NASA Columbia survival report question.

[Sylvia Else]

Nonsense. Ever hear of mountain climbing?

Doesn't appear to have a 1 in 50 death rate *per climb*. More like 1 in
50 per year amongst people engaged in the sport of mountain climbing.

Sylvia.

 

[Don Klipstein]

Nonsense. Ever hear of mountain climbing?

Mountain climbing on anything much risker than Appalachian Trail SW of
New England and outside NC-VA appears to me to be voluntarily putting
life/limbs at risk.

Most Appalachian risks appear to me to be from weather. For one thing,
the greatest non-tornado wind ever measured by an instrument on land so
far was at the punitive weather station at the top of Mt. Washington, NH,
merely 6,288 feet above sea level!

(NC and VA have slightly higher Appalachian peaks, still bgelow 6700
feet above sea level.)

2/3 of days from November to April that mountaintop has winds exceeding
hurricane force according to the Wiki article on it!

Along with snowstorms all 12 months of the year!

A slogan that Mt. Washington has, actually questioned and called into
doubt somewhat successfully, is "world's worst weather". It appears to me
that ice storms and large hail and notable supercell thunderstorms and
tornadoes stronger than F2 probably run low there, and annual snowfall is
probably exceeded by that of someplace WSW of Mt. Washington somewhere in
NY state closer to lakes Erie and Ontario, but the weather still often
gets very bad at the top of Mt. Washington.
If you know the daily high temperature at the low end of the hiking
trail up that mountain, subtract probably 25 degrees F to get a
first-estimate temperature for the air at the mountaintop. Also consider
that "polar front jet stream" winds, normally centered 30,000-36,000 feet
above sea level, go quite wide from center of where they should be and
all-too-often in some spots exist as low as 850-millibar level - merely
around 1 mile above sea level!

As for 14,000 foot mountains in/near the Colorado Rockies and anything
similar - the weather at 6,000-6,500 feet is a lot milder than that at
the top of Mt Washinmgton NH.
The main problems are mountaintop-specific ones of cold temperature,
wind and windchill, and lightning.

One hazard of high mountaintops is lightning from cumulus clouds that
would be obviously short of being thunderstorms elsewhere.
Beware of "cumulus mediocris" that is usually a
smaller-semi-blowup-becoming-a-non-event "slightly threatening fair
weather cloud". Those can zap mountaintops with lightning. Not that they
usuallyv do such, but that is a risk in mountaintop areas.

Also beware that there is "cumulonimbus polaris" - cumulonimbus
(producing significant surface-reaching precipitation) of more
compact size forming where it is cold. Those produce lightning more and
more widespread than Cumulus Mediocris does, but I still expect both not
much and great discrimination towards mountaintops for lightning from
Cumulonimbus Polaris.

After that, mountain climbing is at least sometimes a very vigorous
activity with great burning of calories, and then your body "runs out of
gas", and 50 F (+10 C) recently was "T-shirt weather" but later became
outright chilly... let alone how a human body experiences 20's/10's F
(around -10 C) - which is "only a little cold for summertime" at the
14,000 foot level ("on the fourteen-ers") in Colorado.

Thankfully, I have only climbed Appalachians to about 1650-1700 feet
above sea level, on and close to the portion of the Appalachian Trail
around 20 miles (32 km) north of Reading PA, around 25-30 miles (40-48
km) west of Allentown PA, on and near "Hawk Mountain" - which is the
more-straight-eastward continuation of the "Blue Mountain" ridge (for very
few miles) from Blue Mountain's fork about 20 miles north of Reading PA.
In that general area, the Appalachian Trail tracks along Blue Mountain
through the "Blue-Hawk fork" (the Hawk Mountain sidetrack from the
Appalachian Trail there is known as the "Pinnacle Sidetrail".

It is officially unpermissible to ride a bicycle on the Appalachian
Trail.
And the main bike-able road up Mount Washington is a private toll road
only permitting bike riding on some specific October day wnen the weather
most of the way up is like that of November in Buffalo NY, sometimes as
bad as December in Buffalo NY in the upper 1/2 or 1/3 except for need to
double or maybe triple the wind that Buffalo NY endures in windier times
for that bike-race-"of-time-trial-style" put-up-with by that private toll
road on that merely 6,288 foot-above-sea-level mountain.

