Ignored Warnings: The Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster 2003 | Documentary | Plainly Difficult

[@PlainlyDifficult]

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[@canaanblank4290]

I see you closing in on a million subscribers congratulations

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you!!

[@meinkamph5327]

I was reading the numbers on the heat tiles. Three rows of alphanumeric digits each have sequential numbers that correspond with tiles next to it. I know redundancy is appropriate, but it also tells me a lot of money was lost through these heat tiles. Three sequential numbers equals three different parties handling the tiles....

[@unmanaged]

Did you see the video of Destin of SmarterEveryday telling nasa that this will happen again? go look it up this is the same trap that Boeing is going through now

[@FatherDraven]

Dangerous and Complacent: Plainly Difficult Thought It The Title Permutation Tool Disaster Couldn't Happen | Short Mockumentary

[@joshuapatrick682]

The tone of the message where they said “no cause for concern” loud and several times leads me to believe THERE WAS cause for concern..

[@rf159a]

Kind of like when they say: "Nothing to see here!!"

[@alanholck7995]

AKA Normalization of Deviancy

[@LoneTiger]

Two cars hit each other on the highway, one shouts to the other... _"Hey, your car was hit, but don't worry, just continue, there is nooo cause for concern, have a great day."_ If you were concerned, stop and check for damages, which is what a normal person would do, why wouldn't you do the same in your expensive shuttle?

[@BType13X2]

The ISS was in orbit when Columbia was lost. Although not ideal they could have docked with the station, transferred the crews to the space station and then to soyuz to re-enter. There was that option if something horrible happened to the shuttle. They just didn't bother to check for damage to know what state the tiles were in.

[@oasntet]

Hindsight is 20/20. They'd had other foam strikes that didn't end in disaster, so at the time it didn't seem like a big deal. But the complacency around it, i.e. prioritizing doing science experiments over yawing the shuttle to get a better look at the wing, that's what actually cost us the shuttle and the astronauts. Not that there was a lot they could have done at the time. A repair effort or rescue effort would have been extraordinarily hard to pull off. Still, I'd hate to be Steve Sitch.

[@aspexpl]

Time to do our weekly check of southern London weather.

[@joshuapatrick682]

Currently cool and wet…?

[@MeriaDuck]

If the other side of the northern sea is any reference, I'd say quite miserable 😂

[@markheath9059]

It's very sunny today! Though not very warm.

[@nopel.]

IM BURNING HELP

[@crapmalls]

I sang this in my head just now as californication

[@plumbus483]

"Columbia didn't get some of the more sexy assignments due to her lower performance capability compared to the other orbiters. Still, she flew all her missions exceptionally well. She was a proud old bird. I know she did her best to bring her last crew home safely, just as she had done 27 times before. However, her mortal wound was just too great." -Robert Crippen, Bringing Columbia Home

[@Amrepdude499]

You are probably well aware but just putting this for everyone else. Crippen was pilot on Columbia’s first flight and it was either him or John Young that described her as “The greatest electric flying machine”. Crippen spoke at the memorial service for Columbia and was a very emotional tribute to the crew and vehicle which you could tell he loved. He probably felt that sting of loss twice seeing as he commanded the Challenger 3 times before she was also destroyed, he flew Columbia only once as a pilot

[@thefisherking78]

So sad 😿

[@FetcheousRex]

Aw that’s so sad for him, the elementary school I went to is named after him and he went to the same high school as I did. Probably the best person ever to come out of the area where I grew up. I always like to look for his picture on the wall when I go to NASA

[@NeVerWinTa-]

Haha 🤣🤣🤣😂

[@Gorgonzeye]

That attitude is how you make a space vehicle with the worst safety record in history.

[@stevewithaq]

12:56 "...they could not definitively state that structural damage would result..." Had to double-check the sources on this. The quote is accurate - this implies NASA was working from an "if we can't prove it's a problem, we won't try to fix it" position. Not the best when lives are at stake.

[@ExperimentIV]

NASA was working from that point in both incidents. I think Allen McDonald or Roger Boisjoly of Morton Thiokol said essentially the same thing you said in a video about ethics in engineering years after Challenger

[@OmegaBlue-gb5bu]

I mean there was nothing they could have done anyway, the video doesn't mention it but even if they had thought it was an issue they would burn up that's pretty much it, they're already in space and they can't like send them to like the ISS because of supplies. The only way to get them back was sending a second shuttle like he said and that was basically never a real option and was just a hypothetical that relied on way too much that was never ever an option, like one cloudy day would have killed the mission.

[@tiberiusweaver-zeman2520]

NASA had a long history of classifying damage on launch “within experience base” if they didn’t cause catastrophic failure.

[@meva4679]

Doctor: " in my experience, I wouldn't French kiss a TB patient, but I don't have enough personal data to back that up. Historically it doesn't seem like a great idea."

[@leisti]

@@meva4679 Doctor 2: "French-kissing TB patients never did me any harm!"

[@ryanwilson2016]

I went on a field trip in elementary school to the space center. They set up a heat tile, put a torch to it, did an entire like 10 minute speech about them. The face of the tile was glowing red hot and they let us go up and put our hands on the back, it was basically room temperature. They handed out a broken one that had been dropped and broke into 3 pieces. Even though I was maybe 10-11 years old I could see that might be a problem.

[@thing_under_the_stairs]

That is a very cool experiment to show kids that age, and a very cool field trip! I remember going to Kennedy Space Centre around the same age on a trip with my family, and although we never had any neat demonstrations like that, out tour *did* take us into the entry of the hanger where they were prepping Columbia for her next launch. The sight of so many people in the distance, gluing tiles onto this massive plane that was going to actually go into space, did give me pause. But since I was 12, Columbia was my favourite of the shuttles, and I was still in trauma-induced denial that anything like Challenger could happen again with experts like NASA working on it (like I said, I was 12), I didn't realise that I was seeing what would eventually be Columbia's downfall that day. (Okay, technically not the tiles for the pedants. You know what I mean!)

[@brendandarkside1207]

I remember a news article about a British scientist who invented a heatproof polymer that could replace the tiles which he said 'kept falling off'. Classic underdog story but without the wholesome result.

[@saintuk70]

@@brendandarkside1207 but this wasn't the issue with Columbia - tiles did not fall off. The main tank was covered with spray-on foam and it was this that broke off, smashing through the reinforced carbon-carbon sections on the leading wing-edge. The foam was at its weakest where infrastructure or connectors were in place. Granted, the tiles were always an issue, so many were lost even on the very first flight. The adhesion of the silicon tiles were so sketchy and what lead to huge lead-times and costs with the Shuttle.

[@martykarr7058]

From the beginning, they knew there would be problems. Most early shuttle designs had a much smaller orbiter launching ON TOP of a booster, not strapped to a fuel tank and solid rockets. Rumor has it that when Wernher Von Braun reviewed the final approved designs, he pretty much said it was an accident looking for a place to happen. And NASA never learns, because guess what, the SLS uses the same solid rocket boosters that did in Challenger.

[@saintuk70]

@@martykarr7058 uses the same liquid engines too. But, a lot of rockets use solid motors with success, just with humans there's no off switch if they need to get to safety. You're right, however, it was risky doing what they did in terms of design. Biggest design "mishap" was not having the orbiter's crew cabin as an escape capsule. Crikey, they have them on B1-A was designed with one.

[@crazyguy32100]

Atlantis suffered a foam strike and lost tiles on STS-27, 15 years before Columbia. The pictues were sent back to ground control who though the damage was nothing to worry about, Commander Gibson thought they wer all going to die. He was nearly right, the only reason the orbiter landed was the missing tile was over a support bracket for an antenna, that kept the superheated plamsa at bay long enough to keep it from getting inside the wing and melting it all. Yet nothing was learned.

[@Danstaafl]

I've never forgiven NASA for this. They have literally the worst safety record in all spaceflight today. And they had every chance. With both Columbia and Challenger, to be the Hero's. But it wasn't cost effective and schedule appropriate apparently to do so. Feynman said they couldn't be trusted to run a hot dog stand safely. I agree.

