Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 13, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba 8 Winnipeg free press monday april 13, 1981 lost tiles create tense for Crew the Columbia roars upward toward the 160-Kilometre Mark after blast off leaving a Trail of smoke looking like a beanstalk. Crews ready for every contingency Edwards air Force base Calif. Reuter an air and ground recovery team will be on Alert for every possible mishap when the space shuttle Columbia drops out of orbit and lands Here tomorrow. Planes helicopters and even an Aerial Observatory will be in the air to watch Columbia with astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen become the first vehicle to land like an aircraft from outer space. Doctors parachutists and police equipped with riot control equipment have been called in. Thousands of sightseers Are expected to be at this desert base in the Early morning Light to watch Columbia return. Unknown areas Columbia will enter regions of velocity Altitude and air pressures no manned controllable plane has Ever encountered a spokesman for the National aeronautics and space administration said Here. If everything goes according to plan a three minute rocket burst will slow the 75-ton shuttle to allow Gravity to begin pulling it to Earth. For a Brief time the shuttle will Fly Tail first to help reduce Speed. But it will re enter the Earth s atmosphere nose first and parts of its fuselage will reach temperatures As High As degrees celsius. We will drop out of space glowing like a red hot Young said before Columbia blasted off from Cape Cana veral Fla., yesterday. Far below an Aerial carrying a 91 millimetre Telescope will try to Cap Ture an infrared image of the heat. Columbia will pass the californian coast near the resort town of Monterey 40 Kilometres up and travelling at Kilometres an hour and drop metres in the 24-Kilometre dash from the coast to this base. A microwave scanning beam on the ground monitored by Young and Crip pen through the shuttle s computers will guide Columbia to the Correct Altitude for it to land on the five kilo metre dry Lake bed on this base. Using a rudder Brake and other equipment to help reduce Speed co Lumbia will come into land at 344 kilo metres an hour. Young will dead stick the shuttle when it lands manually. There will be no second Chance because Columbia will land like a glider with no Power for another attempt. Two Chase planes will Fly close to Columbia to make sure its Landing wheels come Down. In Case the shuttle overshoots the Lake bed and lands in the surrounding Mojave desert air Force parachutists and helicopters will be ready to drop Down along Side. If Columbia lands three quarters of the Way along its eight Kilometre run Way As planned ground staff Wear ing protective clothing will use sniffer devices to determine whether there Are any explosives or toxic gases near the shuttle. The air Force will Seal off the area to prevent any unprotected people from going in. A doctor will Board Columbia and will give the astronauts Brief examinations. Insulation stops Burnup on re entry by j. Michael Kennedy and George Alexander the los Angeles times As space shuttle commander John Young panned the area of his ship Columbia with a movie camera yester Day morning the dark rectangular shapes jumped out on the screen. As Many As 15 tiles the ones designed to protect the shuttle from intense heat of a re entry in the Earth s atmosphere had broken off. And while experts at the Johnson space Centre in Houston quickly Dis counted any real possibility of danger the broken tiles set up a tense scenario for Young and his shuttle partner Robert Crippen when they return to Earth tomorrow. The tiles that broke off probably during the ascent of the Columbia into orbit Are not particularly critical to re entry because they will not Bear the Brunt of the heat As the shuttle at tempts to land at Edwards air Force base. The question is whether any of the other tiles vital to the safety of the ship and the astronauts also fell off. Officials of the National aeronautics and space administration said they did not think so but also said they do not have any Way of definitely checking the underside of the Columbia where the tiles Are absolutely essential. Not worried without them the heat of re entry could Burn a Hole in the skin of the shuttle destroying the Columbia and killing the two Crew members. We re not worried about any other tiles being said flight director Neil Hutchinson who directed the co Lumbia into orbit yesterday morning. The tiles that Shook Loose Are on two pods housing the engines that allow the Columbia to manoeuvre. Nine tiles Are missing from the right Side and another four to six came off the left Side. The uncertainty about the numbers on the left Side is because officials believe some tiles still in place May have discoloured at launch and resemble the dark spots of the broken out sections. At a news briefing yesterday morn ing Hutchinson said it was pointless to speculate about what had happened to the tiles because in fact there was nothing that could be done anyway. Asked the reason for not including a tile , As was originally planned As part of the launch Hutchin son said that the amount of testing done on the strength of the tiles made Nasa officials believe it would be unnecessary. Thus even though the astronauts Are equipped for a spacewalk if necessary they have no tools with which to repair any tiles. Examining photos Jim Smith of the shuttle s Thermal technology Branch said there Are still 51 Millimetres of insulation on the rocket pods to protect them on re entry but he conceded there Are some locations where the Structure is thin enough that if you lost a tile there it might possibly Burn through on re entry. Engineers were examining launch photography for any missing tiles and powerful air Force telescopic cameras on the ground will be used to scan the 37-metre spacecraft to see if any of the Little Ceramic squares Are missing from other areas. Tiles were chosen for the shuttle s Thermal Protection system because of the requirement that the