On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia was lost due to structural failure in the left wing. On take-off, it was reported that a piece of foam insulation surrounding the shuttle fleet's 15-story external fuel tanks fell off of Columbia's tank and struck the shuttle's left wing. Extremely hot gas entered the front of Columbia's left wing just 16 seconds after the orbiter penetrated the hottest part of Earth's atmosphere on re-entry. The shuttle was equipped with hundreds of temperature sensors positioned at strategic locations. The salvaged flight recorded revealed that temperatures started to rise in the left wing leading edge a full minute before any trouble on the shuttle was noted. With a damaged left wing, Columbia started to drag left. The ships' flight control computers fought a losing battle trying to keep Columbia's nose pointed forward.
It’s very hard to say what steps, if any, could have been taken to prevent the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster from occurring. When mankind continues to “push the envelope” in the interest of bettering humanity, there will always be risks. In the manned spaceflight business, we have always had to live with trade-offs. All programs do not carry equal risk nor do they offer the same benefits. The acceptable risk for a given program or operation should be worth the potential benefits to be gained. The goal should be a management system that puts safety first, but not safety at any price. As of Sept 7th, 2003, NASA has ordered extensive factory inspections of wing panels between flights that could add as much as three months to the time it takes to prepare a space shuttle orbiter for launch. NASA does all it can to safely bring its astronauts back to earth, but as stated earlier, risks are expected.
On August 14th, 2003, a major blackout swept across portions of the northeastern United States and Canada. It was reported that a series of equipment outages in the Midwest led to uncontrolled cascading outages of power transmission lines and generators serving parts of the Northeast, Midwest and Canada. Automatic protective systems operated to open circuits and shut down power plants to prevent further spread of the outages. This is very similar to what happened in The Great Northeast Blackout of 1965. In both situations, the “grid system” shut down one generator in line at a time to protect a surge from the station before it.
It was on January 28, 1986 at 11:38 A.M. that the shuttle Challenger, NASA flight 51-L, the twenty-fifth shuttle flight, took off. It was the "Teacher in Space" mission. At lift-off, the temperature at ground level was 36° Fahrenheit, which was 15° Fahrenheit cooler than any previous launch by NASA. It was the Challenger's tenth flight. Take-off had been delayed several times. Finally the shuttle had taken off. The shuttle had climbed high in the sky thirty-five seconds after take-off, and it was getting hit by strong winds. The on board computers were making continuous adjustments so the shuttle would stay on course. About eight miles in the air, about seventy-two seconds after take-off, people watched in fear and horror as the shuttle was engulfed by a huge fire ball. All the crew members were killed instantly.
To begin with, this author should like to offer some brief background as to the content of "The Wounds Of Peace" prior to my assessment. "The Wounds Of Peace" is a label which the author has applied to attempts of leaders of various countries throughout the Middle East to come to terms and create, or forge a partnership. To this extent, the author cites a process that began in Oslo, and, as the author states "One that compelled fiercely reluctant men on both sides to forge some of the most unlikely and creative partnerships in the history of diplomacy." (Bruck, p.4) The chief players throughout this scenario include Benjamin Netanyahu, Yasir Arafat, Shimon Peres, as well as others. The author begins with a discussion of a visit with Shimon Peres, who had been succeeded by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Peres had expressed serious trepidation regarding his successor and his ability to handle the complex diplomatic aspects relating to the various strategies and tactics regarding the peace process and conflict management. To a large extent, it must be stated that the players, the respective geographical areas, and the positions they hold amongst each other(s) are highly complex. In fact, it is virtually impossible to define the role as well as its multidimensional ramifications in terms of diplomacy, and the many principles and theories of negotiation and conflict management as is the case.
Lack of proper risk management process: NASA was using a simple risk classification system and the methods used were only qualitative. There was a lack of proper technical and quantitative risk management methods that could have helped them identify the risks and eliminate them.
Before going any further with this paper, I would like to take a moment to thank the crew of the space shuttle challenger for their bravery, courage, determinations and and sacrifice for this great nation. Francis R. Scobee (2), Commander, Michael J. Smith (1), Pilot Judith A. Resnik (2), Mission Specialist 1, Ellison S. Onizuka (2), Mission Specialist 2, Ronald E. McNair (2), Mission Specialist 3, Gregory B. Jarvis (1), Payload Specialist 1, Sharon Christa McAuliffe (1), Payload Specialist 2 (science.ksc), were parents, friends, children, husbands and wives, heroes, smart human being that were killed on this tragic day. May God be with your soul and may your memories and courage and passion shall not be forgotten but instead drive future generation determination and passion. The crash of the space shuttle
Teddy Roosevelt was a very active guy, he believed in preserving nature and testing yourself against all it has to offer. He was a conservationist. During Teddy’s presidency, he created 5 national parks, 16 national monuments, and 53 wildlife reserves. This was a huge step for him trying to get people to become more active and social. Doing acts like this as president was unheard of at the time.
Overall, the Columbia space shuttle contributed a great deal to space exploration, from its construction in 1981, to its destruction while reentering earth’s atmosphere in 2003. The Columbia brought a new era of space exploration, and during its twenty-nine missions had many firsts in space. The Columbia space shuttle was important to space exploration because it used new technology that changed space travel, completed missions that other spacecraft could not, and brought new people into space.
