Seconds From Disaster | The Amazing Story Of A Shuttle Secret Mission | Hoot Gibson | EPISODE 2

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Space Shuttle secret mission STS-27, just seconds from disaster. Get the story from astronaut Hoot Gibson.
STS-27 was the 27th NASA Space Shuttle mission and the third flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis. Launching on December 2, 1988, on a four-day mission, it was the second shuttle flight after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of January 1986. STS-27 carried a classified payload for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), ultimately determined to be a Lacrosse surveillance satellite. The vessel's heat shielding was substantially damaged during lift-off, and crew members thought that they would die during re-entry.
HOOT GIBSON SERIES SEASON 1:
EPISODE 01: • The Real TOPGUN | Robe...
EPISODE 01 EXTENDED: • The Man Who Can Fly An...
EPISODE 02: • Seconds From Disaster ...
EPISODE 03: • Seconds From Disaster ...
EPISODE 04: • Hoot Gibson's Hangar #...
EPISODE 05: • The Man Who Can Fly An...
EPISODE 06: • The Man Who Can Fly An...
EPISODE 07: • The Man Who Can Fly An...
EPISODE 08: • TRAINING AND COMBAT. H...
EPISODE 09: • Shooting MiGs In Vietn...
EPISODE 10: • From The F-14 Tomcat T...
EPISODE 11: • The Space Shuttle Chal...
EPISODE 12: • Investigating Accident...
EPISODE 13: • Fatal Accident | Hoot ...
EPISODE 14: • Space Shuttle At Mach ...
FULL PLAYLIST: • The Man Who Can Fly An...
The Space Shuttle Atlantis (OV-104), at the time the youngest in NASA's shuttle fleet, made its third flight on a classified mission for the United States Department of Defense (DoD). It deployed a single satellite, USA-34. NASA archival information has identified USA-34 as Lacrosse 1, a side-looking radar, all-weather surveillance satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Atlantis' Thermal Protection System tiles sustained extensive damage during the flight. Ablative insulating material from the right-hand solid rocket booster nose cap had hit the orbiter about 85 seconds into the flight, as seen in footage of the ascent. The STS-27 crew also commented that white material was observed on the windshield at various times during the ascent. The crew made an inspection of the shuttle's impacted starboard side using the shuttle's Canadarm, but the limited resolution and range of the cameras made it impossible to determine the full extent of the tile damage.
The problem was compounded by the fact that the crew was prohibited from using their standard method of sending images to ground control due to the classified nature of the mission. The crew was forced to use a slow, encrypted transmission method, likely causing the images NASA engineers received to be of poor quality, causing them to think the damage was actually "just lights and shadows". They told the crew the damage did not look any more severe than on past missions.
One report describes the crew as "infuriated" that Mission Control Center seemed unconcerned. When Gibson saw the damage he thought to himself, "We are going to die"; he and others did not believe that the shuttle would survive reentry. Gibson advised the crew to relax because "No use dying all tensed-up", he said, but if instruments indicated that the shuttle was disintegrating, Gibson planned to "tell mission control what I thought of their analysis" in the remaining seconds before his death.
Hoot Gibson’s Hangar, aviation’s premier podcast, hosted by America’s premier aviator, Hoot Gibson, “The Man That Can Fly Anything."
Don’t miss a single episode. Video podcasts air exclusively on Air2AirTV and aviation’s premier RU-vid channel - Dronescapes, producing aircraft documentaries, exclusive stories, and interviews from veterans, pilots, and aces, in their own words. WWII missions, Vietnam's stories, and much more!
Hoot Gibson’s Hangar audio podcast can be downloaded from all top podcast directories: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, TuneIn Alexa, Overcast, PocketCast, Castro, Castbox, Podchaser, and many more.
You can also download the audio podcast on Air2AirTV by clicking on the RESOURCE tab below each episode.
#spaceshuttle #nasa #disaster

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18 мар 2023

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Комментарии : 790

@Dronescapes Год назад

Watch ALL Hoot Gibson's episodes at: ru-vid.com/group/PLBI4gRjPKfnO5CF3r1r0FHXLAytdsO-J-

@deoglemnaco7025 Год назад

Which crew was braver, you think?

@Dronescapes Год назад

@@deoglemnaco7025 hard to rank bravery. I think all astronauts and test pilot always know there is a massive risk for failure. Have you heard of Eric "Winkle" Brown, who was a test pilot?

@deoglemnaco7025 Год назад

@@Dronescapes no. But I think the crew of the challenger were braver. But only by a little bit. They have a song I think.

@knuthamsun6106 Год назад

it’s amazing to think that men like these will be excluded from future NASA missions simply because they’re white

@Dixy3 Месяц назад

I think all astronauts and cosmonaut's are very brave for sitting on one of the biggest fireworks to launch them into space. @Dronescapes did you manage to find out if NASA made a simulator so the public could experience the shuttle launch and landing on a game system or PC? I wonder if Frank Bauer KA3HDO ever considered making this software program to help children and university students consider joining NASA and Human Space Flights?

@robrobinette Год назад

I flew as Hoot's first officer at Southwest Airlines. He's a super nice guy and really is as genuine as he seems.

@Dronescapes Год назад

Wow 👍👍😎

@davidharrison7014 Год назад

Yes he is.

@abundantYOUniverse Год назад

That is fantastic thanks.

@kevinpenner7125 Год назад

He sure sounds like it. A cool headed thinker.

@cor2250 Год назад

Yes he is , he give me a candybar

@mclarenscca Год назад

I remember hearing about the tile damage of STS-27 on the news. At the very least, there was transparency with that. My biggest issue is, NASA should've learned from this incident, and should've done something about it. One accident is somehow acceptable in NASA, but when Columbia disintegrated entering the Earth's atmosphere, I myself was pissed off! Especially when we knew about STS-27! There's simply no excuse, none!!!!!

@jaybee9269 Год назад

Absolutely right, man!

@conorlauren Год назад

This is the human side: normalization of deviance There is no way Atlantis should have survived it. But Atlantis did. The survival gave engineers and admin some confidence instead of fear. The interpretation was that the Shuttle was just that much more robust and could take a beating.