shuttle be reusable. Each orbiter As the winged space plane is properly known is sup posed to make at least 100 missions before being consigned to the junk Yard. For that reason space Agency Engi neers ruled out using materials of the same sort that had been used Success fully on previous american spacecraft such As Mercury gemini and Apollo. Silica fibres the tiles ranging in thickness from two tenths of an Inch to 3% inches were the answer. Made of Silica fibres set in a Ceramic matrix each tile is 90 per cent empty space and Only 10 per cent solid matter. The blazing air mole Cules that the shuttle creates by its descent at 25 times the Speed of sound become trapped in the Many deadened spaces of the fibres. The molecules Are unable to Transfer their heat into the shuttle s underlying aluminium Frame an insulation so powerful that a human hand touching one Side of a tile would remain Cool even while a Blowtorch scorched the other Side. The tiles were outstandingly Success Ful As Thermal barriers but were some thing less than a resounding Success at sticking to the shuttle s air Frame. When the first space plane was Tran sported from California to Florida atop a Boeing 747 Jet plane in 1979, thou Sands of the White and the Black tiles covering 70 per cent of the shuttle were shaken Loose. So the tiles were made a Little denser and this improved their bonding Quali ties appreciably. Technicians laboriously reinstalled More than of the tiles on the Columbia a process that Cost million and took months to Complete contributing to a two year delay in the launch. The space shuttle Columbia is seen six seconds off its launch pad at the Kennedy space Centre. John Young the Wise old Man among the world s space Farmers . Times news service with his unlined face his Mere hint of Gray hair and his sometimes wryly self effacing manner John Watts Young does t exactly look or act the part. But at age 50, he is the chief the astronaut s astronaut the Dean of the corps the Wise old Man among space Farmers. With yesterday s successful launch ing of the space shuttle Columbia Young became the first astronaut or cosmonaut to Fly in space five times. No human being american or russian has been into space As Many times. He stayed on As an astronaut after commanding the Apollo 16 lunar land ing Mission in 1972, and plans to stay As Long As the space Agency will let him. There s always something to do in the space he says. It s so varied. You Don t do the same thing twice in any Given moment of any he first ventured into space in 1965 aboard the first flight of the two Man project gemini series. The next year he commanded gemini 10. He flew to Crippen had to wait for 15years Cape canaveral Fla. A Robert Crippen has been an astronaut for almost 15 years and before yester Day s launch of the first . Space shuttle he had never been anywhere near outer space. Now that Long wait for a rocket ride is Over. This country is in need of something to be proud he said a few Days before the Mission started. We really need some kind of thing to cling on to and say we in the United states did that the . Navy Captain from Beau Mont tex., is 43 years old five-feet-10 and stays a trim 160 pounds by jogging in the evening. He has chiselled features and a ready smile. He and his wife Virginia have three teen aged Daugh ters. Crippen is a military astronaut a Good bet for future assignments that involve defence missions. He earns a month for his chores. Before the shuttle Crippen s biggest assignment was As a member of the Crew on the skylab medical experiments Altitude test known in Nasa s world of acronyms As seat. The 1972 test was a simulation of the skylab Mission to enable Crew members to collect medical data and to evaluate equipment operations and procedures. Crippen was selected in october 1966, As a member of the . Air Force s manned orbiting Laboratory program known As Mol and pronounced mole. When that program was scrapped in 1969, Crippen transferred to Nasa. After graduating from College Crip pen was commissioned in the . Navy s aviation officer program and eventually became an attack Pilot aboard the Carrier . Independence. He was a test Pilot and instructor at Edwards air Force base in California before joining the astronaut corps. The Moon and around it in Early 1969, in the dress rehearsal for the first lunar Landing. And he walked and worked on the Moon As the commander of Apollo 16 in 1972. Later he retired from the Navy As a Captain and As a civilian became chief of the astronaut office. Dry wit Young is perhaps most renowned for his dry wit. Asked for example How he came to be selected to command co Lumbia he explained that the chief astronaut makes the recommendation. And at that he dead panned with perfect timing i was the born on sept. 24, 1930, in san fran Cisco Young later moved with his family to Orlando Fla., where he graduated from High school with a straight a record. In 1952 he received a Bachelor s degree in aeronautical Engi Neering from the Georgia Institute of technology and joined the Navy to become a test Pilot. Through Young from time to time the world outside the inner Circle of Nasa has been Able to see the human Side of the astronaut a Side that few people saw in the Early years. On his first space flight for example he smuggled a corned beef Sandwich aboard his superiors were not amused. Some years later while working pm the Moon s surface he assured himself a place in the non regulation annals of space lore. Having been Force fed or Ange juice laced with potassium throughout the Mission for medical reasons Young was having some Mun Dane internal problems. He said so in terms both earthy and obscene. The Long hours of training and weeks away from his family Are generally blamed for the break up in 1971, of his first marriage. He and his wife were divorced after being married for 16 years. Soon afterwards he married Susy Feldman a Secretary for a space con tractor. He has two grown children by his first marriage John who is in the . Coast guard and Sandy who is married and lives in Rockledge Fla. Commander John Young shuttle Pilot Robert Crippen ;