[@arcanondrum6543]

Take away Apollo and the bragging rights come down to profit and stock prices - oh and we pioneered the use of Twins to study the effects of space travel. All this made worse by privatization. A fair scorecard for SpaceX will confirm it. Meanwhile, Astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos’ Alexei Ovchinin returned safely to Earth after their rocket mishap. Decades of successful Mir Stations lay the ground work for ISS - which Russia will soon abandon. I understand, I was embarrassed when arriving Astronauts ignored the outstretched hand of a Cosmonaut first in line to welcome them aboard ISS (within the past 2 years or so). At least an impressive amount of knowledge was learned from bouncing and rolling Spirit and Opportunity to a landing on the surface of Mars inside partially inflated balls. That will help Astronauts land on another planet. I doubt that we can ever duplicate the power of "a digital watch" - Buzz Aldrin, aboard Apollo.

[@arcanondrum6543]

Take away Apollo and suddenly, Russia is looking pretty good. Astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos’ Alexei Ovchinin might agree. So would Spirit and Opportunity given their methods of "landing".

[@Eoin999]

@@arcanondrum6543honestly, I agree, but the Soyuz-1 launch was inexcusable

[@SunBear69420]

​@@Eoin999me mum agrees too 😊

[@eddiehimself]

I remember seeing the recent BBC documentary about this, and it basically went something like this: Engineers: "we think that the RCC panels on the left wing might be damaged and we need to take photos for evidence" Management: "but do you have any evidence that there is damage to the panels?" Engineers: "no, that's why we need to..." Management: "well, we're not going to let you take any photos without evidence!"

[@sanyfalkenberg4986]

I watched that documentary too, it was amazing and at the same time it made me so sad and mad. These poor families and this stupid NASA. It could have been prevented

[@pb5x5]

Even if the chances of saving the crew weren't very good. Nasa didn't do all it could have done to help them have the best chance to survive it.

[@geoffgunn9673]

@@pb5x5 had they seen the damage, they could have yawed the ship during re-entry to help protect that damage from excess heat and that may have got them home

[@pb5x5]

@@geoffgunn9673 Anything would have been worth a go to save the crew.

[@Kunfucious577]

It’s absurd what kind of things people say after watching a few clips in a documentary. A documentary made by journalists who worry about a good narrative over accuracy. This was a freak accident that doomed the crew when it happened. Sometimes it’s not anybodies fault. Nobody got on the wing and hammered the shield so they would die.

[@RT-qd8yl]

I remember that morning so vividly. It was our generation's Challenger. Being the weather nerd that I was/am, I looked at the weather radar over Texas and saw an ungodly reflectivity return from the debris cloud. I had never seen anything like that before.

[@thing_under_the_stairs]

For those of us around for Challenger, it was Challenger 2.0. I remember waking up slightly hung over after a good night out, turning on my computer, and giving up my previous plans for a good greasy diner breakfast because my stomach and heart had just sunk right through the floor when I saw the news.

[@katherinekeller4149]

I am old enough to remember both Challenger and this.

[@LisaBowers]

​@@katherinekeller4149Same here. I watched the Challenger explosion from my 11th grade classroom. It was just awful.

[@ExperimentIV]

it’s weird because i can remember columbia better than 9/11. i guess maybe because i was a tiny bit older and it happened on a saturday (i’m not american so we didn’t watch the news at school on 9/11, at least not at my school)

[@a7x5631]

I remember watching it launch from my house in Jacksonville Beach. Was surprised how much of it we could see

[@LegendOfBoberto]

About heating on reentry. Most of the heat is actually caused by the massive increase in air pressure causing adiabatic heating, not by friction. The same way a diesel engine gets the fuel air mixture hot enough to ignite by simply compressing it dramatically. The leading surfaces of an object moving into the atmosphere causes the air to massively compress it much the same way.

[@volvo09]

Wow, crazy to imagine how fast an object has to be moving for that to happen.

[@hicknopunk]

Yes, I thought it was piston forces, not drag. You are basically creating compression in the atmosphere.

[@revenevan11]

Replying here to boost your comment, it's a very common mistake to think that drag is the main factor so I was going to correct it as well if no one else had. 👍

[@PassiveSmoking]

@@volvo09It just has to be moving faster than sound, as at subsonic speeds the air can flow around an object but at supersonic speeds the object is moving too fast for the air to "get out of the way" and it's compressed into a leading edge shockwave. Concorde famously heated from supersonic flight to the point where it was a full 30cm longer in flight than it was on the ground. That's also why it had such extremely angled back wings, the angle kept the leading edges of the wings out of the shockwave.

[@rcrawford42]

And the latest Starship test gave us first-ever live footage of the air turning to plasma. Or watch the return of a Falcon booster -- they fire the engines to both slow the booster and to move the compression zone away from it.

[@Eric_Hutton.1980]

I remember both the Challenger and Columbia accidents. Rest In Peace to their crews.

[@RobotacularRoBob]

At the risk of approaching X-Files territory, there are people alive today who have the same names as the Challenger crew who look an awful lot like them too.

[@ItsJustLisa]

@@RobotacularRoBob, seeing as retired Air Force Lt. General Richard Scobee is Dick Scobee’s son, this isn’t a surprise. Ron McNair had two kids at the time of his death, Ellison Onizuka’s daughters were 16 and 10, and Christa’s children were 9 and 6.

[@geoffgunn9673]

@@RobotacularRoBob This how a stupid consipary starts. I am sure you could find a doppelganger for anyone who has died.

[@Fister_of_Muppets]

I too watched Challenger explode live. In those days, there was a more delayed mystery to the how and why. Not as much with Columbia, the answers were much more expedient. Still very sad though.

[@fuktrumpanzeeskum]

​@@RobotacularRoBobso what if there's people with the same name, my name isn't super common yet there is currently almost 500 people in the U.S. with my name.

[@Danger_mouse]

I've always thought the space shuttle disasters make a mockery of the meeting following the Apollo 1 fire... Gene Kranz - 'From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: ‘Tough’ and ‘Competent.’ Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for. Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect. When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write ‘Tough and Competent’ on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control'.

[@skwervin1]

Problem was Gene wasn't in charge anymore. Also the Apollo investigation had some of the astronauts checking over stuff and when they butted heads with the manufacturers over "safety concerns" they got rather cutting along the lines of "Well it's my ass that's on the line - you gonna tell my wife you killed me?" And also some invitations to "come take a ride with us if you are so sure".... If you read Lost Moon by Jim Lovell he has quite a bit to say about that investigation and just how lax some of the manufacturers were with their "it's good enough" rhetoric rather than "It's as close to perfection as possible". I believe there were also a few invitations to go behind the shelter sheds for a "discussion" possibly involving fists if you get what I mean.

[@pokehybridtrainer]

The last moments of the tragedy was brutal with that audio log. Thought that would have been enough but.. Suppose not.

[@John_Redcorn_]

@@pokehybridtrainerwell the shuttle disasters were decades later. Ppl get complacent.

[@tusse67]

Mission control didnt have much influence on the shuttle disasters… those were due to design choices and normalization of deviance of the stack.

[@Danger_mouse]

@@tusse67 While technically true, I'm sure NASA as a whole should have been following the same principles. Have a listen to the 'The Space Above Us' supplemental podcast which is the testimony of the Thyacol manager Allan McDonald regarding the disaster and how they tried to avoid it.

[@ashleywagner227]

I remember being 7 years old watching this happen in the checkout line at Dick’s Sporting Goods with my Dad. The entire store went quiet and we all stood and watched this happen in disbelief. I will never forget that moment for as long as I shall live. RIP to the 7 lives lost that day.

[@ericf7063]

I remember that NASA poo poo'd the incident saying the foam only weighed a few ounces and wasn't a major concern. I'd had physics by that time and a few ounces moving at 500+ mph is significant.

[@NeVerWinTa-]

Haha 🤣🤣

[@surftacoman80]

@@NeVerWinTa- Jeez read the room, Lenin

[@WendyDarling1974]

I’m one of those 80s kids who watched Challenger happen and was super upset by it. It wasn’t until a few years later that I understood what had caused the problem. it’s a real life demonstration of what happens when people get their priorities wrong and don’t pay attention to experts who know their stuff and have safety in mind. And then, it happened again. “Oh, foam won’t hurt it…”

[@Sir.VicsMasher]

Even more upsetting was learning the crew survived the explosion/ breakup and didn't die until their crew capsule impacted the ocean surface. It's the first and only crewed NASA space vehicle without a launch escape system.