@LuciFeric137 Год назад

Agree. Challenger and Columbia was manslaughter at least.

@richard1472 Год назад

@@LuciFeric137 I'm going to go with negligent homicide.

@josephdupont Год назад

Can you imagine if these people who handled this shuttle flight had to deal with Apollo 13 they all would have died

@GodlikeIridium Год назад

"No. There would have been to many people to punch" 😂 He is very lucky to be alive. Glad they were lucky and came down safely 👌 Great interview!

@Dronescapes Год назад

Thank you Ricardo. If you liked his interview, do not miss his other episodes at: ru-vid.com/group/PLBI4gRjPKfnO5CF3r1r0FHXLAytdsO-J-

@user-cc1rr7lg7x Месяц назад

I would rather be Lucky Than smart

@garrystubbs4891 26 дней назад

*too many

@bigal1863 Год назад

"The man who could fly anything"! That reminds me of the line from Apollo 13 when James Lovells mother said "if they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it." Astronauts have always been my heroes. The good Lord rode all the way.

@bobdionne4625 2 месяца назад

That exact scene constantly resonates with me as well.

@cortchase5591 2 месяца назад

I met Hoot when he was hired as an expert witness on a case that i was working on. He is most definitely the most interesting man in the world. A very kind gentleman as well.

@voodoochild1975az 2 месяца назад

Nothing but respect for astronauts. Not an easy job, but DEFINITELY the coolest job there is.

@Echowhiskeyone Год назад

This proves what I have said for a long time. If no one dies and/or nothing big gets destroyed, all is good, don't worry about it. Safety comes into question only after something bad happens, like Challenger and Columbia and Apollo 1.

@mckeevertom1927 Год назад

When people used to ask me why there wasn't much coverage of the later missions I would reply because there was no accidents, explosions, death. That's what most people care about

@mclarenscca Год назад

@@mckeevertom1927 sad, but true! Take automotive racing as a prime example of this!

@stefanl5183 Год назад

@@mclarenscca "automotive racing as a prime example of this!" As a motorsport fan, I can tell you this is a common misconception. True race fans NEVER want to see anyone injured or killed. They tend to develop a strong attachment to the drivers and seeing anything bad happen to them is heartbreaking.

@michaellange6598 Год назад

@jdb3160 Год назад

Regulations are written in blood.

@gecko-sb1kp Год назад

I've read about that story several times. Just how close STS-27 came to disaster but this is the first time I've heard it from the man himself. And 'Hoot' is so right; the shuttle program would have ended in 1988. The best decision NASA made was to put that white elephant to bed before it happened a third time. Those orbiters were pelted with debris on every single launch...

@LuciFeric137 Год назад

Yes. The stack configuration was inherently flawed

@gecko-sb1kp Год назад

@@LuciFeric137 It all comes down to the lowest bidder and not being allowed to have the best. Pay a little, cry a lot. And trying to pay for themselves quickly was a recipe for disaster. I think the shuttles themselves performed beyond expectations. All things being equal. But imagine a piece of foam insulation slamming through the orbiter's windshield and into the cockpit during Max-Q...it could have happened...

@FlyAgaric525 Год назад

@@gecko-sb1kp still, the shuttle was way more successful than the apollo missions.

@paulefstathiou1819 Год назад

@@FlyAgaric525 ; what ? Really ?! Are you sure about that ?!?!?

@barkvarkie_fpv8623 Год назад

@@FlyAgaric525 I would say you should explain that comment?

@JustMe00257 Год назад

Great interview! Apart from the technical issues with the vehicle, I reckon the leadership aspects put forward by Hoot are very interesting. As a pilot, I find it quite common for people who are not putting their bacon on the line to try and make you take an inappropriate course of action. The communication breakdown was most amazing: they chose to disregard the crew's concerns although the astronauts were highly trained and experienced professionals. I guess the balance of power favoured this type of behaviour, as Hoot said, because going against Mission Control would be damaging to your career. A relatively high number of candidates for a few astronaut spots... This was the case since the early days of the Apollo program. Gus Grissom knew the spacecraft was nowhere near ready but chose to remain silent to avoid losing his spot. When Wally Shirra went back to orbit on Apollo 7, he led his crew in a rebellion against Mission Control when he disagreed with them. He was going to retire anyway. His crewmates, however, never flew again...

@gecko-sb1kp Год назад

I think Wally Schirra demonstrated poor leadership on Apollo 7 . He had nothing to lose and was still bitter over the 'Block 1' Command Module design, but he shafted his crew. Even during training he frustrated his crew by always being late to work then sitting around for an hour drinking coffee...and of course, the all-rookie crew of Skylab 4 rebelled against Mission Control and none of them ever flew again...

@JustMe00257 Год назад

@@gecko-sb1kp Yes I couldn't put it any better. He had it easy indeed...

@paulpark1170 Год назад

@@gecko-sb1kpKris Kraft was a tough taskmaster

@gecko-sb1kp Год назад

@@paulpark1170 A crusty old demon but he didn't like Slayton. He certainly didn't like Carpenter. Walt Williams despised Cooper but Gene Kranz liked everyone and was just happy to be there...

@sidv4615 Год назад

@@JustMe00257what planes have you flown during your career?

@dazuk1969 Год назад

How they made it back with all those damaged and missing heat tiles is a miracle. Let's just be thankful they did.

@lucasRem-ku6eb Год назад

Narad didn't tell them anything, goof follower, army people in Space !

@olivergrumitt2601 Год назад

After their lucky escape on the 27th Shuttle flight, all the crew members would fly on the Shuttle again. That really shows how brave and courageous these men were and have my upmost admiration.

@Dronescapes Год назад

Well said Oliver

@Dronescapes Год назад

Perhaps you should be so lucky to meet someone like him. Are your implying that all pioneers and risk takes were stupid? Following that logic you would probably still ride a horse and would not be able to have a platform like this one.

@lucasRem-ku6eb Год назад

Same as F1 racers, drivers trust the agency !

