The problem with the space shuttle and the space shuttle program was very smart people seeing problems evolve and doing nothing to address these problems.
For the Challenger accident the choice to use segmented solid rocket boosters rather than a company which proposed one which was a single large casing was because Morton Thiokol bid the least cost to build the SRB's and because Morton Thiokol being located in Utah was the state that Senator Orin Hatch represented and thus his influence also resulted in NAS choosing Morton Thiokol over the other contractor which proposed a single long casing. A NASA engineer in 1977 issued a memo that the field joints of Morton Thiokol's SRB segments were not working the way they should be and he wrote that the design should be rejected. But it got lost in the bureaucracy and NASA was under budget and time pressure by Congress and the Presidential administration. In effect the design of the space shuttle as it came to be was because the program was managed by 535 US senators and Congress person and a president's administration which all change every two, four and six years because of elections.
‘Horribly flawed’ is a little harsh and a bit unfair. Its accidents had much more to do with management and decision making than engineering. If anything was flawed, it was how NASA oversold and over promised the Shuttle’s capabilities, and vastly underestimated its complexities and the demands of its intended missions. There’s a reason why the Shuttle type of reusability has been discarded, at least for now, but don’t forget its back story - the Saturn V was enormously expensive. In order for NASA to survive after the Space Race, there was extreme pressure to reduce costs with a reusable platform, and the Shuttle promised to do this. There was a lot of criticism of the Shuttle from its inception, criticism that would prove correct - almost obvious in hindsight. But in fairness, a panel of Apollo astronauts, Neil Armstrong included, openly criticized and tried to shut down SpaceX’s efforts as well, declaring space exploration and exploitation could only occur at the government level. They declared no commercial enterprise could ever safely deliver payloads to orbit, and certainly not at a profit. In obvious hindsight, these brilliant astronaut engineers…underestimated a certain someone, and someone’s to follow. It is also unfair to discount the scientific discoveries that resulted from the Shuttle Program, and a discredit to the engineers and technicians and administrators who successfully launched 133 missions.
@@ronjon7942 Solid rockets were never considered suitable for manned flight. Only throttleable and restartable liquid fueled rockets were man-rated. This inherently compromised design was an accident waiting to happen, as was its Mickey-mouse thermal protection system consisting of thousands of brittle ceramic tiles. And the men should have been on top of the rocket with an escape system, not strapped to the side of a huge shrapnel-shedding bomb. And neither the X-15 nor the SR-71 would ever have flown with an aluminum airframe. There’s an old saying that the cheapskate pays the most. In this case, it was other people who paid with their lives
@@ronjon7942 The space shuttle was an expensive dangerous failure that killed 14 people. I celebrate the fact that the space shuttle is history. Let the few remaining ones sit in museums. That's where they belong. With the dinosaurs.
Obviously this documentary was done before the Columbia investigation was over and the truth came out that engineers tried to warn NASA management about the dangers of the foam strike and they were ignored. NASA management based their assessment on a computer model that either it wasn't realistic enough OR the data that was inputted was not accurate enough. So they concluded that it wasn't a "safety of flight" issue. The shuttle experienced debris coming out of the external tank, and sometimes from the solid rocket boosters, since 1981. It was a travesty that another seven people had to died in order for NASA to do something about a very well known problem.
Hearing that NASA had to 'take it or leave it" with regards to the final design concept, especially when their first proposal that used a much smaller vehicle, positioned in front of the danger areas and therefore not be susceptible to these type of failure modes is disgraceful.
It sort of depends on how you define "suffer..." They were, unfortunately, well aware they were in severe trouble, if not certain they were going to die, for about 30 seconds or so. The vehicle went out of control after the burn-through of the wing led to increased drag on the left wing. That loss of control would have been obvious to the whole crew, and they took steps to try fix it. The left OMS pod broke off the orbiter (that was the first major piece of the orbiter to break off) about ten seconds after loss of control, and the crew compartment broke off about 20 seconds later. It is theorized (but not known-no one will ever know for sure) that this is when the cabin pressurization failed and all of the air in the cabin leaked out. Sudden depressurization leaves scars--heat damage, buckled flooring, etc. They did not see any of these in Columbia's wreckage. However, since we are dealing with wreckage, it is not an exact science. There is a great video here that shows the timeline: ua-cam.com/video/vmi_NeVRx1s/v-deo.html
True enough, but also completely irrelevant when you have more than enough foresight to know what can go wrong and likely will go wrong. With the first shuttle "accident", NASA were explicitly told by the SRB manufacturers that launching in the weather conditions at the time would be excessively dangerous. They ignored the warnings due to political pressures. Certainly not the first or only time that political decisions have killed people, but absolutely one of the most blatant and predictable examples of it.
Had I been made aware of what was going on, I certainly could have saved most (if not all) of these brave men and women. However due to 9/11, I was fighting terrorists half a world away to protect weak men such as yourself. The reality is that I can’t be everywhere; but I will do all that I can.
Yes. Challenger. 1. Reinforced o rings. 2. Don't launch in below freezing temperatures. Columbia. Don't use foam insulation on the fuel tank, since it has come apart and hit shuttles on several previous occasions. The white paint was heavier, but at least it didn't destroy the shuttle.
Most engineers don't think that it was the tiles. They believe that the foam knocked a large hole in the aluminum part of the wing. The hole let the heat of re-entry into the wing and caused it to fall off. That made the shuttle come apart. In a test done later a piece of foam was shot at an aluminum shuttle wing at high velocity. It knocked a briefcase sized hole in the wing.
The biggest mistake was the decision to not paint the external fuel tank. If you watch the first few launches you will see that the fuel tank is painted white. They painted the insulation white. At some point in time a genius thought that money and weight would be saved by not painting the tank. But no thought was given to the idea that the paint was serving as a coating which would reduce the amount of insulation that would be torn away during the aerodynamic stresses of launch. And as time passed it was completely forgotten that the tank was originally painted. And these geniuses couldn’t figure out why they were losing insulation from the tank. They never thought that perhaps they were to blame for the unintended consequences of their poor decision.
Wrong. The paint wouldn't aid in hold the titles in place. Paint doesn't have enough adhesive strength to overcome the tremendous aerodynamic stresses of a launch.
