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Nasa doubts foam theory { February 5 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)    http://www.suntimes.com/output/shuttle/05shuttle.html http://www.suntimes.com/output/shuttle/05shuttle.html NASA casts doubt on foam debris theory February 5, 2003 BY MARCIA DUNN ASSOCIATED PRESS SPACE CENTER, Houston -- NASA cast doubt Wednesday on the theory that a piece of foam debris striking the shuttle during liftoff was the "root cause" of the Columbia disaster. Space shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore said that after a careful study of the damage possible from the fall of a 20-inch chunk of foam insulation, investigators are "looking somewhere else." "It doesn't make sense to us that a piece of debris could be the root cause of the loss of Columbia and its crew," Dittemore said. "There's got to be another reason." He said investigators are now asking if there was "another event that escaped our attention" that might have caused Columbia to break up just minutes before the end of its 16-day mission. In recent days, some space experts have speculated that the chunk of foam was coated or infused with ice, which could have increased the weight-- and destructive potential-- of the piece that hit the shuttle. "I don't think it's ice. I don't think there's an embedded ice question here," Dittemore said, adding that the foam is water-resistant and that an inspection team found no ice conditions that day. "So it is something else." The program manager said investigators now are focusing more closely on the desperate effort of Columbia's automatic control system to hold the speed spacecraft stable despite an increasing amount of wind resistance, or drag, from the left wing. He said the autopilot was causing the craft to rapidly move the control surfaces and to eventually even fire small rockets in a losing attempt to gain control of the yawing motion of Columbia. Final bits of data from the spacecraft showed that "we were beginning to lose the battle," he said. For this reason, Dittemore said his team is intensifying efforts to recover a final 32 seconds of data from the spacecraft. This data, the very last signals from the dying Columbia, was not processed at Mission Control because the quality of the electronic signals was too poor to be considered reliable. But Dittemore said the signals are being extracted from computers and will be examined to find clues to why Columbia's left wing was encountering so much drag. "Perhaps the 32 seconds will help us understand," he said. Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Change shuttle design protect from foam Debris prime suspect { February 4 2003 } Debris struck shuttle { February 5 2003 } Foam hit shuttle { February 5 2003 } Foam test reveals damage Heat censored 81 seconds into flight Ignored foam email { February 22 2003 } Nasa doubts foam theory { February 5 2003 } Shuttle wing under foam fire tests { June 5 2003 } Tests affirms foam theory { July 8 2003 } Tests shooting foam chunks { April 30 2003 } Tie between foam heat spike { April 16 2003 } Files Listed: 12

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