@RandyAllen702 Год назад

Thank you Hoot for your brave service in our Shuttle Program. I appreciate your candor and honesty. Apparently ZERO lessons were learned from this experience and Columbia was subsequently lost because of the same NASA attitude. Nothing was done to enable replacement or repair of tiles while on mission. Hoot stated this himself. The attitude that the experts were on the ground and that you never argue with Mission Control was wrong too. No one flying a desk chair in Mission Control was going to die if a wheel came off of their chair. Regardless of whether or not anything could be done, Hoot should have sent high res images if he could have. Same goes for DOD and their satellite. No one in the Pentagon would have died either. This kind of attitude still pervades many government agencies that make stupid decisions because their livelihoods will continue to be funded by other people’s money no matter what. (I served in the Navy Submarine Force for 20 years and at no time did we do anything at depth that we treated as "routine" and every man on that ship was expected to speak up if he thought there was a "safety of ship" problem.)

@andrewhillis9544 Год назад

A MOST REVEALING AND QUITE AN EYE-OPENING DOCUMENTARY ! ! !👍

@kurtrain7560 Год назад

Always admired Mr. Gibson, recently found he lives very close to me. As a child he was one of my heros, to find that when not on professional business our heros live just as we do would have been unbelievable to , me at the age of eight. Godspeed Robert Gibson, and thank you for the years of service.

@c1ph3rpunk Год назад

Wow, I had no idea, the danger of organizational learning disorder. And what an excellent leader, his debrief was an honest evaluation of what he could have done better.

@giz02 Год назад

"Career limiting to argue with mission control" Also career limiting to not argue...

@Dronescapes Год назад

Good point

@thebeasters 25 дней назад

Life limiting

@gregrichards1601 14 дней назад

So the question is How important is your career? Do you roll the dice and keep your mouth shut or do you stand your ground and hopefully force an acknowledgement of a problem?

@guymerritt4860 5 месяцев назад

Absolutely fascinating. Glad he lived to tell the tale. I was relating this to my wife and had this thought: Given that NASA told him they had no idea what they would have done had they known it was tile damage I kind of wonder of they didn't know it was tile damage - and figured, given the circumstances, it was better to simply not tell the crew.....and hope for the best. I have a great, bootleg picture of Mission Control during a shuttle mission. For about four years I lived right across the street from The Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake. A buddy was an engineer over there an invited me to tour Mission Control during a mission. I went in and took my Canon AE1. We were in this room that looks down over Mission Control and I was snapping away when some guy ran over and said, "Hey - didn't you read the sign?? No pictures!" Obviously, I had not seen the sign. 😃 I still have those pics. I don't know what the hell anybody ever could've seen from those pics. Basically, you could see the same thing on CNN or whatever. Living there was cool - I ran into Bob Crippen more than once shopping for groceries at Wingarten's Food Market in Clear Lake.

@bobdionne4625 2 месяца назад

😮 That's IT! I'm packing my furniture. I'm moving to the Cape baby

@daystatesniper01 Год назад

To those men and women who lost their lives on the two crashes RIP

@thomashong2938 Год назад

✅💯 And to those men who lost their lives on Apollo 1. RIP

@andyb.1026 Год назад

The first one was totally avoidable, Management assholes ignoring Engineers

@thomashong2938 Год назад

@@andyb.1026 🎯 Apollo 1. Challenger. Columbia. They were all avoidable.

@deoglemnaco7025 Год назад

Which crew was braver, you think? If you had to pick ONE. Which one?

@twocyclediesel1280 Год назад

@@andyb.1026 Absolutely, saturating the simulator with pure oxygen...just waiting for a spark. Even a dab of grease or oil could spontaneously ignite. It was so easily avoidable.

@charliechristie2949 Год назад

If at all possible, I hope there is some way you can get my message to Hoot Gibson and the crew of STS-27. I salute you in your self control during your communications with mission control. Knowing the resolution of encrypted video, the "ground" should have been more careful in their diagnosis of the tile problem. It is due to the attention to detail and downright resolve of brave commanders like yourself that our space program was and is so successful. I thank God you all returned home unscathed and I salute you from the bottom of my heart........P.S. There is one unwritten law of aviation any aviation that sorely needs to be changed. " Never bark at those in control on the ground"

@twocyclediesel1280 Год назад

Wow, So glad STS-27 made it back OK. Can’t imagine the feeling of watching and waiting, knowing how bad the damage was. Welcome home Sir, and thank you!

@johnschaefer2238 Год назад

Great interview Hoot was not interrupted by the interviewer except for a few times with very good questions! I admire all the astronauts. Now we hear that Artemis 2 scheduled for next November and a 10 day mission past the moon and back and I’m worried. Wouldn’t the best course of action be an Apollo 7 like mission for Artemis 2 instead? Test the first crewed Artemis mission in low earth orbit just to make sure everything goes okay and if not have them within hours to get back to earth instead of days? I’m a retired network systems engineer and have had problems with routers, switches and complex equipment that we hadn’t expected to mess up! Just my take anyone else think my concern is justified?

@Travisesty 2 месяца назад

Awesome awesome video!!! Learnt so much and I’m glad Hoot is one of the best Shuttle pilots-Astronauts we’ve ever had Thank you

@MarvelousLXVII Год назад

He is about the calmest astronaut I have ever seen. I think if I had to fly the shuttle he would be one of my top picks for commander. The other two would be John Young and Bob Crippen.

@robinm1729 Год назад

A lot (most?) astronauts are like that (calm).