[@ExperimentIV]

surprised you didn’t mention STS-27. they had a severe tile loss incident from foam shedding, and since it was a Department of Defence mission, all the video they downlinked showing the tile damage (using the canadarm, which wasn’t on this columbia mission because of the science module taking up the majority of the payload space) was encrypted and decrypted, resulting in a loss of signal quality on the ground. Hoot Gibson was telling them how bad it was because he was seeing the unencrypted video, but by the time it reached NASA, it was unclear enough in the imagery for everyone on the ground to be like “it’s fine. looks within spec.” it absolutely wasn’t. Hoot Gibson was preparing to DIE on reentry (he quotes himself as having told his fellow crew members that there was “no use dying all tensed up” before re-entry!) on a mission in 1988, two years (and only the second mission) after losing Challenger and her crew. the reason it didn’t have a similarly devastating outcome is pure luck - the tile loss happened where there was a steel plate over the aluminum in the fuselage. the heat from the air compression (which is what heats spacecraft on re-entry) melted through the steel during re-entry, and had started to eat through the aluminum when they got out of the part where re-entry caused enough heat to, you know, melt the spacecraft. when they landed (and you can see a photo of the tile damage. just look up sts-27 tile damage somewhere), everyone looking at that hole on the ground was FREAKED OUT. they almost lost a shuttle TWO MISSIONS AFTER CHALLENGER, and i have no doubt the orbiter atlantis’ survival of that incident had an impact on their decisions that led to this disaster. tile damage was seen as routine. normalisation of deviance. i’m shocked this incident doesn’t come up in more incidents about columbia because even though it was a tile strike and not, you know, a big hole in the reinforced carbon carbon leading edge of the wing, they knew the risks of a foam strike. they absolutely knew.

[@ExperimentIV]

sorry that i left out some details in the comment - i made it from my recollections from having read about shuttle incidents in general (i wish i could unearth more documentation about the enormous pyramid of uh… liquid human waste? that broke off challenger on re-entry, banged it up and dented it, and could have compromised the re-entry in a manner that caused LOCV - Loss of Crew and Vehicle). anyone reading the comment or this subsequent comment should look up the details on sts-27 themselves. if i recall correctly, the steel was there for covering an antenna. also, here’s a quote from Hoot Gibson about this with the context of being a comment he made after the loss of Columbia: “If we started to burn-through,” he said later, “we would change the drag on that wing, which is exactly what happened to Columbia. We would start seeing “right-elevon trim”, which means moving the left elevon down. I knew we would start developing a “split” between the right and left wing elevon positions if we had excessive drag over on the right side. The automatic system would try to trim it out with the elevons. That is one of the things we always watched on re-entry, because if you had half a degree of trim, something was wrong. You had a bunch of something going on if you had even half a degree. Normally, you wouldn’t see even a quarter of a degree of difference on that thing.” Before entry interface, Gibson had privately concluded that if he did see an elevon split of beyond a quarter of a degree, he had about 60 seconds of life remaining in which to tell Mission Control exactly what he thought of their heat shield “analysis”…

[@JCBro-yg8vd]

It was a problem since the first shuttle launches, just like with the o-rings.

[@robertl4824]

a nit-pick of your original post: it was not a foam strike from the external tank but a piece of the ablative covering on the right hand solid rocket booster's nose cone. (and it hit the tiles not the RCC wing panels) Probably a harder object than foam would be but there is nothing I could find to indicate how/if so. The ablative covering on the SRB was necessary for re-use of the SRBs, the external tank was allowed to burn up after use. Aside from this thanks for mentioning, it is an interesting read on Hoot's reactions during and after the sts-27 mission and relative to the Columbia disaster.

[@ExperimentIV]

@@robertl4824 ahh thanks for the correction on the source of the damage! i know it hit the tiles and not the rcc leading edge, but a hole in the orbiter on re-entry is a hole in the orbiter on re-entry

[@williamlouie569]

They had been lucky with the few foam strikes, and didn't think it was a huge problem with melted wing? Their thinking was, it's not a problem until they lose a shuttle!

[@bexbagel]

This one hit differently, Laurel Clark was a fan of the same band we are, Runrig, it was in the fan club newsletter that she was going to space, every one was so excited, she was taking Runrig cds with her, Runrig in space!! Whilst she was up there, she even got a wake up call using her favourite song, it was so cool. Then the day came for them to come home, I wasn't watching tv, my husband rang me from work and asked had I heard about the space shuttle, that it had "crashed" (he was hearing about it second hand so didn't know what was up) and then asked if it was Laurel's flight, and I couldn't find the words to tell him yes. They found one of the cds in a field in Texas, it was presented back to the band by the family and is/was on display in a museum in Scotland. The other cd was found still in the cd player and it always haunts me slightly that the last cd the astronauts all heard, was by Runrig. Such an awful tragedy and it could have been prevented!

[@jovetj]

I love Runrig!

[@gemfyre855]

Imagine sorting through all the debris you have and being like "Hang on, this is from CHALLENGER."

[@bartjohnson8139]

Kind of a great geographical distance between the to disasters.

[@marclapin]

@@bartjohnson8139I suppose they checked the launch area over the sea for any debris from the foam strike so it’s likely they would find some Challenger debris

[@RCAvhstape]

It was people who scavanged Challenger parts from a beach and turned it in after the government threatened to prosecute anyone hoarding shuttle parts. Which they had to do because aholes were selling Columbia parts on ebay.

[@bartjohnson8139]

@@marclapin well, yes, after Columbia exploded, however not from Challenger. I’m not following the point.

[@infinidominion]

​@@bartjohnson8139maybe it's a joke about NASA being so unorganized, they accidentally mixed some debris from Challenger with Columbia because they're crazy

[@stargazer5784]

Linda Ham, who was the mission manager in charge, and the flight director, should have been criminally charged. They turned down EVERY offer and opportunity to mitigate the clearly present danger associated with the foam strike. When military assets offered to obtain hi-res images so as to better assess potential damage, they said 'nope'. When a low energy re-entry was suggested to reduce stresses and heat damage, they said 'nope'. When an obviously problematic rescue mission was suggested, the same answer resounded. Nope, nope, nope. Criminal negligence resulted in a possibly preventable tragedy and a cover up ensued. Was anyone held accountable for all of this and more? Nope, nope, nope.

[@Yaivenov]

Bureaucrats are very good at protecting themselves and each other. Not so much anyone else.

[@artemplatov1982]

Women ☕☕☕

[@GlutenEruption]

It was even worse than saying nope to the imaging. After repeated denying requests for imaging from the engineers, the thermal protection team went around management directly to the NRO to request imaging. The NRO complied, got everything set up and were less than an hour or two away from being in position to get the photos when management found out. She then proactively contacted the NRO and told them to CANCEL the imagery. She was under pressure to get STS-108 launched for the iss And if the foam strike was deemed an "out of family" incident, Aka not just the same minor things that have happened in the past, there would be a huge delay and things would have to be investigated and changed before they could launch again. When they were discussing the foam strike, managements opinion was that if it was a critical strike, nothing could be done anyway so it doesn't matter, so her decision was that they didn't need imagery because if it revealed something bad, it would delay the next shuttle and it wouldn't change anything, even though the engineers were saying things COULD be done. Columbia head so many similarities to challenger it's eerie, and the fact that NASA learned absolutely nothing from challenger is incredibly frustrating. It's definitely not the same agency it once was.

[@Yaivenov]

@@GlutenEruption Boeing used to be engineer run then an accountant got control. Likewise NASA used to be engineer run and then a political appointee got control. The results have been very similar.

[@GlutenEruption]

@@Yaivenov yep, sad but true. And Columbia proved they learned absolutely nothing from Challenger and STS-27 as well. They've has also suffered tremendously from a lack of focus - smartereveryday's video "I was scared to say this to nasa..." really did a great job cutting to the heart of that point, that they're acting as if since we already went to the moon, getting there and back is easy peasy so they need to add all these extras on top to justify returning: retrolinear halo orbit, the orbital outpost, polar base, EVA hard suits capable of extended duration use, non hypergolic methane oxygen engines, on-orbit refueling, zero-g cryogenic propellant transfer, 12+ launches of the first fully reusable heavy lift vehicle per mission, landing a 50m tall starship with a ridiculously high CG in 1/6th gravity among mountainous and unlevel terrain without tipping over when the last 2 landers 1/10th the height have tipped over on much flatter terrain... the list is endless. People forget just how **spectacularly** difficult and hazardous getting to the moon and back safely is on its own. They think if we were able to do it 60 years ago, it should be a snap with today's technology but It's not. The only difference is todays systems are many orders of magnitude more complex, The system is significantly more fragmented with contractors off doing things on their own with hardly any central supervision, with a fraction of the budget and forced to use off-the-shelf shallow components to please politicians instead of having the freedom to design systems well-suited to the mission. They want to go back to the Moon for the first time in 60 years, but instead of focusing the first mission just on that, taking baby steps to reacquaint us with the realities of lunar space flight since there's practically nobody left with any experience, they decided to try leapfrogging FAR beyond anything we've experienced or understand into completely uncharted territory in one go. It's a recipe for disaster.