@@zarbon700Paint had nothing to do with the heat shield tiles on the orbiter - these were never painted on any of them. The issue was the insulating foam on the external fuel tank, which was necessary to prevent excessive boil-off from the huge tank of super-cryogenic liquid hydrogen. At the time, nobody had been able to develop an adhesive which would adequately hold the thick foam insulation to the outside of the tank, at least partially because of the massive temperature differences between the tank itself (once filled) and the air around it while it sits on the launch pad. Liquid hydrogen is so cold that if the tank had no insulation, air itself would condense and liquefy on the surface, similar to how water vapour condenses on the surface of a cold bottle of beer taken out of the fridge - albeit at far lower temperatures. This problem was dealt with on the upper stages of the Saturn V rocket (which also used liquid hydrogen) by sandwiching the insulating foam between the outer surface of the fuel tanks and an additional layer on top which held the foam in place. This external layer didn't have to be particularly thick or strong, because holding the extremely light-weight foam in place was its only real function. The external fuel tank for the shuttle could have been constructed in a similar way, and if it had been, chunks of foam falling off would not have been a problem at all. In fact for the first couple of shuttle launches, the tank actually did have this external foam-retention layer - if you look at the footage of the early launches, you can tell that this extra layer was there because the tank was white, as opposed to all of the later launches where it was orange, which was the colour of the foam. So again, they knew how to make it in a safer way, because this had been done for all the Apollo launches before the shuttle had even been thought of.
Yes. Both of the shuttle accidents had the external tank play a significant role. In the Challenger, the solid rocket booster did leak, but the lack of insulation causes the external tank to heat up and detonate. Columbia of course the foam falling off the tank to hit the wing.
@@triplev039? In the Challenger scenario, the tank most certainly DID have insulation, which certainly DID NOT contribute to its explosion. No foam insulation is going to withstand ignited solid rocket fuel gases at thousands of degree temperatures. The SRB rocket gases burned through the tank structure like a hot knife through butter.
@@lloydevans2900I didn’t know that about the tank…I naively assumed the first launch or two simply had the tank foam painted with a layer of white paint. I did not realize that the ‘white’ was actually an engineered layer designed to sandwich the orange foam in place. Thanks, I’ll have to research the tank more - I simply assumed they stopped painting it white to save weight. To the other comment about white paint being strong enough to hold the foam in place, that seems like an incorrect assumption.
I'm not going to watch an old nearly one hour video on this. The answer has always been known. I was 25 when the Challenger tragedy happened. NASA knew very well that there was a serious problem with the temperature being too low. Engineers from Morton Thiokol told them that the O rings were not designed to operate at temperatures that low, and that there was a high probability that they would fail. NASA ignored this and went ahead and launched anyway, with no regard for the astronaut's safety. I thought, or at least hoped that they had learned their lesson. I was wrong. NASA knew that Columbia had been struck by a large piece of foam from the fuel tank, the defense department even offered to have their spy satellites take a close up look at it, but again NASA decided not to put the astronauts safety first, and declined their offer. Seven more astronauts lost their lives because of NASA's incompetence and arrogance. Nobody is going to argue that space travel is dangerous, and that accidents can and will happen. But in these two cases, NASA had clear advanced warning of serious problems, and simply chose to ignore them. NASA has the blood of 14 people on their hands.
I was about to be arrested in htown for making a rukkus about the record cold and screaming to cancel the launch. The truth is there was a spy satellite in the cargo hold and Reagan gave authorization for the go ahead. It would " give us the edge " over those " pesky Russians ". I went to school with one of the kids whos father helped design the space truck. The designers themselves did not want to allow use of the design for fear of misuse through negligence of those at the helm. It appears their predictions and worst fears came true. When limitations were adhered to it performed flawlessly. However once complacency and ignorance were dominant trajedies occured. Don't blame the shuttle or itz designers or manufacturers, blame the people in charge that ignored reality. Remember all the razor blades that floated down after a test firing of the engines? The cokeheads were all over in the staff and only one guy got fired for it. I knew him. He told me the reality. Then i saw him on a nasa film proving his story of working there. The fact they hired him or people like him prove that human failure and the culture if the industry at the time was where the blame should be placed. Most people know not to jumpstart a frozen solid car battery for it may explode. The same logic applies to more complex machines. There are rules that need to be followed. Don't blame the machine, blame the ones who pushed the envelope of safety taking others lives in the process. Almost every school in America was watching when the Challenger blew up. Imagine being a child and witnessing the event. Most people do not think of this. Maybe you all should.
@@theashpilez nothing you said is true, lol. Your friend's dad worked there? You were protesting there? Lol, but then you can't even use grammar properly. Why do you people like in UA-cam comments for clout when nobody cares about it, except you?
@@kennyking3255 lmao, dude, I am am English major. Every single part of these sentence structures are correct, so I'm not sure what books you've been reading, but I suspect they have more pictures than words in them. It would have meant more if you had graduated high school also.
Of course the Space Shuttle was a human time bomb. It was built by the lowest bidder and was simply too complex to be reliable. The shuttle O-rings was the first disaster NASA could have avoided had they followed the engineers advice. The tiles always falling off was another obvious problem NASA knew about from the first mission into space. We don't even know how many other weaknesses plagued the shuttle. The second disaster sealed the fate and the program was canceled. I was a teenager when Enterprise flew. There were such high hopes for the shuttle program. But I thought at the time the U.S. should have constructed a moon-base instead using technology that was successful and could be improved upon. Now, 50 years later we are scrambling to get back to the moon and start building before our adversaries do. Meanwhile, we have had to rely on Russia to get our astronauts back to Earth. All that success from 1969 to 1972 while NASA sat on its laurels. Budgetary considerations aside, the government engaged in a fruitless conflict in Vietnam and ignored the possibilities of colonizing the moon. So instead we got the shuttle and all the complications which came with it. NASA knew after the first year the shuttle would never fulfill the point of its existence. We could have had a better footprint beyond our planet but what we have now is playing catch up. Maybe my grandchildren will see that day just as long as we don't destroy ourselves first.
What does that have to do with that accidents? Do you want to eject yourself in such a situation and burn in the sky instead of dying by explosion which might be much faster? Also I doubt hat in such a case it really would work…
The first missions with two astronauts had ejection seats but when they went to the higher crewed missions those weren’t practical anymore. There was always doubt that those we’re going to be survivable anyway.
@@zarbon700 This documentary literally covered the fact that the first five Columbia missions had ejector seats installed. They ultimately removed them because they couldn’t provide them to the entire crew.