@PoorBoyPennyShow 10 месяцев назад

HES LYING HIS ASS OFF

@lukestrawwalker Год назад

The Columbia disaster laid bare the fragility of the shuttle tile Thermal Protection System (TPS). I've handled actual shuttle tiles, and they're basically glass foam, almost chalky in consistency, like those bricks of astronaut ice cream they sell at the NASA visitor centers. You can easily dent them with your finger or scrape a trench in one with a fingernail, about like styrofoam. The fragility of the TPS on the shuttle restricted the flight rules considerably-- for instance a shuttle couldn't launch in the rain or with rain at the abort sites, because an orbiter flying through the rain, the raindrops would hit the tiles hard enough to damage them, like shooting a block of styrofoam with a BB gun or airsoft gun. The fragility also required the huge External Tank (ET) be covered with spray-on foam sufficient to prevent ice and heavy frost formation while fueled on the pad prior to liftoff-- if one looks at the old pad camera footage of the Saturn V liftoffs (and many other rockets of that era) one can see a veritable BLIZZARD of ice and frost shaken loose and falling off the rocket down onto the pad as the engines fire up and the vehicle begins to vibrate and shake from the engines firing up, and then from movement through the air as air drag peels it off. All that falling ice and frost would damage the fragile TPS on the orbiter. Other missions had come back with tile damage, some of it pretty bad, but fortunately for those crews it was in non-critical areas-- one shuttle did experience a belly burn-through of the aluminum skin of the shuttle under the tiles and felt blanket they were attached to, which actually burned a good-size hole in the aluminum skin under the tiles; by fortunate happenstance the hole was in an area of the shuttle that was non-critical-- no delicate wiring or hydraulics were damaged and it was far enough from any structural ribs or spars to not compromise the actual structural strength of the orbiter. BUT it was a clear warning that tile damage was a real problem. Unfortunately little was done about it, it was considered a "normal risk" for the shuttle. After the loss of Columbia and her crew to the damaged TPS on the left wing, the entire TPS problem was revisited. Basically after a couple years of study, it became apparent that basically NOTHING could be done to alleviate that risk-- it was simply inherent in the shuttle's existing design and materials. Various things were looked at, but ultimately too heavy or too expensive or simply didn't reduce the probability sufficiently for the cost in dollars and performance of the vehicle. Some fixes WERE done, like eliminating the foam frost ramps that had detached and doomed Columbia and replacing them with heaters that prevented the formation of ice and frost. But even these fixes only addressed parts of the problem, and not the entire problem. SO that's part of the reason that the decision was made to retire the shuttle.

@724bigal Год назад

Very interesting, my father-in-law worked at the Michu plant which produced 75 external tanks during the shuttle program. He told me the reason for the foam failure on the tank that killed Columbia was because of a environmental decision to use a environmentally safe foam that didn’t stick to the tank as good as the formula used earlier in the program.

@rays2506 Год назад

The tiles had nothing to do with the loss of Columbia. That 1.5 pound piece of thermal insulating foam became dislodged from the External Tank (ET) and struck the LEADING EDGE of the left wing of that Orbiter. Traveling at more than 600 mph, that piece of foam punched a 1 square foot hole in the leading edge, which is made of a carbon-carbon composite material. It is NOT made of tile material. Hot gas entered the interior of the wing through that hole and overheated the internal aluminum structure to the point that aerodynamic forces during entry tore the wing off the Columbia. NASA's space shuttle made 133 successful entry descent and landings (EDLs). The two shuttle disasters had nothing to do with the tiles. Side note: My lab developed and tested numerous versions of the shuttle tiles during the conceptual design period of that program (1970-71). We also designed and built the high temperature graphite heaters that were used to test the carbon-carbon leading edge panels in the laboratory.

@lukestrawwalker Год назад

@@rays2506 I should have specified the RCC panels wrt Columbia, true enough. I never said the tiles were responsible for Columbia. Glad you clarified though, thanks, I e want as succinct as I should have been

@jfbeam Год назад

The true lunacy is that every tile is different. It's not as simple as carrying a bag of legos to replace damaged or missing tiles. They'd need to damn near carry a complete orbiter with them to have the correct replacement. They can take a good bit of damage and still do their job, as the tiles are orders of magnitude thicker than they need to be. The added weight of even a crude patch kit would be a tough sell. (they already stopped carrying the "remote control" cable because of the mass and storage space.)

@jj4791 19 дней назад

The entire concept behind the space shuttle is/was flawed. You've got wings on a spaceship. And non-throttle, no shut down having solid rocket boosters made of similar stuff they put in conventional ordinance for boom-boom, on a manned aircraft. Like wtf? What was wrong with Apollo, again? Nobody died on Apollo and it was far riskier, and had a far heavier payload. (Lunar command module, Rovers, Skylab). What was wrong with landing rockets backward, like the lunar lander!

@MrGigaHurtz Год назад

It's a bad system when people can't have open and honest discussions. If it's bad form to push back on Mission Control because of the open line they need an encrypted line for open discussion. In my professional career I've gotten into many arguments but among mature professional adults they almost always end constructively with the team being in a better place

@jj4791 19 дней назад

The greatest Irony of American opposition to Nazi Germany and the USSR is that she inevitably became them. The philosophical comedy of Kennedy claiming the US would be the first to put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth. Just to prove the American way of life, then to go about it by extortionate taxation, inhibition of freedom, massive government spending and waste into communist-like government organizations such as NASA, it just makes you go "huh?" 😮😂

@harvkidable Год назад

That intro was simply incredible omg

@almac2598 Год назад

I spent a full career in the Royal Navy working on aircraft (best of both worlds). Because it is a given that damage will occur to ships and aircraft in action, considerable thought has been given to Battle Damage Repair to both ship and aircraft, using experience gained in various conflicts and a lot of what if scenarios. Materials, toolkits and training is provided, the training being on a very regular basis. And this is in a reasonably benign environment compared with re-entry from orbit. I've never understood the attitude of NASA over what I perceive to be a serious ommision, that is, the lack of planning for inspection and repairs in orbit. Because with certainty, if it flies or floats, sooner or later it will be damaged and require a repair. On a brighter note, thanks for sharing an informative chat.

@jj4791 19 дней назад

It is communist mentality. "We have the best social system and the best and brightest people, therefore we are infallible" Every Government funded organization is de-facto political. And political correctness stands is opposition to factual correctness.

@anthonyblacker8471 Год назад

19:00 so that's the point right? There was no contingency plan for lost tiles! Every one of those tiles were individual. No 2 were alike, just like fingerprints. It's not like they carried a complete backup set of tiles numbered to a grid planned out JUST IN CASE! No way, and so yeah, what do we do otherwise? Stop at the ISS that wasn't ready (I don't think) and wait for the other shuttle to come get them? Or what? Man it's amazing how fate saved them. What a great story, I'd love to have spent an hour with Hoot picking his brain about that experience. Thanks for sharing this great interview!