[@twocvbloke]

An awful tragedy that technically could have been prevented had there not been a policy of "prove it's unsafe, otherwise we're good to go!", a shift of attitude that made NASA somewhat of an unsafe environment for people going up into orbit...

[@faenethlorhalien]

That is what happens when you put money before people.

[@christopherg2347]

@@faenethlorhalien Ironically it lost them way more money in the end.

[@asmokeus]

i mean.........these are the same people who needed a class of fourth graders to elucidate them to the fact that epinephrine turns highly toxic under gamma radiation & an epipen in space is basically a deadly weapon. literally the only reason they didn't know this before is the requirement that astronauts have no known allergies

[@dt99022]

@@christopherg2347 It always does, eventually. But we just love to gamble on eventually. Just like the recent collapse of the Franklin Scott Key bridge.

[@Nobody85746]

NASA ignoring the fact we destroyed the world roughly 4500 years ago is the current situation. Prove it? I don't have to; the data is readily available.

[@rickybuhl3176]

The DAT tape. Nicely played sir, nicely played.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

🫡

[@alexanderthomas2660]

Luckily it was For Professional Use!

[@nordboya1656]

Dat is a good joke

[@pseudotasuki]

Is there a word for "surprised chuckle"? That's how I reacted.

[@RT-qd8yl]

@@pseudotasuki I think that's a chortle

[@rdsledge]

NASA playing fast and loose with the lives of Astronauts. Their cavalier attitudes cost the lives of those astronauts both of the space shuttle disasters could’ve been avoided.

[@skwervin1]

Being an Australian female child born in the 60's, I grew up watching the advances into space - and all I ever wanted was to be an astronaut but in those days, girls were not allowed and indeed, if you were not American or Russian you had a snowflake's chance of getting into space. Aged 6 I told my school headmaster I wanted to be an astronomer and he couldn't believe I didn't want to be a hairdresser, nurse or air hostess (as they were called) like all the other girls. My parents gave me a telescope when I was 11 and I spent so many nights outside in summer, I got totally covered in mosquito bites! I devoured information on the development of the space shuttles, how they were built, manned, flown etc. When Challenger exploded I was in university and I felt the world crumble. There was talk for a while of completely mothballing the fleet and not returning to space at all but the shuttles were just too good at what they did. When the story of the O-ring came to light I couldn't believe they had become so lax. Then came Colombia. I could not fathom that more care wasn't taken over the tiles. I know that originally they wanted to make it a single type skin for re-entry but to make something in that size of that material was just too difficult. The use of tiles was as a money saving tactic. After nearly every flight, one or more tiles would fall off, loosen etc and they could just replace that individual tile rather than a large patch. There were issues with the glue initially - when Enterprise did its first high level flight and landing, about half the tiles had fallen off - it looked like it was moulting. The glue not only had to withstand the temperature but also the physical stresses put on it. As the shuttle flew into space it would actually change shape and size - this was another reason for the tiles. In space the tiles cool and there would be gaps between them, as reentry began, the tiles heated and expanded slightly so that at maximum heat, they would be sealed tightly together, without even miniscule gaps. I always thought they should have been able to give the crews some sort of one use repair kits, not actual tiles per se, but maybe a type of putty that could be formed into the missing section and only had to last long enough to get them to the ground. But that is the problem isn't it? Hindsight is 20/20.

[@ericf7063]

There were a few things that weren't quite right with the shuttle program. When NASA got the green light to proceed with the shuttle, a chief engineer (Fiaget?) gave an interview calling it "an intermediary program" to evaluate the feasibility of a reusable platform. As in, it was never intended to be what it became. Also, when they crunched the numbers, it cost more to launch the shuttle than it did to launch a Saturn V. It seems they were ironing out bugs almost the entire time. Which really makes me believe it was only supposed to be an intermediate testing program.

[@CrusaderSports250]

​​@@ericf7063it was ever funded in anything like the way Apollo was leading to design short cuts, strike one for letting accountants make decisions, then due to military intervention it was larger than originally proposed due to what they wanted launched, thus creating greater loading on the structure as opposed to a smaller design. in all the meetings I have knowledge off in industry the engineers have always been heavily outnumbered, making an engineering point very difficult to get through, Challenger was a classic case unfortunately, until this changes there will be no improvement.

[@gr00vechamp]

The photos and videos showing the smiling faces of the astronauts always haunt me. Filled with the confidence of knowing they are the best of the best, young and at the top of their game, they look back at us in these images and smile as if to say , "look at me in my proudest moment of achievement!"

[@crazycoffee]

I didn't know much about the Columbia mission and it just haunts me too. The happiness too it's just gross

[@garrettmancuso4417]

I got to watch sts 63 launch from the press box when I was a kid. I'll never forget or be able to describe the sound. This still breaks my heart.

[@thing_under_the_stairs]

Never saw a launch, but I'm still proud to say that I saw Columbia herself in her hanger when I was a kid. This broke my heart too, as did Challenger. The shuttle may have been flawed, but damn, they were beautiful!

[@BrackenDawson]

The source of heat during re-entry is mainly not from friction. It's shock heating, compression of air in front of the vehicle. Compressing a gas concentrates the heat energy in it

[@theAessaya]

Which is also why it happens around leading edges and the nose, where the air is compressed the most and the fastest.

[@disillusionedanglophile7680]

In other words, it's heat generated by "friction" of air molecules smashing against air molecules. Compression heat is caused by friction. But I am just being pedantic

[@BrackenDawson]

@@disillusionedanglophile7680 Not the case, there is no additional heat energy generated, it is the same heat energy concentrated. If you compress a gass its temperature increases because the same amount of thermal energy is now contained in a smaller volume. This is the same reason a bike pump gets warm and the same reason the compression stage of a four stroke engine cycle makes the gas hotter. The dominant reason for the temperature rise is compression, not friction. In fact the air behind the space shuttle is left cooler once it expends again, because some of the heat energy was conducted to the relatively cooler shuttle.

[@disillusionedanglophile7680]

@@BrackenDawson Brownian motion = Friction

[@disillusionedanglophile7680]

@@BrackenDawson Compression results in molecules in a smaller space = more intermolecular friction. Brownian motion applies. Furthermore, you don't know for a fact that the air was cooler behind the wings, but you can (correctly) assume that it was because we all have refrigerators in our house that are compressors and also heat pumps

[@Carstuff111]

Damn.... I can't believe it has been 21 years already. I was in Galveston, Texas when Columbia burned up. I had gotten up to see how the landing went, only to find out, they never made it beyond reentry. I was sick for days after.

[@Ephemyra]

I was just beginning to drive home after spending the night with a guy north of Huntsville. Was coming up over the top of a hill and saw it still in the sky, too big, too fast and too bright to be a plane. I didn't understand what I had seen until an hour or two later when I got back home.

[@rcrawford42]

Coming up on 40 years for Challenger.

[@maryeckel9682]

I cried.

[@Chris-hx3om]

"I was sick for days after." A cold, flu?

[@Chris-hx3om]

@@maryeckel9682"I cried." Did you have family on board? My sympathies to you.

[@cygnia]

"...and Boeing." BALLS!

[@sovietunion8304]

Boeing was better back then This was when the phrase “if it ain’t Boeing I ain’t going” They changed when they made the 373max

[@MrJames1034]

Oh Boeing was one of the best and most reliable manufacturers at the time. In fact a few of the 747s made during the 1980s weren't decommissioned until the late 2010s and some airliners like Mahan Air still fly them.

[@executivesteps]

The Shuttle was built by N.A. Rockwell (later International) not Boeing. The External fuel tank that shed the foam was built by Martin Marietta. How was Boeing involved?