@@TitaniumTurbine The ejection seat mechanism wasn't a true escape system. NASA realized from the begin that the ejection seats were pointless once the space shuttle lifted off the tower. That's why they decided to remove the ejection seats which helped reduced weight.
It NASA had gone with the original design, the space shuttle would have been positioned at the top of the fuel tank instead of next to it. That way none of the insulating foam from the fuel tank would have hit Columbia and it wouldn't have been damaged by the foam. And Challenger would have been able to disengage and get away from the fuel tank.
Mercury and Apollo had the crew cabin situated on the top of the rocket. The astronauts could escape if a dangerous problem occured. The space shuttle was attached to the side of the rockets and fuel tank. There was no way for the astronauts to escape. They were riding a bomb into space.
None of the capsule designs had 100% emergency escape from a "exploding "rocket." After a certain altitude the launch escape tower for Mercury and Apollo were jettiosned as their use was "no longer required." But that is in error. Gemini used ejection seats which would not save the crew after about 100,000 feet in altitude, like the first four two man flights space shuttle. For Apollo, the launch escape tower was jettisoned after first stage separation so if there was any issues with the second stage and its five J-2 LOX/LH2 engines, for example and engine explosion, the astronauts in the Apollo capsule would not be pulled away from the disaster. The only thing that would save them if the Apollo capsule was not damaged and of course it had parachutes which would allow it to safely land in the ocean. None of the manned spacecraft had 100% survival of the crew. And even today, with SpaceX's Falcon 9/Crew Dragon, there is no 100% guarantee. And what about SpaceX's "Starship." How will a crewed version have a launch escape system?
The space shuttle was an expensive dangerous failure that killed 14 people in two disasters. What's left of the old dinosaurs are in museums. Which is a good thing.
It wasn’t a failure, there were a lot of successes that came out of the shuttle program. Hubble telescope for instance and its subsequent repair mission. Minimizing the entire program to a failure is an intellectually bankrupt point of view.
The shuttle was purely the victim of poor management and safety culture at NASA, full stop. The design was within safety limits until compromises forced by management (whether that’s congressional oversight or executive oversight is your choice) caused the engineers to not be heard with complaints. Both Challenger and Columbia had scores of engineers voicing their concerns and the engineers were ignored due to budget and time constraints. The theoretical design itself was workable, as evidenced by the multitude of successful launches and returns.
And the apollo rocket is claimed to be a huge success but most of the launches experienced issues within the first 2 hours of flight. They all have drawbacks
Who would have imagined woodpeckers drilling hundreds of holes in the insulating foam exterior on the external fuel tank? Maybe they didn't like the color?
The shuttle was a bad idea. Besides killing 14 astronauts, what did it do? Make a lot of trips into low earth orbit, at tremendous $$$ cost? The payloads it delivered could have been put in orbit with conventional rockets, for much less money, and without risking human lives. Aside from that, the shuttle missions accomplished very little, at an absolutely absurd cost.
Two things can be true: the space shuttle can be an incredible machine with capabilities we will not see again in our lifetimes, while simultaneously being a fundamentally high risk design that was, unfortunately, poorly managed.
@@tomdg65 Yep you’re exactly right, people only think in terms of “one or the other” these days. Left or right. Black or white. #1 or none. It’s been very sad to see basic intellectualism and critical thinking die out among our modern society.
Kinda weird to be asking these same questions decades later. Yes, they both have been prevented, ice and rubber than massive sudden heat blast is never good, elementary children learn this. For the second, you had 3 other shuttles, a rescue mission could have been launched but was deemed to expensive for expendable astronauts.
@@tylerdurden4006 I have read that there were no other shuttles ready for launch. And that it would have taken a month to prepare another shuttle for launch. And those are the facts.
Parachute would be useless in that situation. Nasa never installed parachutes or an escape mechanism on the shuttle because at those high speeds and attitude, those devices wouldn't save anyone.
@@zarbon700 Columbia had ejection seats for the Commander and Pilot on STS-1 through STS-4. The seats were usable from ground to about 80,000 feet on launch, and below about 100,000 feet on landing if pressure suits were worn. After STS-4 the rocket motors were removed since the crew size was larger, and particularly the lower deck could not be fitted. Useless on launch, dicey on landing as with the downward ejection seats on the B-52. After Challenger the crew were given parachutes and a telescoping rod above the hatch to use in bailout, which would only have been usable in level flight between about 10K and 25K feet. Not a very usable window but there were fitted
@@ragnarviews NASA understood during the dangerous aspects of launch and re-entry any escape mechanism is pointless. Once the spacecraft clears the launch tower, escape is not a real option. Odds are extremely small that any ejection mechanism would have been capable of propelling astronauts far enough from the doomed spacecraft and plumes, mainlt due the extreme aerodynamic pressure. There's a high possibility the aerodynamic pressure could end up hurling any escape mechanism towards the doomed spacecraft and plumes. The only time an escape mechanism could actually be used successfully is during landing when it has greatly reduces its re-entry speed and attitude.
@@ragnarviews NASA understood during the dangerous aspects of launch and re-entry any escape mechanism is pointless. Once the spacecraft clears the launch tower, escape is not a real option. Odds are extremely small that any ejection mechanism would have been capable of propelling astronauts far enough from the doomed spacecraft and plumes, mainlt due the extreme aerodynamic pressure. There's a high possibility the aerodynamic pressure could end up hurling any escape mechanism towards the doomed spacecraft and plumes. The only time an escape mechanism could actually be used successfully is during landing when it has greatly reduces its re-entry speed and attitude.
@@zarbon700Erm, the Gemeni capsules (you know, the intermediate program between Mercury and Apollo) all had ejector seats with parachutes fitted to them. They were never actually used because that program didn't have any failures which would have required them to be used. But they were fitted, and could have been used at any time between liftoff and 40 seconds into the flight. After that, the ejector seats were disabled, but the entire capsule itself could have been ejected from the rocket and parachuted back down at any time prior to the first stage burnout. This would have been well within the altitude the shuttle reached at the time the Challenger exploded, so if the shuttle had been fitted with either individual ejector seats for the crew or an ejectable module, it is quite possible that most of them would have survived. After all, parachute jumps have been successfully performed at altitudes far higher than the shuttle reached, and one of these was achieved in 1960, more than 20 years before the shuttle first flew.