@okankyoto Год назад

ISS was still over a decade away, and they'd need an extra tug to move the space shuttle to that different orbit (its why they choose the inclination at launch instead of after orbit insertion- more energy needed than they have). As he mentioned, heat shield patches were investigated. Prior to budget caps, there was supposed to be a standard procedure for fixing tiles in orbit, but it was later moved to nonessential.

@cgn2570 Год назад

It's a huge problem in government. Knowing that dangers exist but do nothing about those dangers because the chances of those dangers happening is small.

@okankyoto Год назад

Considering the number of times it happens under corporate leadership too, it might just be an inherent blind spot in how human beings think when trying to operate together. Thats almost more depressing.

@cgn2570 Год назад

@@okankyotosadly most people don't get it nor do they care to . Perfectly said

@cgn2570 Год назад

@@okankyoto Government and business would save time and money if they hired efficiency experts to teach efficiency with safety to all employees . Like the saying goes, " If you see something say something ".

@MarkShinnick Год назад

I'm pretty confident that a new left leading edge segment Columbia repair would have been possible.

@jj4791 19 дней назад

Nah. They would have had to send up more oxygen, water, and food. And a Saturn V to bring them back.

@windycity1828 2 месяца назад

An enjoyable story, lovely chap 🎉

@derrickwallace8374 Год назад

Great interview from an iconic astronaut. With no repair facilities available, the situation is difficult. On viewing the tile damage, Mission Control could have agreed with Hoot and replied "Hoot, you are absolutely right, you are going to die" Plainly that would be unacceptable, but other than trying to make a more "gentle" re-entry as Hoot put it would be unlikely to change the outcome. Also, as Hoot said, they lucked out because there happened to be metal and not aluminum behind the missing tile. The TPS system on the orbiter was one of the biggest problems that NASA faced in the Shuttle programme. The Columbia accident was caused by a piece of insulating foam from a support strut striking and penetrating the wing leading edge which was made from RCC (reinforced carbon carbon). Different from tile damage, but leading to a tragic outcome nevertheless. Space is a hostile environment and the crews who flew those Shuttle and all other missions are all heroes.

@grafhilgenhurst9717 Год назад

As Randy Swigert said to Jim Lovell in Apollo 13 (at least in the movie) "If they knew we were going to die, would they tell us?"

@JBofBrisbane Год назад

Aluminium is a metal, too.

@jimmerrill5471 Год назад

Hard to believe no plan B for heat shields.

@maggiealena Год назад

I believe Hoot, you we're the best solution for the situation at the time. Your experience saved all of you. You seeing the damage first hand prepared you for what followed in reentry. Had it been one of the other astronauts, you just would not have known personally to make that call. I'm glad it worked out well. I hope NASA learned something. You can never have enough communication. Especially critical mission that are life and death.

@JohnnyGoodTimer 2 месяца назад

Mad respect for people who are accountable.. and for him to say it’s partly his fault for not acting upon the broken tile makes me trust his decision making as weird as it sounds.. respect for real

@zenzen9131 Год назад

Excellent video. Thanks for sharing it with us :)

@Dronescapes Год назад

Thank you too!

@JoeBlow-bd1eg 3 месяца назад

Mike Mullane's book is excellent, I HIGHLY recommend. One reason that wasn't explained, they weren't quite as worried about a reoccurrence because the ablative material came off because that particular cover had been sitting during the Challenger aftermath.... It shouldn't have been used.

@mrjaycam18 2 месяца назад

For those googling the title of the book is “Riding Rockets”

@GeorgeFL Год назад

Awesome interview! thank you 👍👍

@Dronescapes Год назад

Glad you enjoyed it!

@ATMAtim Год назад

Thanks, Hoot, for a very nice interview.

@Dronescapes Год назад

👍

@James-kk8dw Год назад

What a great interview!

@Dronescapes Год назад

Thank you!

@tryithere Год назад

I still can’t believe they thought it was a good idea to have 100% oxygen level pressurised yet as the atmosphere on Apollo 1. All those engineers and none of them said that makes everything extremely flammable.

@floridanews8786 Год назад

This was an awesome interview.

@Dronescapes Год назад

thank you

@srinitaaigaura Год назад

In my decade of working the most important lessons I've learnt are that 1)An organization's deepest and most chronic problems are always the fault of those at the top. 2)To make matters worse, most importantly no one at the bottom can really save top management from themselves if they're determined to choose doom. 3)Many failures are obviously seen and known for a very long time before they actually sink the ship, however top management will mysteriously do everything, everything else, except the one obvious solution that everyone knows would have saved the organization. 4) When the organization's goals become defined by bean counters and public image experts going against their real purpose, that is the beginning of the decline 4)And the ultimate lesson? The most important lessons of truth are only learnt when someone dies. Until then people are totally willing to look the other way. Fear of death is mankind's greatest teacher, but it is also the harshest teacher. And 5) Listen to the engineers dammit! Science and physics never lies.

@abbottmd Год назад

a riveting story, and well-told

@Dronescapes Год назад

🙏👍

@MorganBrown Год назад

Great interview!

@josephstevens9888 Год назад

An excellent interview!

@Dronescapes Год назад

🙏

@davidharrison7014 Год назад

I met Hoot Gibson back in 2019, and he too, told me that he thought he and his crew weren't going to make it through re-entry.

@NJDEVILz86 8 месяцев назад

That is being a whisker away from being a statistic to management

@dvgebhart Год назад

Hoot’s a great man!👍Bravo brother!!

@Dronescapes Год назад

👍👍👍

@stephenconnell2689 2 месяца назад

Could Astronauts do any emergency repair to the tiles while in space. They needed some emergency patch kit that could be applied to at least give them a better chance. I can't believe they didn't try something. So great to hear from real Astronauts about it. Thank you sir, you're a real hero.