[@princeendymion9044]

​@@executivestepsRockwell International, along with their and North American's sub divisions were sold to Boeing in 1996. Later on, Boeing sold Rocketdyne (who was a part of Rockwell) to Pratt and Whitney in 2005 who then sold it to Aerojet in 2013. But by Columbia, the Shuttle was technically owned by Boeing.

[@princeendymion9044]

​@@executivestepsMartin Marietta of course was later merged with Lockheed to form... well Lockheed Martin

[@noodles169]

The space shuttles were death traps, and its a miracle there were only two major disasters during the shuttle programme

[@stevesgaming7475]

Very true

[@sechesin7111]

This is what happens when you let the air force make your decisions.

[@roberthenry9319]

@@sechesin7111 B.S.

[@brentcarnelli5664]

My cousin worked in NASA management. After the Challenge disaster we talked about the incident. He said it won't be the last because the vehicle was too complicated. Too bad he was right.

[@watershipdowneyjr]

I remember watching this live. Woke up nice and early just so I could watch it (I was 12 and really into space.) and it turned out to be the day I gained the ability to see thestrals. I still remember how pale my moms face got when she entered the living room and I just screamed, "IT BLEW UP, MAMA! IT JUST BLEW UP!"

[@Echowhiskeyone]

Foam cannot do that bad of damage. Later testing of a big chunk of foam being shot at a shuttle wing leading edge showed that, yes, foam can do that bad of damage. Oops.

[@AirbornChaos]

Funny how they never thought to check that out before a catastrophic loss.

[@volvo09]

Yeah at nearly 500 mph it has to have some considerable impact force, especially on a brittle material.

[@Echowhiskeyone]

@@AirbornChaos Complacency does weird thing to peoples minds. Hasn't happened yet, so it cannot happen. Many events have happened due to complacency, some had no harm done, other were disastrous.

[@Julia68yt]

Basically it was the exact same (methodic) error they made with Challenger. Engineers screaming and begging for data because the situation to assess was way beyond specifications and empirical data (lift off temperature with Challenger, foam debris size with Columbia), only to be told to F off by non-technical management and admins.

[@thing_under_the_stairs]

Funny how much force even lightweight objects can have at high enough speeds... (I'm looking at you, cat.)

[@RinoaL]

I once held one of Space Shuttle Columbia's fragmented heat shield tiles. knew somebody years ago who's uncle fished on an island in the gulf, and gave him a section of debris. It was saddening to hold it.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

That must have been harrowing

[@colpuck9261]

Those are illegal to possess. You’ll need to turn it into nasa.

[@nyxspiritsong5557]

When i moved to Texas, my older sister mentioned that pieces of Columbia are still being found occasionally over east Texas. Of course, my nerdy butt had to research what had happened... between Challenger and Columbia, I really developed a sense of awe for the crews. Trying to imagine what that must've been like gave me awful anxiety. They must've had balls of titanium.

[@LenKusov]

Oh they definitely did, their massive balls are all that survived the crash, you can see em on pallets at 19:46

[@nyxspiritsong5557]

@LenKusov dude.... I'm laughing my butt off. Pretty sure most people would say it's TOO dark of a joke, but damn! 😆😆😆😆 you made my evening!

[@HannibalBarca218bc]

Glad to see my childhood recollection of this wasn't that far off. Didn't really comprehend the full tragedy though RIP Columbia.

[@cjmillsnun]

I would add "easily preventable" to the bingo card. Had the imaging been done, they would've known the damage. Some kind of rescue could've been attempted. They had 30 days more breathable air.

[@slome815]

So, and what rescue would that be? The next shuttle was planned to be ready to launch in six months, A rushed launch might very wel endanger at least two more astronauts ( the shuttle could not fly fully automated). A soyuz carries three astronauts at the most.

[@RayHikes]

⁠Maybe they could have figured out a way to resupply it with a Soyuz? Anything would be better than assured death on reentry.

[@opticfloyyyd]

Not realistically. There’s nothing they could have really done. Unfortunately….

[@RayHikes]

@@opticfloyyyd Was there really no way to bring additional oxygen/supplies to the shuttle in orbit? I don't know how the shuttle worked in that regard, but it seems like they could have at least evacuated to the ISS and waited for another mission to sort it out, has to be better to try that than to just burn up on reentry.

[@strakhovandrri]

Maybe they could park it to ISS?

[@3v068]

If i see you've posted, i watch it. You are amazing at captuvating intricate details and explaining it down to people who dont understand engineering. I came for the nuclear content, but stayed because youre just THAT damn good at storytelling and explaining. Much love from across the pond.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you!!

[@QueenSunstar]

I remember this. My mom sighed, and said it’s the Challenger repeating itself again. In the original Pokemon games, (RBY) in the museum in Pewter City, you can see a model of the Challenger in the museum. Sadly, it was changed in later games. I wish they kept that detail. I felt it was a neat nod to the Challenger.

[@binbashbuddy]

Cold but sunny here in Smoaks SC, in case anyone was wondering. Great video John.

[@ald1144]

Unseasonably cool but characteristically humid here in Abu Dhabi.

[@LooseDeuce]

now THATS a name I haven't heard ina while. Fellow South Carolinian here originally from Beaufort now in Charlotte NC.

[@binbashbuddy]

@@LooseDeuce -- Hope a bit of news from home brightened your day bud.

[@Transilvanian90]

The frustrating aspect is that even after the foam damage, they could've realistically saved the crew, but their negligence led to inaction and ultimately killed them.

[@MultiMightyQuinn]

Another great start to my weekend. Thank you for all your effort, John. I saw both shuttle disasters and I appreciate how you covered this. Great job, thanks for sharing! Love the music!

[@ladyrazorsharp]

I was 8 when Columbia came home safely the first time, and it was so amazing. I was 13 when Challenger was lost; my dad was in aerospace construction on the West Coast and work dried up for at least two years afterwards. So much had been planned with respect to the shuttle launching from the west but after Challenger they scrubbed it all. I was 30 when we lost Columbia. I couldn't believe it; it was like an old friend I'd lost touch with only to see them be struck down on their comeback performance. Two years before she was lost, I saw the episode of the anime Cowboy Bebop which features a heavily modified Columbia, and was tickled to see this tribute to the original shuttle. Seeing that episode after the disaster was heartbreaking.

[@kennethlacewell1517]

Scott Manley has an excellent simulation of Columbia's reentry. I remember the debris showing up on weather radar. 😢

[@kellyhager535]

I remember the sheer amount of debris that fell in my hometown of Nacodgoches Tx..I think the scariest part was people in town finding body parts in their yards along with pieces of the shuttle. In fact for the longest time when people asked me where I came from I would tell them Nac. where the shuttle fell. So weird to think back on it.

[@Eshanas]

Growing up with Y2K, 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Columbia, the Indian Ocean Earthquake and Katrina, it just felt like one long conga line of disaster and misery, and to kids who turned to space out of curiosity, escape or wonder, it was a double whammy.

[@TheReubenShow]

John, thank you for the good work. Always willing to revisit a disaster with you.

[@BaneKing57]

Thank you

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you!!

[@stevemiller6766]

John, thank you for your work. You alone point out the fallacy of how perfect our modern systems are perceived. People so often forget the guys at the bottom that are impacted by these managers that make decisions that affect so many. Very good work sir!

[@Truckngirl]

I had a co-worker who previously worked up there in Palmdale setting heat tiles. He was making an astonishing $13 per hour when minimum was $2.65. He was just goofy enough to make me think of him when the accident happened. I always wondered if there was anything to do with poor workmanship.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

There is always that concern

[@ExperimentIV]

nah, columbia had more to do with the carbon-carbon leading edge of the wing. the foam blew a hole in it. the tiles were a danger, as you can see in sts-27’s tile damage incident, but they had always talked about acceptable levels of tile damage and whatnot.

[@dotnet97]

The shuttles didn't have a poor workmanship problem as much as they had problems of needing too much workmanship. The TPS was way too fragile, because not only were the thousands of tiles themselves fragile (which normally wouldn't be an issue, but mounting the shuttle to the side made it one), but they were held on by glue, had hundreds of unique shapes and had to be removed, inspected and reinstalled after each flight.

[@jackpijjin4088]

God forbid somebody not act like a soulless robot outside of their job.

[@chris-hayes]

Which makes me wonder about SpaceX's Starship, which is in a very similar situation. Hundreds if not thousands of TPS tiles. They're falling off all the time, SpaceX is struggling to fix that issue. How is Startship gonna be crew rated when losing one tile could mean the total loss of the vehicle? Is Starship doomed to end up on this channel one day?