In the past, the United States has already repeatedly occurred the blackout. Especially in 1977, there was a large-scale power outages and the city became a big mess. At that time, blackout of 1977 not only resulting in significant economic losses, but also a power shortage triggered kind of serious public problems. It could be the strong contrast with the past blackout, so the blackout of 1977 was more striking and deeply impressive.
The impact of the Six-Day War on the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians:
An important historical event thats marked the end of the fist Infitada and tried to combat the violence that came with it, was the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. The Oslo Accords was a formal agreement between Israel and the PLO, that allowed for the creation of a Palestinian Authority which would be responsible for administering the territory under the PLO’s control. This agreement also called for the gradual removal of Israeli forces it from the Gaza Strip and a small area around Jericho. It also marked the first time the PLO formally recognized Israel, expressed a desire to be at a peaceful coexistence with them and renounced all acts of violence. With this Israel intern formally gave the PLO the status of being the voice of the Palestinian people. While this was great for the members of the PLO it marginalized others by implicitly tel...
The Color Purple shows the intersectionality of oppression and the issues women had to deal with such as their sexuality,gender,race. One of the biggest problems this book was facing was Sexsism. In the beginning of novel, one of the main characters, Celie reveals to the readers how she has no control over her life. Celie’s mother dies due to a heart break. Her father which is also the father of her two children who she refers to as ”Pa” abuses her on a daily base. She writes many letters speaking to God. She shows that she doesn't respect her husband because she really never refers to his name. The Color Purple faces issues such as sexsim. The power of women was distorted and challenged. Black feminism cues that sexsism, classism,
Rodney Rocha is a NASA engineer and co-chair of Debris Assessment Team (DTS). When possibility of wing damage appeared he requested an additional imagery to obtain more information in order to evaluate the damage. This demonstrates that he actually tried to resolve the issue. However, due to absence of clear organizational responsibilities in NASA those images were never received. Since foam issue was there for years and risk for the flights was estimated as low management decided not to proceed with this request. After learning of management decision Rocha wrote an e-mail there he stated that foam damage could carry grave hazard and have to be addressed. At the same time this e-mail was not send to the management team. Organizational culture at NASA could be described as highly bureaucratic with operations under standard procedures only. Low-end employees like Rocha are afraid to bring any safety-related issues to the management due to delay of the mission. They can be punished for bringing “bad news”. This type of relationship makes it impossible for two-way communication between engineers and managers, which are crucial for decision-making in complex env...
Five space shuttles were made till now. These space shuttles include the first space shuttle ever made, Enterprise. Space shuttle Enterprise was built for NASA as a part of the Space Shuttle Space Program to perform multiple test flights and but not capable spaceflights. For the reason that it was built without engines or a functional head shield. The shuttle had been intended to be refitted for orbital flight to become the second space-rated orbiter in service. However, during the construction of Columbia, details of the final design changed. Another space shuttle is Columbia, which accomplished being the first shuttle to reach space, in 1981. Columbia carried dozens of astronauts into space during the next two decades, they then reached several milestones. However, a tragedy, or something that no one would imagine happened, the shuttle and a seven-member crew were lost over Texas when Columbia burned up during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003. Columbia 's loss made NASA make extra safety checks in orbit for all future
- Disasters and why they happened? - Air disasters caused due to faulty design: There have been historically countless cases of confusion in handling the flaps and the gear controls on the DC3 aircraft as they are in close proximity to each other and of similar shape. This is a problem that should have been addressed by the system engineers before the final go ahead for production was approved considering the importance of such instruments and their role during the flight of the aircraft. - Challenger disaster caused due to faulty design: This incident saw the destruction of the United States space shuttle Challenger 73 seconds after take-off from the Kennedy Space Centre on January 28, 1986 killing the entire shuttle crew. The disaster was caused by the failure of an "O-ring" seal in the solid-fuel rocket on the shuttle's right side.
At 9 a.m. on February 1st, 2003, disaster struck the space shuttle program: Columbia had disintegrated upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere just 16 minutes before it was supposed to land at Kennedy Space Center (National Geographic News par 2-3). The shuttle had been damaged by little more than foam from the external tank but it was enough to make it susceptible to the high temperatures it faced as it descended through the atmosphere. The idea that a space shuttle can endure damage that is unforeseen or unavoidable is well within reason. However, in retrospect it was found that foam strikes were present on most shuttle missions and NASA had a history of diminishing their recognized danger in favor of increasing the chances of meeting mission deadlines. Columbia and its crew of seven astronauts were doomed from launch due to a combination of the damage it sustained and the unwillingness of program managers to allow anyone to investigate it further during the mission. The Columbia disaster should spur NASA to reevaluate their policies in order to pay closer attention to matters of safety in their space programs.
Earthquakes belong to the class of most disastrous natural hazards. They result in unexpected and tremendous earth movements. These movements results from dissemination of an enormous amount of intense energy in form of seismic waves which are detected by use of seismograms. The impact of earthquakes leaves behind several landmarks including: destruction of property, extensive disruption of services like sewer and water lines, loss of life, and causes instability in both economic and social components of the affected nation (Webcache 2).