Near 9 minutes into the video, one of the presenters comments about the 7 million pounds of thrust (combined 3 main engines plus two boosters) that the space shuttle needs to take off and reach orbit. That's not the point. Besides, the Saturn V rocket blasted off with 7.5 millions pounds of thrust to reach Earth orbit, then continue to the Moon.
The tone of criticism in this documentary is annoying. Criticism comes from people who couldn't do it themselves and stand on the sidelines. We lost two shuttles and both were tragedies that didn't need to happen AND we also flew 135 flights up to and built the ISS space station.
No, criticism comes from all quarters, including those in the industry. Teddy Roosevelt was wrong to imply that you must be in the arena to be worthy of criticizing. For example, you are allowed to criticize this video even though you might not have been able to make it. We lost 2 shuttles and 14 astronauts in 135 flights. If the same loss rate were applied to airlines in the United States we would loose over 400 airliners and 2,500 people to airline crashes…every day. The shuttle was one of the most dangerous machines ever conceived. And it was expensive. Most of its missions could’ve been flown for less money with expendable boosters with no risk of life. Though it did build the international space station, the ISS is also a bit of a questionable venture. As stated by Dr. Robert Zubrin, the purpose of manned spaceflight is to go somewhere, like the moon or Mars, not to circle the Earth in low earth orbit for 20 years practicing for the day that you might actually decide to go somewhere. Hindsight is admittedly 20/20, but at the end of the day the shuttle was overly ambitious and did not live up to its potential. Had it been mounted at the top of the booster stack, rather than on the side, Columbia and possibly Challenger would have survived. You don’t have to be in the arena to see that.
@@glenwoodriverresidentsgrou136I agree with the OP about the tone, and the last sentence. But your response regarding criticism is right on point. What I find irritating is when the narration takes a side and pushes an agenda. It’s one thing for a SME to positively and negatively criticize, but quite another when the documentary author adopts a tone of negativity. It severely slants the audience to a point of view they ought to make for themselves, instead of being led along to a predictable conclusion by an author that has already made up his mind the Shuttle was a flawed failure and NASA’s run by monkeys. The comments section would be in a completely different direction if this narrative stuck only to facts and the back stories about how the Shuttle Program came to be. I know this to be true from watching other documentaries that maintained a neutral, fact based approach. This is not to say this video was without value; it was not wrong. However, it was more of an editorial commentary than a documentary - in fairness, perhaps this is what they were striving for. My plea to the audience? Viewer beware, be wary, and be aware.
To a degree YES. Both could have been avoided, But a poor design along with NASAs ego killed two shuttle crews and 1 Apollo crew though the Apollo SNAFU is not related to the shuttle program.
I agree with the OP about the disagreeableness of the video’s tone, and the last sentence regarding the positives of the Shuttle’s engineering and accomplishments. But your response regarding criticism is right on point (see refugee42’s post). What I find irritating is when the narration takes a side and pushes an agenda. It’s one thing for a SME to positively and negatively criticize, but quite another when the documentary author adopts a tone of negativity. It severely slants the audience to a point of view they ought to make for themselves, instead of being led along to a predictable conclusion by an author that has already made up his mind the Shuttle was a flawed failure and NASA’s run by monkeys. The comments section would be in a completely different direction if this narrative stuck only to facts and the back stories about how the Shuttle Program came to be. I know this to be true from watching other documentaries that maintained a neutral, fact based approach. This is not to say this video was without value; it was not wrong. However, it was more of an editorial commentary than a documentary - in fairness, perhaps this is what they were striving for. My plea to the audience? Viewer beware, be wary, and be aware.
This video lost me in the first 5 minutes. They made the point 17 times , and in a a somewhat condescending tone of voice which I don't really appreciate, that there's a whole lot of fuel attached to an airplane. Get over it and get on with the point of the video
The Columbia disaster couldn't have been avoided. After they realized that impact had happened there was essentially nothing that could have been done. The Challenger disaster is absolutely ridiculous that it even happened. How people as smart as these not thinking about how cold weather effects rubber is mind boggling. Edited for a typo.
The pilot does have a choice insofar as re-entry angle is concerned and a shallow angle, low energy re-entry might have saved Columbia. They also could have rationed consumables and stayed in orbit until a rescue mission was mounted. Linda Ham and the flight director nixed both ideas. The military offered to take hi-res images of the shuttle with surveillance satellites so that NASA could better assess the damage. They nixed that idea as well. They didn't even tell the crew about the issue until the final moments of the mission. The shuttle was a great vehicle with much potential, but it was also fragile in some respects and required delicate handling. It was also grossly inefficient economically. That being said, it still flew beautifully.
@@stargazer5784 A shallow angle would still expose the shuttle to the heat of re-entry. And there wasn't enough oxygen left on Columbia to wait a month for a rescue mission.
The problem with the space shuttle and the space shuttle program was very smart people seeing problems evolve and doing nothing to address these problems.
you are correct.
For the Challenger accident the choice to use segmented solid rocket boosters rather than a company which proposed one which was a single large casing was because Morton Thiokol bid the least cost to build the SRB's and because Morton Thiokol being located in Utah was the state that Senator Orin Hatch represented and thus his influence also resulted in NAS choosing Morton Thiokol over the other contractor which proposed a single long casing. A NASA engineer in 1977 issued a memo that the field joints of Morton Thiokol's SRB segments were not working the way they should be and he wrote that the design should be rejected. But it got lost in the bureaucracy and NASA was under budget and time pressure by Congress and the Presidential administration. In effect the design of the space shuttle as it came to be was because the program was managed by 535 US senators and Congress person and a president's administration which all change every two, four and six years because of elections.
When I was a kid, I thought the space shuttle was amazing, but then learned later that it was a horribly flawed design. Disasters were bound to happen
‘Horribly flawed’ is a little harsh and a bit unfair. Its accidents had much more to do with management and decision making than engineering. If anything was flawed, it was how NASA oversold and over promised the Shuttle’s capabilities, and vastly underestimated its complexities and the demands of its intended missions.
There’s a reason why the Shuttle type of reusability has been discarded, at least for now, but don’t forget its back story - the Saturn V was enormously expensive. In order for NASA to survive after the Space Race, there was extreme pressure to reduce costs with a reusable platform, and the Shuttle promised to do this.