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Nonsense. Ever hear of mountain climbing?

Yup:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5281344.stm

"The death rate has remained at one death for every 10 successful
attempts to climb Everest for many years, the British Medical Journal
report states."

That's an order of magnitude worse than manned space travel.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[krw]

Maybe not now. But that's why we've got to get to work on the
technology. That money will be better spent than sending up astronauts
with the requisite life support just to have them drop tools.

Before you do that, what's the payback?

 

[krw]

Well, if dubya can piss away a few trillion in the Iraqi sand

It's not a "few trillion"...

what's a mission to mars?

....but this looks like "fun".

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D95HPUGG0&show_article=1

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

It's not a "few trillion"...

Estimates for the total cost of the Iraq war, including care for the
long term disabled, is between 3 and 6 trillion. Iraq is more expensive
than Vietnam.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[John Devereux]

Which was never reasonable, because of the implied reliability of
better than 1 in 20,000 for each solid fuel boosters. When did they
ever have a reason to think that SRBs were that reliable?

I guess they "added up" the probabilities of all the known failure
mechanisms and that's what they got. Unfortunately, that did not
account for the *unknown* ones .

I think that's where the notion of MTBF goes wrong - it seems to
assume that the actual design itself is flawless.

 

[Sylvia Else]

I guess they "added up" the probabilities of all the known failure
mechanisms and that's what they got. Unfortunately, that did not
account for the *unknown* ones .

I think that's where the notion of MTBF goes wrong - it seems to
assume that the actual design itself is flawless.

I remain at a loss to understand the rationale that said that though
they didn't know why the o-ring seals were eroding, which they weren't
meant to do, it was safe because it hadn't yet caused an accident.

Sylvia.

 

[Sylvia Else]

Did you read the Challenger report? They decided that the SRB
housing was flexing at the joints and redesigned the lips to reduce the
chances of burn though.

Yes. The thing is that they had plenty of warning that things weren't
right. They just ignored it, pretty much on the grounds that it didn't
break yesterday, so it won't break today. Similar management complacency
can be seen behind the Columbia disaster.

Managing risk seems to be a task that is frequently beyond the abilities
of managers.

Sylvia.

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Did you include the costs incurred by rioting antiwar freaks?


Vietnam was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away!

Google "cost iraq war Stiglitz"
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23286149-2703,00.html

"THE Iraq war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush
administration predicted and was a central cause of the sub-prime
banking crisis threatening the world economy, according to Nobel
Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The former World Bank vice-president yesterday said the war had, so far,
cost the US something like $US3trillion ($3.3 trillion) compared with
the $US50-$US60-billion predicted in 2003.
....
Professor Stiglitz told the Chatham House think tank in London that the
Bush White House was currently estimating the cost of the war at about
$US500 billion, but that figure massively understated things such as the
medical and welfare costs of US military servicemen.

The war was now the second-most expensive in US history after World War
II and the second-longest after Vietnam, he said. "

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[krw]

Estimates for the total cost of the Iraq war, including care for the
long term disabled, is between 3 and 6 trillion. Iraq is more expensive
than Vietnam.

Evidently you are as stupid as you sound.

 

[krw]

Doesn't appear to have a 1 in 50 death rate *per climb*. More like 1 in
50 per year amongst people engaged in the sport of mountain climbing.

Think again. Try Everest or "free style" (no equipnent allowed
besides your limbs), I think it's called. Even McKinley is
dangerous. Hell, they lose a few on the puny Northeast slopes every
year.

 

[Sylvia Else]

Think again. Try Everest or "free style" (no equipnent allowed
besides your limbs), I think it's called. Even McKinley is
dangerous. Hell, they lose a few on the puny Northeast slopes every
year.

Suicide is even riskier. But neither case could be be described as
exposing people to the risks.

Sylvia.

 

[Richard Henry]

Yes. The thing is that they had plenty of warning that things weren't
right. They just ignored it, pretty much on the grounds that it didn't
break yesterday, so it won't break today. Similar management complacency
can be seen behind the Columbia disaster.

Managing risk seems to be a task that is frequently beyond the abilities
of managers.