[@theophilusthistler5885]

Thanks. Got your EP. Forgot my Bandcamp password.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Awesome thank you!!

[@samgordon9756]

4:40 it's shock compression, not friction. The spacecraft hits the atmosphere so hard the atmosphere around it heats up and knocks the electrons clean off the atoms in the air.

[@whyjnot420]

I had to pause the video in order to get my laughter out after seeing DAT. That was good.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you!!

[@colincampbell767]

When the first Space Shuttle was launched a team of engineers predicted that during the life of the program - two shuttles would be lost. This was based on the 'known unknowns' of what were in effect a fleet of experimental spacecraft.

[@stephanieparker1250]

I know every ounce of info possible on the shuttle disasters but I had to watch Johns take on this. 👍

[@Hevach]

This wasn't an unforseen issue, either. Early designs showed the orbiter stacked vertically, either as a winged second stage or inside a fairing like Dreamchaser or the X-37. Debris or ice shedding from a planned hydrogen first stage was still possible, but the orbiter was above the debris and safe (this is also why the same tank material is used on SLS without worries, Orion is safe at the top of the stack). This design did limit cargo capacity, but at the time Atlas, Delta, and Titan were planned to be used alongside the shuttle, rather than the shuttle becoming the all purpose single vehicle. The upscaling required by DoD mission profiles like hostile satellite capture made this too large to be feasible - the VAB was not tall enough and neither the crawler carriers nor the mobile launch platforms could bear the weight. So the horizontal stack was used, requiring SRBs (flaws in which destroyed Challenger), putting the orbiter in the path of shed debris (nearly destroying Atlantis and eventually destroying Columbia), and the main ascent engines being directly on the orbiter and reused created the more obscure "gold bullet" problem that also caused a near miss with Atlantis. None of these missions ever flew.

[@robertobryk4989]

I don't get why vertical stacking would increase the total weight. Is this because the tank would need to support weight on its top? (I would naively expect that to change little, because the tank has to resist buckling from aerodynamic forces pushing on its nose in a less predictable way.)

[@Hevach]

They needed to use the Saturn V assembly building, the money wasn't there for a new one. The shape of the VAB meant that a vertically stacked shuttle would have a wingspan limited to about the diameter of the width of the S-II second stage, which was 33 feet. The shuttle that was ultimately built had a 78 foot wingspan and could only be accommodated in the lower bay of the VAB.

[@EvergreenFlame]

I was in Dallas, Texas, that day. As I drove on LBJ freeway, I saw highway signs saying where to report finding debris from the shuttle. That was my first clue to the disaster. It rivaled the shock of hearing about the Challenger disaster

[@RGDcommentnode]

I hope you make more space videos. Like Soyuz 11, which was the only time people died in space due to an accident when returning home.

[@RT-qd8yl]

YES, I would love to see a video on that. I'm wondering if there would be enough concrete verifiable information available for a video though.

[@bsadewitz]

​@@RT-qd8ylI suspect after all these years there is, but it may not be readily accessible via the Internet.

[@ceu160193]

From what is publicly available, after that incident certain changes were made - construction of vent valve was changed, and later return flights were performed in spacesuits. Because, unfortunately, investigators couldn't reproduce chain of events, that led to vent valve opening too early.

[@GlutenEruption]

20:00 - the crew remains were actually VERY identifiable. The crew survivability report goes into some detail about the state of the remains and most were largely intact within their pressure suits. Another report available from nasa online is called "Loss of signal: aeronautical lessons learned from the STS-107 Columbia..." but fair warning, it very graphically depicts crew injuries

[@TyBeTroLLing]

There's nothing like NASA using FEAR to keep kicking can down the road 😅😅😅😅😅

[@kensmith5694]

Large outfits often fall into that. It is a problem with not wanting to tell the boss "hold up a moment".

[@johnchedsey1306]

I was 13 when the Challenger exploded and that was a pretty powerful memory. I still clearly remember the Columbia disaster, but my thoughts were more along the lines of "Damn...it happened again" and just being sad for the families of the victims. Of course, there were whispers of "could it be terrorists?" but once again, the phone call came from inside NASA

[@Genichiro]

Still remember seeing the news to this day (was in high school at the time). It was quite depressing to hear about. :( I'm a little surprised you didn't mention Columbia had a black box recorder the other shuttles didn't have (if I recall correctly, Columbia had it because it was the first shuttle to go into space). The data in the recorder was a critical part of how they were able to put together how the breakup progressed (tracked via sensors failing). You also didn't mention the first indication to the crew that something was wrong was an alarm for loss of tire pressure in the landing gear when it was damaged by heated gases entering the left wing shortly before the final breakup of the shuttle. Good video, glad you got a chance to cover it after covering Challenger.

[@jooei2810]

This is the video I have waited for you to make!

[@rodgerrodger1839]

The shuttle started losing parts over the San Francisco Bay Area. A father and son video taped it. The father realized immediately that something wasn't right. Small bits were flying off of it. They showed it on a local news channel once. Then, they immediately stopped showing it after the other footage of it breaking up was put on air.

[@GregPrice-ep2dk]

They were more than complacent. They deliberately chose NOT to emergency launch the backup shuttle, which could have evacuated the crew safely. NASA's own reports show this.

[@da40flyer]

The report also stated that in order to do so, Atlantis (which had a reputation for being prone to delays) had to be rushed extremely quickly through its processing, skipping many important steps along the way, then be launched without any type of weather or mechanical issue causing a delay. And weather is well known to be fickle in Florida. Bottom line, yes on paper it was feasible to launch Atlantis. But to do so would've required an extraordinary amount of things to go exactly right with no room for error.

[@JimMac23]

To safely launch another shuttles would have taken months of preparation.

[@GregPrice-ep2dk]

@@JimMac23 Not true. Read the actual official report. They had a shuttle that could have been launched in time if they rushed the launch prep.

[@NoNonsense316]

Thanks for another excellent episode. One note, the foam on the external tank, besides keeping the fuel at the optimum temperature, _also_ helped to prevent ice from forming due to condensation on the very cold tank. Ice, of course, would also do a lot of damage on the shuttle during launch.

[@nigeldepledge3790]

During a spacecraft's re-entry, friction does indeed contribute to the heating of the spacecraft. But the larger contributor is the supersonic shock wave that forms a short distance ahead of the leading surfaces of the vehicle. This, incidentally, is why the design of spacecraft that need to re-enter the atmosphere never involves pointy shapes. A pointed shape allows this shock wave to get too close to the skin of the spacecraft. A blunt shape forces the shockwave to stand off a few inches from the surface of the vehicle, and creates a boundary layer that helps to insulate the vehicle.

[@justinthomas7222]

Cool! Thanks to the anachronistic time change, I can watch PD videos on time again!

[@Cryodrake]

Ooo a rocket one, nice.

[@cliffbonds1472]

Hello John, Very nice to meet you! Looking forward to this video!

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Welcome aboard!

[@exxor9108]

I have no doubt that you'll cover the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse at some point in the future.

[@thing_under_the_stairs]

Once the investigation has at least got underway and we have a good idea of what was happening on that ship!

[@goosenotmaverick1156]

No doubt, and will likely be one of the most clear and concise versions of events the world will ever get.

[@cjmillsnun]

@@thing_under_the_stairs A fair guess is that it lost power, then regained partial power with the engines slammed into full reverse. The change to full reverse and the current drift caused the ship to yaw to the right, this was either not corrected by the pilot/helm or the steering gear was not working, resulting in the ship hitting the pier. Over 100,000 tonnes of ship against the bridge support will only mean one thing. As I said, it's only a guess, but it is an educated guess.

[@alisonwilson9749]

@@cjmillsnunSounds plausible. I'd like to know about the power loss. I have also heard (of course this may be mere rumour) that they'd had power problems in port. Mind you, when a Royal Navy ship ends up going backwards and hitting another ship when going out of port- one reason offered was a wiring error... as always, we'll have to wait and see what the reports are.😐

[@TitaniumTurbine]

@@cjmillsnun Yes, but there’s so many nuances and unanswered questions that have to be answered to make a full documentary style video on it. The cause of the power outage, if it was a common issue, was there maintenance neglect, if the captain had concerns prior to this event, whether the company ignored the concerns, etc. I think every channel who documents this event should wait until the NTSB report is released, that should be the case for every event and in the meantime, speculation channels can speculate with their theories/guesses.