There was a lot of criticism of the Shuttle from its inception, criticism that would prove correct - almost obvious in hindsight. But in fairness, a panel of Apollo astronauts, Neil Armstrong included, openly criticized and tried to shut down SpaceX’s efforts as well, declaring space exploration and exploitation could only occur at the government level. They declared no commercial enterprise could ever safely deliver payloads to orbit, and certainly not at a profit. In obvious hindsight, these brilliant astronaut engineers…underestimated a certain someone, and someone’s to follow.
It is also unfair to discount the scientific discoveries that resulted from the Shuttle Program, and a discredit to the engineers and technicians and administrators who successfully launched 133 missions.
@@ronjon7942
Solid rockets were never considered suitable for manned flight. Only throttleable and restartable liquid fueled rockets were man-rated. This inherently compromised design was an accident waiting to happen, as was its Mickey-mouse thermal protection system consisting of thousands of brittle ceramic tiles. And the men should have been on top of the rocket with an escape system, not strapped to the side of a huge shrapnel-shedding bomb. And neither the X-15 nor the SR-71 would ever have flown with an aluminum airframe. There’s an old saying that the cheapskate pays the most. In this case, it was other people who paid with their lives
@@ronjon7942 The space shuttle was an expensive dangerous failure that killed 14 people. I celebrate the fact that the space shuttle is history. Let the few remaining ones sit in museums. That's where they belong. With the dinosaurs.
Excellent documentary. Good info and facts.
Obviously this documentary was done before the Columbia investigation was over and the truth came out that engineers tried to warn NASA management about the dangers of the foam strike and they were ignored. NASA management based their assessment on a computer model that either it wasn't realistic enough OR the data that was inputted was not accurate enough. So they concluded that it wasn't a "safety of flight" issue. The shuttle experienced debris coming out of the external tank, and sometimes from the solid rocket boosters, since 1981. It was a travesty that another seven people had to died in order for NASA to do something about a very well known problem.
Hearing that NASA had to 'take it or leave it" with regards to the final design concept, especially when their first proposal that used a much smaller vehicle, positioned in front of the danger areas and therefore not be susceptible to these type of failure modes is disgraceful.
And Christa said: "space traveling these days is very save"
Poor Christa 🙏🏻
Greets from Amsterdam, Holland, The Netherlands 🇳🇱🧡
At least the Columbia crew didn't suffer for too long. Good video. Thx.
It sort of depends on how you define "suffer..." They were, unfortunately, well aware they were in severe trouble, if not certain they were going to die, for about 30 seconds or so. The vehicle went out of control after the burn-through of the wing led to increased drag on the left wing. That loss of control would have been obvious to the whole crew, and they took steps to try fix it. The left OMS pod broke off the orbiter (that was the first major piece of the orbiter to break off) about ten seconds after loss of control, and the crew compartment broke off about 20 seconds later. It is theorized (but not known-no one will ever know for sure) that this is when the cabin pressurization failed and all of the air in the cabin leaked out. Sudden depressurization leaves scars--heat damage, buckled flooring, etc. They did not see any of these in Columbia's wreckage. However, since we are dealing with wreckage, it is not an exact science. There is a great video here that shows the timeline: ua-cam.com/video/vmi_NeVRx1s/v-deo.html
they prbly did tho
@@williamcase426no they didn’t.
I'm so pissed about this disaster cause there where 2 things they could of done but didn't
Hindsight is always 20/20.
True enough, but also completely irrelevant when you have more than enough foresight to know what can go wrong and likely will go wrong. With the first shuttle "accident", NASA were explicitly told by the SRB manufacturers that launching in the weather conditions at the time would be excessively dangerous. They ignored the warnings due to political pressures. Certainly not the first or only time that political decisions have killed people, but absolutely one of the most blatant and predictable examples of it.
Had I been made aware of what was going on, I certainly could have saved most (if not all) of these brave men and women.
However due to 9/11, I was fighting terrorists half a world away to protect weak men such as yourself.
The reality is that I can’t be everywhere; but I will do all that I can.
Yes.
Challenger. 1. Reinforced o rings. 2. Don't launch in below freezing temperatures.
Columbia. Don't use foam insulation on the fuel tank, since it has come apart and hit shuttles on several previous occasions. The white paint was heavier, but at least it didn't destroy the shuttle.
The space shuttle was an expensive dangerous failure that killed 14 people in two disasters.
Every design is a compromise, the problems with the Shuttles were management in origin. Not staying in the bounds set.
Most engineers don't think that it was the tiles. They believe that the foam knocked a large hole in the aluminum part of the wing. The hole let the heat of re-entry into the wing and caused it to fall off. That made the shuttle come apart. In a test done later a piece of foam was shot at an aluminum shuttle wing at high velocity. It knocked a briefcase sized hole in the wing.
The biggest mistake was the decision to not paint the external fuel tank. If you watch the first few launches you will see that the fuel tank is painted white. They painted the insulation white. At some point in time a genius thought that money and weight would be saved by not painting the tank. But no thought was given to the idea that the paint was serving as a coating which would reduce the amount of insulation that would be torn away during the aerodynamic stresses of launch. And as time passed it was completely forgotten that the tank was originally painted. And these geniuses couldn’t figure out why they were losing insulation from the tank. They never thought that perhaps they were to blame for the unintended consequences of their poor decision.
Wrong. The paint wouldn't aid in hold the titles in place. Paint doesn't have enough adhesive strength to overcome the tremendous aerodynamic stresses of a launch.
@@zarbon700Paint had nothing to do with the heat shield tiles on the orbiter - these were never painted on any of them. The issue was the insulating foam on the external fuel tank, which was necessary to prevent excessive boil-off from the huge tank of super-cryogenic liquid hydrogen. At the time, nobody had been able to develop an adhesive which would adequately hold the thick foam insulation to the outside of the tank, at least partially because of the massive temperature differences between the tank itself (once filled) and the air around it while it sits on the launch pad. Liquid hydrogen is so cold that if the tank had no insulation, air itself would condense and liquefy on the surface, similar to how water vapour condenses on the surface of a cold bottle of beer taken out of the fridge - albeit at far lower temperatures.
This problem was dealt with on the upper stages of the Saturn V rocket (which also used liquid hydrogen) by sandwiching the insulating foam between the outer surface of the fuel tanks and an additional layer on top which held the foam in place. This external layer didn't have to be particularly thick or strong, because holding the extremely light-weight foam in place was its only real function. The external fuel tank for the shuttle could have been constructed in a similar way, and if it had been, chunks of foam falling off would not have been a problem at all. In fact for the first couple of shuttle launches, the tank actually did have this external foam-retention layer - if you look at the footage of the early launches, you can tell that this extra layer was there because the tank was white, as opposed to all of the later launches where it was orange, which was the colour of the foam. So again, they knew how to make it in a safer way, because this had been done for all the Apollo launches before the shuttle had even been thought of.