Sylvia.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

 

[Richard Henry]

Yes. The thing is that they had plenty of warning that things weren't
right. They just ignored it, pretty much on the grounds that it didn't
break yesterday, so it won't break today. Similar management complacency
can be seen behind the Columbia disaster.

Managing risk seems to be a task that is frequently beyond the abilities
of managers.

The shuttle had o-ring erosions that weren't a problem until they
were, and breakaway foam chunks that weren't a problem until they
were. If I were either a NASA administrator or a shuttle astronaut, I
would want to know what other problems were not yet problems.

 

[Sylvia Else]

The shuttle had o-ring erosions that weren't a problem until they
were, and breakaway foam chunks that weren't a problem until they
were. If I were either a NASA administrator or a shuttle astronaut, I
would want to know what other problems were not yet problems.

I agree that the astronauts might, but what would an administrator do
with such information?

Sylvia.

 

[John Devereux]

Google "cost iraq war Stiglitz"
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23286149-2703,00.html

"THE Iraq war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush
administration predicted and was a central cause of the sub-prime
banking crisis threatening the world economy, according to Nobel
Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The former World Bank vice-president yesterday said the war had, so
far, cost the US something like $US3trillion ($3.3 trillion) compared
with the $US50-$US60-billion predicted in 2003.
...
Professor Stiglitz told the Chatham House think tank in London that
the Bush White House was currently estimating the cost of the war at
about $US500 billion, but that figure massively understated things
such as the medical and welfare costs of US military servicemen.

The war was now the second-most expensive in US history after World
War II and the second-longest after Vietnam, he said. "

So Bin Laden managed to leverage the lives of 20 fanatics into more
than 3 trillion dollars of losses and the subsequent ongoing
near-collapse of the world economies. That single action somehow lured
the USA into losing >3000 lives and earned it worldwide emnity in the
process.

That's assymetrical warefare for you

 

[Martin Brown]

But it is a much cheaper and lighter solution than the alternatives.
And even if you avoided external foam you can still have nasty chunks
of water ice formed on the outside of the tank under condensing
conditions that would be just as damaging. Florida is not exactly
noted for its low humidity.

None, not even CBS news ever believe 1:10000.  I believe the
post-Challenger number is more like 1:100, which for such a stack of
bailing wire and bubblegum isn't all that bad.

That is a bit unkind to it. But it was always dependent on many new
technologies all working perfectly. The ceramic tiles are very
impressive to see in action on test close up. Even if they were also a
worrying source of single point failure modes on reentry.

Age has nothing to do with it.  Even NASA doesn't pretend it has a
mission anymore.- Hide quoted text -

The manned space mission has been reduced to going round in an
orbiting tin can to no useful purpose. The ISS science program is
distinctly unimpressive. The only thing the ISS project does is
prevent a few Russian rocket scientists freelancing for the likes of N
Korea and Iran. People in space are not especially useful any more
unless you have to do something that a robot cannot.

The unmanned robotic space exploration work of NASA is extremely
impressive with the Hubble Space Telescope images foremost among the
better known coffee table books and calendars. The Mars and other
planetary explorers have done very well too. So long as they repair
and upgrade the HST before they retire the Shuttle I don't mind either
way.

Too bad they can't just dust off the plans for a Saturn V. That was a
really impressive launch vehicle.

It might be fun to go back to the moon at least once and retrieve one
of the Hassleblads they abandonned there just to annoy the tin foil
hat brigade of conspiracy freaks who claim Apollo was faked. Now we
know where there is water ice in the shade of polar craters there is
scope for doing something new and interesting again on the moon.

Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Sylvia Else]

That is a bit unkind to it. But it was always dependent on many new
technologies all working perfectly. The ceramic tiles are very
impressive to see in action on test close up. Even if they were also a
worrying source of single point failure modes on reentry.

That they're needed is related to the requirement for a once-round abort
mode, which in turn demands a high cross-range ability, and thus a long
hot period.

That once round abort requirement has a lot to answer for.

Sylvia.

 

[krw]

Suicide is even riskier. But neither case could be be described as
exposing people to the risks.

Suicide is not illegal either. Who, other than the volunteers,
has ever been killed in a shuttle flight?