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Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster (P2- Physically problems (NASA with…

- - - - Last Mission
        
        Launch On: January 16, 2003
        
        Accident happened: February 1, 2003
        
        STS-107
        Launch Pad: 39-A
        Landing: Planned to land at Kennedy Space Centre
        
        Crew Members
        Columbia-Crew Profiles
        
        Rick Husband
        
        William McCool
        
        Michael Anderson
        
        David Brown
        
        Laurel Clark
        
        Ilan Ramon
        
        Kalpana Chawla
      - Background about Space Shuttle Columbia
        Space Shuttle Columbia
        
        First Launch on April 12, 1981
        
        Columbia was named after a small sailing vessel that operated out of Boston in 1792 and explored the mouth of the Columbia River. One of the first ships of the U.S. Navy to circumnavigate the globe was named Columbia. The command module for the Apollo 11 lunar mission was also named Columbia
        
        Columbia is commonly referred to as OV-102, for Orbiter Vehicle-102. The orbiter weighed 178,000 pounds with its main engines installed.
        
        In 1994, Columbia was transported back to Palmdale for its first major tear-down and overhaul, known as the Orbiter Maintenance Down Period (OMDP). This overhaul typically lasts one year or longer and leaves the vehicle in "like-new" condition.
    - - National Aeronautics and Space Administration, known as NASA, was established in 1958. NASA was a part of United States government which oversees the United States science and technology which focus on the development of airplanes or space
      - spaceflight programs such as Challenger, Columbia, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour.
- - - - Ferrit
        
        Aluminium deposits were found on the surface of the valve
        
        indicates that molten deposition during breakup
        
        The area around the crater contained higher-than-usual levels of delta ferrite, probably because of reheating of the valve into the ferrite region during re-entry and then slow cooling as a result of the descent to earth
        
        The amount of ferrite was approximately 4.5% near the
        crater, whereas the unaffected sample had approximately 2.3% ferrite
      - how did it form?
        
        it was created due too high-temperature heat during re-entry
        
        The crater probably formed as a result of a very
        high heat source that may have melted a small
        region of the valve and certainly heated portions to temperatures above 1300 to 1400 °C. The surrounding material was affected by the high temperature and transformed most of the microstructure to ferrite.
- - - - Fears that terrorism might have been involved, 9/11/2001
    - - CAIB to NASA
        
        The CAIB found the very same philosophy at work: ‘‘with no engineering analysis, Shuttle managers used past
        success as a justification for future flights’’ (CAIB, 2003:126). This explains, according to CAIB, why NASA had
        ‘‘ignored’’ the shedding of foam, which had occurred during most of the previous shuttle launches.
        
        Note CAIB*
        
        Flawed decision-making
        
        The Rogers Commission criticized NASA’s decision-making system, which ‘‘did not flag
        rising doubts’’ among the workforce with regard to the safety of the shuttle.
        
        A broken safety culture
        
        Both commissions were deeply critical of NASA’s safety culture. The Rogers Commission
        noted that NASA had ‘‘lost’’ its safety program; the CAIB speaks of ‘‘a broken safety culture.’’
        
        The CAIB, in summary, explicitly concluded that NASA had failed to prevent what was judged to be a preventable
        disaster. CAIB judged that NASA is not a High Reliability Organization, which, presumably, would have prevented
        both disaster
        
        CAIB asserts that NASA could have prevented the Columbia disaster, if only had it been a High Reliability
        Organization. From a Normal Accident Theory perspective, however, such an assertion misses an important point:
        humans cannot control dangerous technologies through their imperfect organizations. In fact, in their very efforts to
        build perfect organizations, they will probably create unforeseen vulnerabilities. The best an organization can do, from
        this perspective, is to minimize known risks and create sufficient capacity to deal with emerging ‘‘unknown
        unknowns.
      - NASA’s ever-present dilemma: safety (extensive testing by an army of specialists) has to be balanced against
        performance (schedules and budgets).