Yes. Both of the shuttle accidents had the external tank play a significant role. In the Challenger, the solid rocket booster did leak, but the lack of insulation causes the external tank to heat up and detonate. Columbia of course the foam falling off the tank to hit the wing.
@@triplev039? In the Challenger scenario, the tank most certainly DID have insulation, which certainly DID NOT contribute to its explosion. No foam insulation is going to withstand ignited solid rocket fuel gases at thousands of degree temperatures. The SRB rocket gases burned through the tank structure like a hot knife through butter.
@@lloydevans2900I didn’t know that about the tank…I naively assumed the first launch or two simply had the tank foam painted with a layer of white paint. I did not realize that the ‘white’ was actually an engineered layer designed to sandwich the orange foam in place. Thanks, I’ll have to research the tank more - I simply assumed they stopped painting it white to save weight.
To the other comment about white paint being strong enough to hold the foam in place, that seems like an incorrect assumption.
I'm not going to watch an old nearly one hour video on this. The answer has always been known. I was 25 when the Challenger tragedy happened. NASA knew very well that there was a serious problem with the temperature being too low. Engineers from Morton Thiokol told them that the O rings were not designed to operate at temperatures that low, and that there was a high probability that they would fail. NASA ignored this and went ahead and launched anyway, with no regard for the astronaut's safety. I thought, or at least hoped that they had learned their lesson. I was wrong. NASA knew that Columbia had been struck by a large piece of foam from the fuel tank, the defense department even offered to have their spy satellites take a close up look at it, but again NASA decided not to put the astronauts safety first, and declined their offer. Seven more astronauts lost their lives because of NASA's incompetence and arrogance. Nobody is going to argue that space travel is dangerous, and that accidents can and will happen. But in these two cases, NASA had clear advanced warning of serious problems, and simply chose to ignore them. NASA has the blood of 14 people on their hands.
Thanks, Karen.
I was about to be arrested in htown for making a rukkus about the record cold and screaming to cancel the launch. The truth is there was a spy satellite in the cargo hold and Reagan gave authorization for the go ahead.
It would " give us the edge " over those " pesky Russians ".
I went to school with one of the kids whos father helped design the space truck. The designers themselves did not want to allow use of the design for fear of misuse through negligence of those at the helm. It appears their predictions and worst fears came true. When limitations were adhered to it performed flawlessly.
However once complacency and ignorance were dominant trajedies occured. Don't blame the shuttle or itz designers or manufacturers, blame the people in charge that ignored reality. Remember all the razor blades that floated down after a test firing of the engines?
The cokeheads were all over in the staff and only one guy got fired for it. I knew him. He told me the reality. Then i saw him on a nasa film proving his story of working there. The fact they hired him or people like him prove that human failure and the culture if the industry at the time was where the blame should be placed.
Most people know not to jumpstart a frozen solid car battery for it may explode. The same logic applies to more complex machines. There are rules that need to be followed.
Don't blame the machine, blame the ones who pushed the envelope of safety taking others lives in the process. Almost every school in America was watching when the Challenger blew up. Imagine being a child and witnessing the event.
Most people do not think of this.
Maybe you all should.
@@theashpilez nothing you said is true, lol. Your friend's dad worked there? You were protesting there? Lol, but then you can't even use grammar properly.
Why do you people like in UA-cam comments for clout when nobody cares about it, except you?
@@ChromeCobra420 Your grammar is even worse.
@@kennyking3255 lmao, dude, I am am English major. Every single part of these sentence structures are correct, so I'm not sure what books you've been reading, but I suspect they have more pictures than words in them.
It would have meant more if you had graduated high school also.
Of course the Space Shuttle was a human time bomb. It was built by the lowest bidder and was simply too complex to be reliable. The shuttle O-rings was the first disaster NASA could have avoided had they followed the engineers advice. The tiles always falling off was another obvious problem NASA knew about from the first mission into space. We don't even know how many other weaknesses plagued the shuttle. The second disaster sealed the fate and the program was canceled. I was a teenager when Enterprise flew. There were such high hopes for the shuttle program. But I thought at the time the U.S. should have constructed a moon-base instead using technology that was successful and could be improved upon. Now, 50 years later we are scrambling to get back to the moon and start building before our adversaries do. Meanwhile, we have had to rely on Russia to get our astronauts back to Earth. All that success from 1969 to 1972 while NASA sat on its laurels. Budgetary considerations aside, the government engaged in a fruitless conflict in Vietnam and ignored the possibilities of colonizing the moon. So instead we got the shuttle and all the complications which came with it. NASA knew after the first year the shuttle would never fulfill the point of its existence. We could have had a better footprint beyond our planet but what we have now is playing catch up. Maybe my grandchildren will see that day just as long as we don't destroy ourselves first.
Most Apollo missions went well moon visits brought back much study of moon rocks!!
The Buran had safety ejection i believe!?
What does that have to do with that accidents? Do you want to eject yourself in such a situation and burn in the sky instead of dying by explosion which might be much faster? Also I doubt hat in such a case it really would work…
Nasa never installed parachutes or an escape mechanism on the shuttle because at those high speeds and attitude, those devices wouldn't save anyone.
The first missions with two astronauts had ejection seats but when they went to the higher crewed missions those weren’t practical anymore. There was always doubt that those we’re going to be survivable anyway.
@@zarbon700 This documentary literally covered the fact that the first five Columbia missions had ejector seats installed. They ultimately removed them because they couldn’t provide them to the entire crew.
@@TitaniumTurbine The ejection seat mechanism wasn't a true escape system. NASA realized from the begin that the ejection seats were pointless once the space shuttle lifted off the tower. That's why they decided to remove the ejection seats which helped reduced weight.
It NASA had gone with the original design, the space shuttle would have been positioned at the top of the fuel tank instead of next to it. That way none of the insulating foam from the fuel tank would have hit Columbia and it wouldn't have been damaged by the foam. And Challenger would have been able to disengage and get away from the fuel tank.