@ouiroc 2 месяца назад

I can't believe the show that was not overloaded with the set of balls it had in it of these Great Men

@sailingfromswitzerland Год назад

It's really sad to hear that disagreeing with Mission Control is STILL career-damaging. I thought the first disaster taught them over-confidence and the negative consequences of not listening to concerns from the crew/team, as opposed to only listening to "management". And, then to hear that they basically didn't do anything to address how to deal with tile damage, seemed like foreshadowing to their 2nd disaster. I guess hindsight is 20/20, but still sad to hear that things still haven't changed. In the commercial aviation industry, they actively encourage subordinates to speak up to the Captain when they feel something isn't right. Why hasn't that translated to NASA?

@olivergrumitt2601 Год назад

That is exactly what former astronaut Mike Mullane wrote about in his book “Riding Rockets”.

@phill.2924 Год назад

I agree completely.

@BirdsOfGlass Год назад

I wonder if it had something more to do with certain government agencies being involved vs nasa itself?

@tonyknight9912 Год назад

What a really interesting interview.

@Dronescapes Год назад

Thank you

@8252001Maverick Год назад

Oh wow! I was not aware of the incident with STS-27. Shocking!

@understandingautism1389 Год назад

Great story I love Hoot he’s awesome. I just wish nasa would of taken the material braking off and hitting the shuttle more seriously after this would of avoided Columbia. Still don’t get why they did nothing after this!

@citizenblue Год назад

Yes! He's a hoot

@mckeevertom1927 Год назад

He knew that if he argued with Mission Control he'd have been treated like Scott Carpenter

@57Jimmy Год назад

Because those in charge are like a flock of Ostriches and their cubicles are nothing more than holes in the sand where they only have to convince themselves that it’s all good to go. If they think that then strap their own asses next to the Shuttle commander when that guided bomb lights up!

@codymoe4986 Год назад

@MckeeverTom...This incident and Carpenter's is apples and oranges, don't ya think? Unless you can intelligently defend Carpenter's actions, which were conducted against the advice of mission control, and that endangered his own life and mission success? I mean, they said to stop using maneuvering fuel to sight see, he didn't, and ran out...

@mckeevertom1927 Год назад

@@codymoe4986 Carpenter was wrong.

@JohnDoe-tx8lq Год назад

If there had been a disaster, the original photographs would have been lost forever and the ground crew would have said: 'There was no evidence of any tile problems before re-entry, we looked carefully and there was no damage..." 🤨

@marktadlock5428 Год назад

It's good,that he was smart enough to monitor the damaged area.

@joergwiesmann4261 7 месяцев назад

....YOU are soooo kinde man .... l only can BIG COMPLIMENT !! I could not finde the real needet words !! Kinde regards from very ,,smal,, man in Swirzerland !! God bless YOU !!!

@marksmith8667 2 месяца назад

As an interested observer of NASA from Mercury on, and I sound like an armchair engineer here, so apologies in advance - I always thought the tiles idea was terrible. So fragile given the stresses being put on the wing. And what amazes me to this day is that management didn't seem to listen to those engineers who expressed concerns about the tiles. As a result, good people flew to their deaths. Terrible terrible safety management concerns ignored over the whole life of the program.

@sham421 Год назад

For me the most shocking revelation here is that the Columbia accident was allowed to happen after STS27.

@randyharmon280 Год назад

STS-27 didn't have a Painted (White) External Tank... But I had no idea about this Level of Tile Damage on any Mission prior to STS-107 Thankfull the Crew Survived That Trip !!

@okankyoto Год назад

Probably a good thing they stopped flying the painted tank- foam still shed but it stuck together in larger chunks. Also during ascent at hypersonic speeds the paint layer tended to come off and splatter on the windows. Looked cool though!

@robinm1729 Год назад

Only STS-1 & 2 had white tanks.

@klsc8510 Год назад

@@robinm1729 You are right!

@kenkremer2581 Год назад

@@okankyoto Analysis showed that the paint on the ET did nothing to prevent the foam from falling off!

@kevinpenner7125 Год назад

Great video, thanks.

@Dronescapes Год назад

Thank you for watching Kevin

@kurtrain7560 Год назад

I know my job hasn't the importance of N A S A , but I fully understand the communication problem Mr Gibson is referring to.

@MRantzWI Год назад

Wow. Amazing story. Same as many others here, I had heard of tile issues with another flight, but ...my God, I never realized that it was this bad. I think many prayers were used up that day when the crew returned safely home. Thank you for sharing, and Thank You Hoot Gibson for your service and for your bravery !!! Of course, the same thanks and gratitude to all those before and after Mr. Gibson as well.

@gramps5157 Год назад

Great story, great story teller.

@Dronescapes Год назад

Thanks so much!

@aaronyork3995 Год назад

Wonderful interview

@Dronescapes Год назад

🙏🙏👍

@bellerosecooks7038 2 месяца назад

Not only did you have a wing and a prayer, but a prayer on your wing. 🙏

@ryanschweikhardt Год назад

The shuttle is the perfect example of how to over engineer a bad idea

@m16ty Год назад

The original idea was to make low earth orbit space fight almost as simple as taking a airplane flight, I'd say that is a great idea. Their problem was is they never got even remotely close to making the original program goals a reality. You are right though, they engineered it and re-engineered it, but they never could reach program goals. A argument could be made that they should have been smart enough to realize during the design stage that they would never reach their goals.

@ryanschweikhardt Год назад

@m16ty there are ideas and then there is the practical application of them

@joshs2795 Год назад

@@m16ty the design was too ambitious for the technology available at the time, they never should have tried to make a space plane

@m16ty Год назад

@@joshs2795 I agree with that, but even when better tech came available the refused to implement it, obviously due to cost. We started the space program mounting a capsule on top of a rocket that transports people to and from space and here we are now, right back where we started. Was the shuttle program worth the cost and loss of life? I'll let others decide that, but on paper it doesn't look good.

@svirrsvarr Год назад

They knew the risks early on but the shuttle was needed for big military satelites so the crew safety was negleted.

@Machria23 2 месяца назад

What a hoot of a story!

