difficult to kill in a later budget cycle.

We are playing the same games again with Orion and SLS. Orion crew capsule is being built here by Lockheed Martin, but we've recently contracted the service module to the European Space Agency. We are still shopping around for a launch vehicle for it.

It's crazy to me that a bunch of lawyers in Washington are essentially responsible for designing our new spacecraft!

 

The worst part, in my mind, is the Shuttle-derived bullshit that plagues SLS. We have superior technology that exists or is well into development, but it doesn't bring as much money to as many districts. The Atlas V and Falcon 9 could easily be rated for human flight within a couple of years. Delta IV Heavy has launched, and all it would take is a couple of demo missions for Atlas V HLV and Falcon 9 Heavy to prove their reliability. Instead, we have the promise of an SLS lifter that might fly in five years if everything goes according to schedule and starts its flight with a 45-60 second window in which an abort will result of loss of crew and vehicle thanks to the use of solid rocket boosters that ensure the support of Utah's congressmen and senators for SLS.

edit: was going through old posts and saw this, I was thinking of Ares, not SLS

 

MSD:

I totally agreed, I've heard SLS referred to as "Senate Launch System." Shuttle proved that SRBs are not really a good design solution to resuability, safety, and affordability. Politics is the only reason why they are still being used. One thing that I've heard tossed around is how much it takes to "man rate" a rocket like Delta or Atlas. Essentially you have to be at least 1 fault tolerant from having a catastrophic failure leading to loss of crew and vehicle, among other things. I know nothing about those rockets so I can't say exactly what it would take to rate one of the existing rockets but I highly doubt its more expensive than building one from scratch.

genuinegirly:

You work on advanced life support and life sciences? Thats awesome. My systems background for Space Shuttle and Space Station is life support systems! That's also great that you've been to Congress talking about STEM. One thing they need to realize is that we need make sure we have rewarding and valuable jobs in STEM fields. I know many people who have left NASA to pursue business or law degrees because of how crappy the aerospace industry has become recently. The only sector that really doesn't get touched is defense programs...but many of us didn't really go to school to make bombs and missiles. It's sad how many good people I've seen had to go to other industries because of a lack of national leadership when it comes to space exploration. I really hope the private sector picks up, but they will most likely be confined to low earth orbit for the forseeable future and with NASA having no real long term goal for exploration beyond earth orbit I am really fearful we've see the best days of the US space program pass us by.

I was one of the flight controllers for STS-131, I worked about 10 or so days of that mission monitoring the life support systems. I remember we had some mice on that flight and I think some vaccine research and tissue research payloads. Were you involved in any of those?

 

For experimentation like yours, I can see a bunch of universities around the world teaming up with corporate partners and either renting or buying outright a module from Bigelow in the next few years. Rental looks like it will be in the $45-50M range per year, but once SpaceX starts putting them up in 2015, I can see the cost dropping by a third to half. Give it fifteen or twenty years and SpaceX will probably have their reusable Falcon 9 running, which could drop the cost of unmanned experiments to the point that a handful of universities could chip in for one and put a bunch of cargo racks in orbit for 6 months to a year.