Mercury and Apollo had the crew cabin situated on the top of the rocket. The astronauts could escape if a dangerous problem occured. The space shuttle was attached to the side of the rockets and fuel tank. There was no way for the astronauts to escape. They were riding a bomb into space.
None of the capsule designs had 100% emergency escape from a "exploding "rocket." After a certain altitude the launch escape tower for Mercury and Apollo were jettiosned as their use was "no longer required." But that is in error. Gemini used ejection seats which would not save the crew after about 100,000 feet in altitude, like the first four two man flights space shuttle. For Apollo, the launch escape tower was jettisoned after first stage separation so if there was any issues with the second stage and its five J-2 LOX/LH2 engines, for example and engine explosion, the astronauts in the Apollo capsule would not be pulled away from the disaster. The only thing that would save them if the Apollo capsule was not damaged and of course it had parachutes which would allow it to safely land in the ocean. None of the manned spacecraft had 100% survival of the crew. And even today, with SpaceX's Falcon 9/Crew Dragon, there is no 100% guarantee. And what about SpaceX's "Starship." How will a crewed version have a launch escape system?
The space shuttle was an expensive dangerous failure that killed 14 people in two disasters. What's left of the old dinosaurs are in museums. Which is a good thing.
It wasn’t a failure, there were a lot of successes that came out of the shuttle program. Hubble telescope for instance and its subsequent repair mission. Minimizing the entire program to a failure is an intellectually bankrupt point of view.
@@TitaniumTurbineI agree with you 100%! Well said
The shuttle was purely the victim of poor management and safety culture at NASA, full stop. The design was within safety limits until compromises forced by management (whether that’s congressional oversight or executive oversight is your choice) caused the engineers to not be heard with complaints. Both Challenger and Columbia had scores of engineers voicing their concerns and the engineers were ignored due to budget and time constraints. The theoretical design itself was workable, as evidenced by the multitude of successful launches and returns.
And the apollo rocket is claimed to be a huge success but most of the launches experienced issues within the first 2 hours of flight. They all have drawbacks
Yes. 1. If NASA were more diligent and lss complacent. And 2. If it never had been built.
I never knew they didnt die til they hit the ground in both shuttle disasters.
The Challenger astronauts died on impact with the ocean. The Columbia astronauts died when they were dismembered as their vehicle broke up.
Who would have imagined woodpeckers drilling hundreds of holes in the insulating foam exterior on the external fuel tank? Maybe they didn't like the color?
The narrator has to try so hard to make the shuttle sound like a bad idea. Lol it is quite literally one of humanity's greatest inventions.
The author merely points out the shortcomings of the program as a whole. The shuttle was a good idea that was horribly mismanaged.
The shuttle was a bad idea. Besides killing 14 astronauts, what did it do? Make a lot of trips into low earth orbit, at tremendous $$$ cost? The payloads it delivered could have been put in orbit with conventional rockets, for much less money, and without risking human lives. Aside from that, the shuttle missions accomplished very little, at an absolutely absurd cost.
Two things can be true: the space shuttle can be an incredible machine with capabilities we will not see again in our lifetimes, while simultaneously being a fundamentally high risk design that was, unfortunately, poorly managed.
She's just reading off a script. You really think the narrator wrote this? You must be American, because only Americans would think this.
@@tomdg65 Yep you’re exactly right, people only think in terms of “one or the other” these days. Left or right. Black or white. #1 or none. It’s been very sad to see basic intellectualism and critical thinking die out among our modern society.
I AM HOPING THAT STARSHIP WILL PUT RIGHT THE MISTAKES WITH THE SPACE SHUTTLE DESIGN ! ! !🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
Right.
No shuttle tiles. No lack of an escape system...
Uh.. hmmm.
Wait a minute.
Defund NASA and use the money to help people here on the ground.
9 hrs ago? You recycled this. This one sucks too. Rip off something good, at least.
After the ship has sunk, everybody knows how it might have been saved ...
And some of them are right.
Kinda weird to be asking these same questions decades later. Yes, they both have been prevented, ice and rubber than massive sudden heat blast is never good, elementary children learn this. For the second, you had 3 other shuttles, a rescue mission could have been launched but was deemed to expensive for expendable astronauts.
It would have taken a month to prepare another shuttle for launch. The Columbia didn't have that much oxygen left.
@SymphonyBrahms please search how a shuttle was being assembled for the next flight and was ready for launch in the hanger if it got the go-ahead.
@@tylerdurden4006 I have read that there were no other shuttles ready for launch. And that it would have taken a month to prepare another shuttle for launch. And those are the facts.
@@SymphonyBrahms don't learn from nasa, learn from reliable sources.
Why didn’t the cabin have parachutes? They were still alive after the breakup.
Parachute would be useless in that situation. Nasa never installed parachutes or an escape mechanism on the shuttle because at those high speeds and attitude, those devices wouldn't save anyone.
@@zarbon700 Columbia had ejection seats for the Commander and Pilot on STS-1 through STS-4. The seats were usable from ground to about 80,000 feet on launch, and below about 100,000 feet on landing if pressure suits were worn. After STS-4 the rocket motors were removed since the crew size was larger, and particularly the lower deck could not be fitted. Useless on launch, dicey on landing as with the downward ejection seats on the B-52. After Challenger the crew were given parachutes and a telescoping rod above the hatch to use in bailout, which would only have been usable in level flight between about 10K and 25K feet. Not a very usable window but there were fitted
@@ragnarviews NASA understood during the dangerous aspects of launch and re-entry any escape mechanism is pointless. Once the spacecraft clears the launch tower, escape is not a real option. Odds are extremely small that any ejection mechanism would have been capable of propelling astronauts far enough from the doomed spacecraft and plumes, mainlt due the extreme aerodynamic pressure. There's a high possibility the aerodynamic pressure could end up hurling any escape mechanism towards the doomed spacecraft and plumes.
The only time an escape mechanism could actually be used successfully is during landing when it has greatly reduces its re-entry speed and attitude.
@@ragnarviews NASA understood during the dangerous aspects of launch and re-entry any escape mechanism is pointless. Once the spacecraft clears the launch tower, escape is not a real option. Odds are extremely small that any ejection mechanism would have been capable of propelling astronauts far enough from the doomed spacecraft and plumes, mainlt due the extreme aerodynamic pressure. There's a high possibility the aerodynamic pressure could end up hurling any escape mechanism towards the doomed spacecraft and plumes.