[@ItsJustLisa]

I was at work when both the Challenger and Columbia disasters happened. Challenger blew up 7 weeks after I’d graduated from the university with my teaching degree. We’d followed Christa’s journey to be the first teacher in space during my education courses. I was working at the wine shop when one of our salesmen came in and told us “The space shuttle blew up.” I ran into our back room and cried. I was at a Destination Imagination training when Columbia broke up in the atmosphere. We heard about it from people coming for the afternoon training sessions. Everyone was saying it felt like Challenger all over again.

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

The whole program was bedeviled by the pressure to drive down costs from almost the start.

[@vanessac1721]

This is what irks me. When a government runs a program like this, taxpayers moan and government puts pressure to cut costs. When a private company undertakes to run a similar type program, the same people who whinged about their tax money getting wasted moan about billionaires spending money on these programs even though they have even more incentives not to make mistakes which cost lives because they arent the government. You can't win with people.

[@JCBro-yg8vd]

Not to mention burecracy.

[@no-barknoonan1335]

​​@@vanessac1721Is it the same people usually? The people who whinge at the first spending are typically in America right wingers, the second group who whinge are typically left wingers. Obviously lots of room for overlap and in reality things don't follow clearly defined theoretical boundaries, but I think anyway that part of your lack of comprehending it may lie in the fact you're grouping groups of people with very different world views, all under one brush stroke and that's why it doesn't make sense to you. It doesn't make sense to me either when I see it from your perspective, but anyway just my 2 cents on what I believe may be a confounding factor for your analysis.

[@vanessac1721]

@@no-barknoonan1335 I think there are those dynamics in play but I believe the more prevalent commonality is a depressing incuriousness in a large section of people. People who just can't see the value in exploration and continual technological development and discovery unless its an upgraded camera on their latest smartphone. Too many people simply lack wonder, curiosity, vision. And you don't need to be rich to have those qualities. I don't know if it's cultural, a certain correlation with average IQ, poor education in the Sciences etc but too many people left and right are so....mediocre in their ambition for humanity.

[@xponen]

The Space Shuttle launches were costly, almost $1billion per flight. This is comparable to the estimated costs for each SLS or Starship stack.

[@ni-dirus]

My dad used to work for the US government and saw tragic things happen over the course of a career that outlived me at my current age, and ended before I was even born. When this happened, even though I was incredibly young, my dad's response was to be angry - and he told me, "They let our people die. They could've gone up to get them. But they let them die." I was so little and couldn't understand what he was saying by those really curt statements. I asked him "Why would they do that?" and he just mumbled, "They don't care. Some of them care, but not enough care." There's many things my dad can't and won't tell me, but as an American with experience with his own government from the 70s to turn of the century, he always told me that these kinds of tragedies happen because the cost of supplies are more expensive than the cost of human lives. And that stuck with me.

[@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley]

I lived in Louisiana at the time, near Toledo Bend. We heard that people even in our state had debris land in places. I hadn't even heard of the Columbia before the news of the incident but I've not forogtten it. Wrote a (admittedly cheesy and stupid) poem about it at the time, since I was into poetry then (early teens). Sort of wish I still had it, though. I shed a few tears this episode...so damn tragic and hearing that email that downplayed it is heartbreaking, but indeed, not sure what could've been done by that point.

[@reginal.898]

I remember switching on the TV over here in Germany, with no sound to not wake up my friend who was sleeping. I saw the Debris streaking down and was like "What is that?" Then I remembered the shuttle was supposed to come back down to Earth, and I knew something terrible must have happened. RIP to the crew.

[@TroubleToby3040]

"accomplishing great science" That sounds like a sentence written by an enthusiastic, well-meaning child. I'd be less than thrilled if the big boss wrote it.

[@markwalker1144]

Thank John for the video. This tragedy always boils my blood. The cavalier attitude they had. It was entirely preventable. They could've sent a shuttle to the space station too.

[@JimMac23]

The space station was on another orbit plane. The shuttle didn't have enough fuel to reach it.

[@surfside75]

Completely avoidable by simply inspecting. Once the hole was found they could transfer the occupants to a different space vehicle to bring them home safely. One by one if necessary. We are the USA. Certainly we should have had this sorted out before going to space.

[@goosenotmaverick1156]

Honestly we really don't much belong in space. It's not surprising that the attitude is slightly cavalier at times concerning "the final frontier of exploration" as I've seen it called. It sucks, really. I think sure, we gain technology, but how much prematurely did our Civilization end up in space? We don't even know how to not ruin our own planet yet, and are doing so by sending things off of it, too.

[@absolutechaos13]

IIRC, the only craft capable of intercepting the Columbia and enacting a rescue, the Atlantis, scheduled for a mission 6 months out. At that point, the crew would be dead from suffocation or dehydration. It could have an accelerated assembly and launch, but that wouldn't be very safe and might not be in time anyways. The ISS was on a different orbit. The best ex post facto plan was to patch the hole the best they could and fly a modified re-entry trajectory.

[@cjmillsnun]

@@absolutechaos13 You forgot about the Russians, whom at the time were working with the USA. The Soyuz was more than capable of rendezvous with the shuttle, and three would be enough for a rescue. Yes it's far fetched, but the Soyuz is an extremely simple craft in comparison with the shuttle and can be deployed very quickly.

[@absolutechaos13]

@cjmillsnun I couldn't remember how to spell Soyuz 😁 I am not sure they had three of them lying around either. You can get a lot done in a month, but rocket launches are complicated, and getting together three of them is going to take a while. More importantly, I don't know if the crafts were capable of docking together. I don't think the shuttles could dock either, but the crew could space walk from one to the other. Soyuz capsules don't have an air lock and are notorious cramped without bulky EVA suits.

[@lukestrawwalker]

My great-uncle, Willis Burton Roberts, was one of the countless volunteers (along with the rest of his VFW post) who searched huge stretches of the almost endless "Piney Woods" of East Texas where most of the Columbia debris came down... that entire region is one vast pine forest of hills, small farms and pastures, rivers, and swamps that stretches for hundreds of miles... They had a banner in their VFW hall where we'd have our family reunion years ago, thanking them for their efforts in the search and recovery efforts of the Columbia shuttle, signed by a huge number of NASA personnel tasked with the investigation and recovery efforts...

[@photodave219]

On a side note, covering the end of the shuttle program professionally was a career highlight. Nothing like it.

[@tsbrownie]

NASA concluded that foam strikes were not a risk, and everyone was expected to support that conclusion. It also happens in big companies frequently (ex: Toyota and hydrogen fueled cars. GM and "no one wants small cars").

[@klti0815]

Honestly, the space shuttle was a crazy way to do space flight, where some likelyhood of catastrophe was accepted to meet design requirements. The worst example is the lack of early abort modes (ways to bail on a launch in progress). The space shuttles earliest point to abort was after the solid rocket boosters were used up, if anything went wrong before, they were along for the ride. Contrast this to Apollo or any modern crew vehicle, they have abort modes and launch escape systems from sitting on the launch pad to orbit.

[@Yaivenov]

This especially. The Space Shuttle was an inherently flawed design and the only thing it did really well was pay people in every congressional district across the nation.

[@slome815]

Gemini didn't have a real abort system either. Neither did Vostok or Voshkod. And if Starship wil ever carry people (which I doubt) it won't have that either.

[@WarJackalGaming]

I don't remember much from my childhood, but I remember being home sick from school when my mom pointed out the double sonic boom. We tuned in and saw things went wrong. My mom put on cartoons immediately

[@justinthomas7222]

Also, Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster in the future?

[@CantHandleThisCanYa]

Well of course

[@LazerWolf619]

When this vid popped up on my feed, I was ready for this one, John!

[@AFNacapella]

I'll never understand how such a complex and fragile thing had no emergency escape options. dunno, reinforced cockpit with failsafe heatshield that can be blasted off and land under parachutes in the nose... I mean even if it had survived the re-entry phase, the aerodynamics would've been severely impacted and I doubt it could have held the shuttle's narrow descent and landing profile. I mean, that landing that thing worked everytime they attempted is a miracle in itself. why wasn't there a way to ditch the rest and land only the cockpit like a capsule? that could've safed both crews.