@glider1157 Год назад

Hot mission for Hoot. A proof that those who are in charge won't tell you anything about if it could come to a fail. The bigger the money they make the bigger the fake they take.

@petermariner6323 Год назад

STS-107 must give Hoot the chills. Seems they learned nothing.

@Dronescapes Год назад

Space is dangerous. Imagine the 1,000 different potential fail points any mission has. Astronauts are aware of the risks, that is why they are in a different league compared to most of us. Imagine test pilots!

@kurtrain7560 Год назад

Fascinating podcast.

@Dronescapes Год назад

Thank you

@bob19611000 Год назад

The other event on that mission was the cooling system was almost trashed due to a malfunction of the ground support unit after landing. Certainly not crew life threatening but it would have resulted in an extensive overhaul if not a complete decommissioning of that Orbiter.

@richardc488 Год назад

Thanks Hoot

@Dronescapes Год назад

🙏 Do not miss the new episode 4 that was just released 👍

@davidpeters6536 Год назад

I remember the reports about the tiles but the story went away with talk of a remedy, which I now know was the booster rocket heat shielding material, not the tiles. Those guys were so lucky. RIP Columbia crew.

@PacificAirwave144 Год назад

I remember Hoot at the Reno air Races. His Mig-21 and his crew assistants. One assistant was all sorts of form-over-function.... A few pictures, and I knew he was eyes-on-task. 'Sorry honey, I've got to stay focused now....' Who owns that Mig-21 now?

@paulbecker2271 Год назад

I didn't know Hoot flew a Mig-21 at Reno, but it could have been N20739, based at Reno, but I don't think that plane is flying anymore, it was damaged in 2013. N20739 was owned by Joe Gano out of Delaware. Could this have been it?

@wagonerjared Год назад

Interesting thing is the boosters were designed fine the first time. NASA misused them and launched outside their allowable design and went gee golly darn it. Tried and basically succeeded to pass the blame onto Morton Thiokol. I would have told NASA to take a hike.

@okankyoto Год назад

Its even sadder- the SRBs had been redesigned with filament-wound cases for the Vandenberg launches, and part of the changes to account for the colder coastal temps in California were SRB joint heaters (that wound up in the post-Challenger redesign). Those heaters were set to be standard across the shuttle fleet and its likely had 51-L not had that failure, the O-ring issue was already being fixed.

@rayRay-pw6gz Год назад

They were under political pressure to launch. They had several aborts before this launch. The weather was to cold for the booster before launch , they took the risk. The cold o-ring failed and leaked hot gas causing the explosion.

@NawnyaBusinaz Год назад

“It’s not weaponry, we don’t put weapons in space!” Yeah it’s probably weapons.

@Dronescapes Год назад

😎

@johnwolf3294 Месяц назад

Wow, just wow

@BD-cu4cq Год назад

Thank you

@diego646464 Год назад

Fascinating !!! This guy is amazing. Nevertheless, he starts the interview by saying that morton thiokol did the most amazing job upgrading the boosters, that were not an issue ever again… and then, the nose cone of one of the boosters is the reason of a near catastrophic accident !

@jonesrick1 8 месяцев назад

Fascinating interview. I really enjoyed it, being a layman. It's really amazing the risks NASA will take with other people's lives, all in the name of space exploration. But the again, I suppose the Russians were even worse. And now we have the Chinese and Indians to pay attention to.

@Allan_aka_RocKITEman Год назад

@Dronescapes >>> Great interview...👍

@Dronescapes Год назад

Thank you

@walterbatista7594 Год назад

Awesome interview, Hoot Gibson is a legendary astronaut. Fortunately the mission did not end in tragedy. A solution to the loss of tiles had to be found. STS-107 did not have the same luck 😭

@donaldhoot7741 Год назад

Hoooooooot! Great video!

@Dronescapes Год назад

Thanks!!

@01261988733 Год назад

Hoot is one of the most complete pilots, he has flown almost anything. He has gone anywhere.

@tomandsamuel Год назад

Charlie Bolden who was a Shuttle commander and NASA administrator said that Gibson and John Young were the best pilots he met during his aviation career!

@timnel333 Месяц назад

Soon according to this video we can't even poop in peace. 😮

@floatthecreek Год назад

I hope Hoot makes to Oshkosh this year. I've always wanted to meet him.

@michaelwatson5804 2 месяца назад

Very interesting, glad I watched this because I could have sworn that at one point when the shuttle was just being transported it had lost a bunch of tiles during the flight, but I could never find the video of it until I watched this. Knowing what we know now it is amazing that flight made it back at all.

@Dronescapes 2 месяца назад

Glad it was helpful!

@johnryan2193 Год назад

Unbelievable that you could not argue the point with mission control, sounds like a recipe for future mess ups .if their egos are so big they should not be in the job .

@thewatcher5271 Год назад

Great Interview! I Hope Mr. Gibson Doesn't Mind That I Mention John Young's Autobiography, 'Forever Young'. He Writes About The Shuttle Program's Misgivings. Thank You.

@mickyday2008 2 месяца назад

What a great bloke

@jim5870 Год назад

I see art prints by Mike Machat on the wall!