The only time an escape mechanism could actually be used successfully is during landing when it has greatly reduces its re-entry speed and attitude.
@@zarbon700Erm, the Gemeni capsules (you know, the intermediate program between Mercury and Apollo) all had ejector seats with parachutes fitted to them. They were never actually used because that program didn't have any failures which would have required them to be used. But they were fitted, and could have been used at any time between liftoff and 40 seconds into the flight. After that, the ejector seats were disabled, but the entire capsule itself could have been ejected from the rocket and parachuted back down at any time prior to the first stage burnout. This would have been well within the altitude the shuttle reached at the time the Challenger exploded, so if the shuttle had been fitted with either individual ejector seats for the crew or an ejectable module, it is quite possible that most of them would have survived. After all, parachute jumps have been successfully performed at altitudes far higher than the shuttle reached, and one of these was achieved in 1960, more than 20 years before the shuttle first flew.
Near 9 minutes into the video, one of the presenters comments about the 7 million pounds of thrust (combined 3 main engines plus two boosters) that the space shuttle needs to take off and reach orbit. That's not the point. Besides, the Saturn V rocket blasted off with 7.5 millions pounds of thrust to reach Earth orbit, then continue to the Moon.
Apollo flights also weighed less than half of what the shuttle did. Big difference.
Not a problem w the shuttle. A problem w certain individuals @ nasa that created the unsafe culture.
The tone of criticism in this documentary is annoying. Criticism comes from people who couldn't do it themselves and stand on the sidelines. We lost two shuttles and both were tragedies that didn't need to happen AND we also flew 135 flights up to and built the ISS space station.
I absolutely agree 100%
No, criticism comes from all quarters, including those in the industry. Teddy Roosevelt was wrong to imply that you must be in the arena to be worthy of criticizing. For example, you are allowed to criticize this video even though you might not have been able to make it.
We lost 2 shuttles and 14 astronauts in 135 flights. If the same loss rate were applied to airlines in the United States we would loose over 400 airliners and 2,500 people to airline crashes…every day. The shuttle was one of the most dangerous machines ever conceived.
And it was expensive. Most of its missions could’ve been flown for less money with expendable boosters with no risk of life. Though it did build the international space station, the ISS is also a bit of a questionable venture. As stated by Dr. Robert Zubrin, the purpose of manned spaceflight is to go somewhere, like the moon or Mars, not to circle the Earth in low earth orbit for 20 years practicing for the day that you might actually decide to go somewhere.
Hindsight is admittedly 20/20, but at the end of the day the shuttle was overly ambitious and did not live up to its potential. Had it been mounted at the top of the booster stack, rather than on the side, Columbia and possibly Challenger would have survived. You don’t have to be in the arena to see that.
@@glenwoodriverresidentsgrou136I agree with the OP about the tone, and the last sentence. But your response regarding criticism is right on point.
What I find irritating is when the narration takes a side and pushes an agenda. It’s one thing for a SME to positively and negatively criticize, but quite another when the documentary author adopts a tone of negativity. It severely slants the audience to a point of view they ought to make for themselves, instead of being led along to a predictable conclusion by an author that has already made up his mind the Shuttle was a flawed failure and NASA’s run by monkeys.
The comments section would be in a completely different direction if this narrative stuck only to facts and the back stories about how the Shuttle Program came to be. I know this to be true from watching other documentaries that maintained a neutral, fact based approach. This is not to say this video was without value; it was not wrong. However, it was more of an editorial commentary than a documentary - in fairness, perhaps this is what they were striving for.
My plea to the audience? Viewer beware, be wary, and be aware.
Criticism is necessary for a dangerous vehicle that killed 14 people.
To a degree YES. Both could have been avoided, But a poor design along with NASAs ego killed two shuttle crews and 1 Apollo crew though the Apollo SNAFU is not related to the shuttle program.
I agree with the OP about the disagreeableness of the video’s tone, and the last sentence regarding the positives of the Shuttle’s engineering and accomplishments. But your response regarding criticism is right on point (see refugee42’s post).
What I find irritating is when the narration takes a side and pushes an agenda. It’s one thing for a SME to positively and negatively criticize, but quite another when the documentary author adopts a tone of negativity. It severely slants the audience to a point of view they ought to make for themselves, instead of being led along to a predictable conclusion by an author that has already made up his mind the Shuttle was a flawed failure and NASA’s run by monkeys.
The comments section would be in a completely different direction if this narrative stuck only to facts and the back stories about how the Shuttle Program came to be. I know this to be true from watching other documentaries that maintained a neutral, fact based approach. This is not to say this video was without value; it was not wrong. However, it was more of an editorial commentary than a documentary - in fairness, perhaps this is what they were striving for.
My plea to the audience? Viewer beware, be wary, and be aware.
The space shuttle was a dangerous vehicle that killed 14 people. End of argument.
This is old news
Could The Space Shuttle Disasters Have Been Prevented? Sure. Hindsight says it would've been easy to prevent.
This video lost me in the first 5 minutes. They made the point 17 times , and in a a somewhat condescending tone of voice which I don't really appreciate, that there's a whole lot of fuel attached to an airplane. Get over it and get on with the point of the video
Soviets built a better shuttle and they knew the dangers and Cost of shuttle project so they cancelled it
Stop spreading misinformation. Buran was canceled because of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The Columbia disaster couldn't have been avoided. After they realized that impact had happened there was essentially nothing that could have been done. The Challenger disaster is absolutely ridiculous that it even happened. How people as smart as these not thinking about how cold weather effects rubber is mind boggling.
Edited for a typo.
The pilot does have a choice insofar as re-entry angle is concerned and a shallow angle, low energy re-entry might have saved Columbia. They also could have rationed consumables and stayed in orbit until a rescue mission was mounted. Linda Ham and the flight director nixed both ideas. The military offered to take hi-res images of the shuttle with surveillance satellites so that NASA could better assess the damage. They nixed that idea as well. They didn't even tell the crew about the issue until the final moments of the mission. The shuttle was a great vehicle with much potential, but it was also fragile in some respects and required delicate handling. It was also grossly inefficient economically. That being said, it still flew beautifully.
@@stargazer5784 Agreed 100%
They were most definitely aware of how cold weather affects rubber and O-ring erosion. They just disregarded it.
@@stargazer5784 A shallow angle would still expose the shuttle to the heat of re-entry. And there wasn't enough oxygen left on Columbia to wait a month for a rescue mission.