[@thing_under_the_stairs]

The fact that the Challenger cabin compartment survived the fall all the way to the ocean has always scared the hell out of me. But at the speed that Columbia was travelling, I'm not sure that any structure, apart from a Soyuz-type of capsule at just the right angle could have survived the breakup and the rest of re-entry.

[@AFNacapella]

@@thing_under_the_stairs yeah, if you're already mid re-entry when you notice the problem, you're screwed. in my mind that would've been a whole procedure and engineered in from the beginning. so in a case like this they don't even attempt to re-entry with the shuttle in one piece, and have the cockpit re-entry backwards on a reinforced bulkhead that doubles as emergency heatshield.. and for Challenger in hindsight it "only" needed chutes in the nose and floats as worst case contingency...

[@dotnet97]

If they had the mass margins to stick an entire reinforced cockpit in there, they'd have had the mass margins to just make the shuttle able to withstand more heat such that either the tiles would be stronger, or the body itself would be capable of tolerating heating. The main body was made out of aluminum, which is pretty well known for buckling very easily when heated.

[@LexYeen]

​@@thing_under_the_stairsif it's any consolation? given the physics involved, all personnel were likely unconscious if not already deceased by that point in the incident - and the impact force alone would be enough for instantaneous liquefaction. such a tragedy.

[@ald1144]

At that (and current) levels of space technology, it just wasn't possible to fit so much into one vehicle. The safety protocols would have had to been procedural, like they ended up doing. It's like the level of seagoing ships before compartmentalization, double hulls, or even lifeboats.

[@Snadzies]

Columbia really infuriates me as there were people in NASA who raised concerned about wing damage multiple times and repeatedly asked to get pictures taken or for a space walk to inspect the wing and their concerns were dismissed each time. Also, since Columbia was the first shuttle it was also the test shuttle and it had way more sensors and read more data points than others shuttles which helped the investigation get a better idea of what, when, and how things failed during reentry.

[@machenka]

Request: Could you somehow implement units that are understood internationally instead of only using American units? It could be implemented in different ways. 1: Mentioned as part of the voiceover, 2: Added as text in an upper corner whenever units are mentioned, 3: Added as part of the subtitles. Getting an idea about the size, speed or temperature is relevant in these videos and stopping to convert these weird units to metric is just getting a bit annoying. :)

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you for the feedback!

[@colpuck9261]

Why do you hate freedom units lol 😂

[@kensmith5694]

I remember that when the Shuttle program was new, I made my self unpopular with some people by saying it was a bad idea. Something that only goes to low orbit is really not a great idea. Having people on board for day to day space stuff is taking an unneeded risk. The only purpose the shuttle really served was to go to the space station and the only purpose the space station served was to be a place for the shuttle to go to. I list the causes more like this: 1) A design for a thing that wasn't needed but was driven by politics. 2) "design by budget cut". The design they started off thinking about was better. 3) The chosen re-entry method was easier to design but a "double dip" results in lower temperatures 4) Ignoring earlier alarms being raised long before the flight. and fixing the design 5) "wishcasting" what would happen when they re-entered

[@rohesilmnelohe]

4:40 No no no no no... At hypersonic speeds, friction does almost none of the heating on an orbiter/capsule. ~95% of it is compression heating from the shockwave. And almost all of it reaches the body of the vehicle as radiation. However, imperfections, such as holes in the body, let the shock-front get close to the body. If it is big enough (columbias case), the shockwave with the plasma can get inside the heatshield and start dumping both kinetic and radiative heat into the structure. The entire heat protection of the shuttle is designed to keep the shockwave away and survive the heat radiation. If it had to deal with actual friction (very pointy design of the vehicle), the heat-shield would last for seconds, not minutes. Look up at how X-15 came out form hypersonic flights.

[@cjmillsnun]

From the Accident report " As Columbia descended from space into the atmosphere, the heat produced by air molecules colliding with the Orbiter typically caused wing leading-edge temperatures to rise steadily, reaching an estimated 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit during the next six minutes."

[@rohesilmnelohe]

Language in an accident report is almost always such that someone with no background knowledge would comprehend what is being said. However, like in this case, it is very inaccurate pretense. @@cjmillsnun

[@hedgeearthridge6807]

I was 3 years old, my memory didn't really function back then. But I definitely remember hearing about Challenger and Columbia and got a feeling for how serious and tragic they were. I remember I had a toy space shuttle and dad explained to me how it worked, and how sadly two blew up before.

[@wheelmanv]

A true classic miscommunication/interpretation. Not knowing that it WILL cause damage is absolutely not the same as knowing that it WON'T.

[@justinbremer2281]

Lack of proof is not proof of lack

[@jovetj]

Lack of funds to spend time working on a historically-non-problem is most-likely a non-happening.

[@vanessaa7602]

Columbia is doubly tragic because it was so avoidable & unnecessary. A 100% preventable loss of life. Challenger was shocking, but Columbia was devastating. I lived thru both, a sad day for Space nerds & America.

[@ericf7063]

Yeah. I cut class to watch the Challenger launch.

[@buildtherobots]

I'm so glad I didn't choose to go to college in Florida because the college I was looking at named their dormitory buildings after the members of the Columbia and Challenger disasters and that feels very emotionally heavy. My parents told me all about the Challenger and how sad it was but I barely remember the Columbia disaster even though I was in 9th grade when it happened.

[@MarianneKat]

I had a plainly difficult dad who was a perfectionist civil engineer. His brother, a chemical engineer, was recruited by NASA to work on their newly planned shuttle program. He declined, thinking the job would only last 2 years😂. His project would've been designing the tiles. 😮. Many projects my family declined ended up being engineering disasters. If only he'd accepted the job, I'm sure all would've been well. Wish I had their freaky math skills but without the difficult personality😂.

[@herseem]

It doesn't go well when managers override technicians who have well-founded fears

[@k.m.223]

I can see how that might be a little haunting. Always wondering if you could have done it better, saved those lives.

[@bertpasquale5616]

It is not friction that creates the hot plasma on reentry; it is compression of the molecules ahead of the object. The plasma forms well in front of the reentering object.

[@ElbowShouldersen]

NASA had to rely on the shuttle for its manned space work because it had no real choice once it was so far into the program... But the shuttle was extremely dangerous and ridiculously expensive, and because of those two things the program was a huge failure... NASA understood this, but most casual observers did not appreciate this because NASA kept using the shuttle anyway...

[@LexYeen]

Maybe that has something to do with the shameful budget constraints they were - and continue to be - forced to operate under? 🤔

[@ElbowShouldersen]

@@LexYeen No... The shuttle just turned out to be vastly more expensive to operate than they had assumed initially... Unfortunately they only realized this after it was too late to do anything else...

[@dukeford8893]

@@LexYeen Throwing more money at a flawed concept would not have helped things one bit.

[@clareharrison3361]

Hey John from S.London which I travel to often. Your weather is better than up NW. Thanks for the extra info on the Columbia disaster. I love anything regarding flight, space travel, trains, and engineering as a whole. Nice one mate.

[@NoNameAtAll2]

4:39 had it been mechanical friction, spacecrafts would've been turned to ash as under sandpaper no, the air gets hot because of **compression** - you get a layer of highly compressed air in front of the falling object that gets cold again the moment air leaves that boundary that's why all spaceplanes are round - this hot layer must be kept far away from the surface and sharp edges keep air closer

[@SUNRISE-ADVENTURES]

Great work! As always!!! From a cold and rainy part of Michigan....

[@Rockribbedman]

Friction is not the cause of heating. Compression of air molecules causes plasma to form. The air gets violently compressed as it passes through the shock, causing its pressure, density, and temperature to jump almost instantaneously

[@criticality2056]

Yup, like an air conditioner. Good ole thermal dynamics.

[@kensmith5694]

Yes, and since the shuttle is moving a lot faster than the speed of sound, the air can't get out of the way. It will stack up on the nearly flat surface of the wing. Still a lot of the heating of the shuttle takes a bit of time to happen so a "double dip" like a recent spacecraft did could help. Basically the idea is that you generate some lift as you re-enter so that you get bounced back out into space and re-enter again. On that 2nd re-entry, you are now at a suborbital speed and the peak temperature is lower. Basically you are trading having two heat pulses and more complexity against how high the peak is.

[@cafe405]

I remember seeing a shuttle on pad back in the early 90s. A UK kid, so this was the biggest holiday we'd had. The meaning of awestruck became clear at that moment. The scale of those things...... Jaw dropping.