@EstorilEm Год назад

It's interesting how everyone says "this is a huge problem in the government" and "oh, typical NASA" - I don't think they're seeing the entire picture, especially how it was back then after performing impossible tasks like Apollo / moon landings and the first shuttle program missions. They build and fly the most complex objects mankind has ever created. There are many unknowns, and beyond the issues with systems and engineering understanding relating to these objects flying in relatively unknown flight regimes, they're also figuring out the political and safety / communications side of things as well. There are massive political implications for high-profile NASA programs like the shuttle. Having said that, after Challenger, post-disaster team sociologists for NASA developed key safety management system components and theories which have forever changed aviation and spaceflight safety. In my opinion, the greatest of these is the term "normalization of deviance" which is now taught all over the world and especially in the aerospace industry. Granted, it took a second disaster for this term to really hit home, BUT it was the same root cause ("oh, the o-rings will be fine" and "oh, we've seen tile damage before") which caused both incidents. These days (and honestly, the whole time in a number of ways) NASA has published thousands of pages and documents on everything they do, even back to Apollo. I can't think of any other government agency (USA or otherwise) with that level of data transparency. Even having said that, they weren't (and aren't) going to be perfect. Their actual systems and protocols have certainly evolved, but again, they're operating the most complex objects ever designed, and it's just difficult to get everything perfect. If I was on one of those teams back then, if someone had a gun to my head and asked "well, will this kill them or not, based on what you've seen before... yes or no! And by the way, saying no will cost us millions in recycling the launch" I probably would have said "no, continue." Just like everyone else. Normalization of deviance - the shuttle disaster deaths and failures were absolutely not in vain. I was the safety officer for a WWII aircraft operator and had to teach hours of safety stand-down meetings for our crew - the stuff NASA developed was absolutely key to how I approached potential safety issues within our operation. God forbid anything ever happens with these types of operations, but if it does - I know it'll be due to an issue like normalization of deviance or something I focused tirelessly on with those meetings.

@m16ty Год назад

I agree with most of what you said, but I believe money played a part in some of the decisions they made. The whole shuttle program was always running behind schedule and over budget, it does seem like they rolled the dice sometimes in the name of schedules and money. I think they are also a little bit cocky after the success of the Apollo program and especially Apollo 13. After Apollo 13, there was a sense that there is nothing we can be faced with that we can't overcome. I don't doubt the capability of all the engineers and others that designed and ran the shuttle program, but they are always running on the ragged edge (Like Hoot said, they were allowed to launch without question at 100% design limit), and you'd think they needed even somebody on staff to at least say "maybe we should think about this a little more and see if we can find a better solution". On the mission in question, like Hoot said, they really didn't have any other solution other than for them to try to land. You would think they could have built a shuttle where pieces wouldn't fall off it during launch though.

@farsicalspeaking3356 Год назад

Yes, "normalization of deviance" did lead to the 2 shuttle disasters. But NASA nor the government invented the reality of "normalization of deviance." Look at all of the airplane accidents that occurred from the beginning of commercial flying. Thousands of crew and civilians and even people on the ground killed in plane crashes, and mankind didn't stop flying. Many times mankind didn't even pause flying the model planes that crashed to see if there was an inherent problem that needed fixing; that concept, pausing flights of similar planes after crashes is relatively recent. Planes crashed and yet tens of thousands of people got on planes because they needed to get somewhere and hoped that this plane wouldn't crash. Most countries had crash investigation boards like the US, investigations were done and took years sometimes to fix responsibility but only occasionally did a country's gov't order plane builders to actually fix mechanical or design problems or tell airlines to train mechanics of flight crews to do things differently. Seeing all of the videos on airline accidents, it's amazing how much bad engineering, bad judgements, mistakes caused by greed, etc. were allowed by governments and by average citizens. Death from flying was just a given for the most part until the last decade or so, we tolerated it and kept flying. So while the Challenger and Columbia disasters were horrific, the deaths were/are staggering, and the human reasons the disasters happened and inevitable might seem unreasonable today, NASA actually had a level of rigid safety and a respect for the complexities of space that were not present for decades in basic aviation. A final point: seeing the aviation accident videos and reading the history of aviation I have been struck by the lack of outcry about the aviation industry' and government's lax attitudes about cockpit access. There were dozens of hjackings, there were numerous accidents caused by people committing mass homicide (and suicide), there were even bombings on commercial airlines. And no one, not our government or any other government or any airline took a step to simply lock cockpit doors to precent hijackings or to do decent screenings to prevent terrorist bombings until 9/11. September 11, 2001 was foreseeable and inevitable, almost invited by hundreds of thousands of people in the industry and world governments that decided not to do anything to prevent cockpit invasions or luggage area bombings. And the public kept flying every time another plane was hijacked, another pilot or passenger was murdered in-flight. That was "normalization of deviance" on a wide scale. And yet in the late 20th and early 21st centuries people damn NASA as callous, heartless, incompetent, and every other kind of monstrous people, and the resulting imperfect space vehicles as products of something more than just humans being humans.

@okankyoto Год назад

@@m16ty Also the Space Shuttle program was operating at a fraction of the money they had available for Apollo. And still trying to accomplish the same level of complex achievement. Its a remarkable testament to the engineers that despite those limitations, they were able to make it work. It didn't achieve its promises, but it did fill an important purpose.

@edsonmakiyi71 17 дней назад

Moral of the Story:- always carry extra tiles and adhesives on space missions .

@computerjantje Год назад

Great story. It tells us mainly how likely a next mission will be able to fail. If skilled people cannot discuss things at crucial moments because it could harm their carreer, and people responsible have only limited knowledge then there is something very very wrong with management. I blame the pressure of budget versus safety and speed. Only a culture change could change this but that won't be happening. That said, as long as astronauts realize the risk they are undergoing, it should be all fine. Are you willing to risk your life by going up in a maybe unsafe vehicle? I would without hesitation.

@pateva2003 7 месяцев назад

I'm wondering what could have the crew have done if mission control had taken Gibson's assessment seriously, could they have maybe performed a port side heavy re entry? That would've been tough since close to 800 tiles were damaged.

@TheDiego365 Месяц назад

Incredible that people at NASA didn't learn from this, Columbia could have been avoided too.

@MaryM-xz5fs Год назад

Very informative!

@jameshasenfus3412 16 дней назад

So NASA, you went to a stronger ablative and a weaker insulating foam. Brilliant move for the burocracy.

@magister61 Год назад

Lesson learned: Don't put the crew under the fallen debris, put them above the fallen debris as they are doing currently with SLS

@benrh1978 Год назад

What an amazing team. Such brave people I know I’m not brave enough to do what they have done/ do with there being many risks involved with space flight . With Columbia STS-107 they knew about the foam insulation strike on the shuttle at launch and discussed it with the crew but did they ever actually go looking for damage like STS-27 did?

@olivergrumitt2601 Год назад

No, because the crew was told the situation was not serious and they did not have to look for damage. They were told everything would be fine.