Engineering Assumption News Today

from space shuttle columbia as columbia continues to orbit the earth at an altitude of about 150 statute miles. columbia, houston, laurel, youre loud and clear on air to ground one. -the second day, i drive in to work kind of euphoric because another launch, another successful launch. you know, the flight directors office and the mission control center in houston is working with them. theyre -- everythings good. i walked into the analysis lab to start reviewing film from the launch. we...

-when we completed the analysis, none of the scenario showed a fatal outcome. -i felt some relief. i thought we were in good shape, i believed him. -thats what you want to hear. you dont want to hear, "were going to lose the vehicle." -whats missing in that is we should have had in boldface at the very beginning, "these are engineering assumption cases. we do not know without extra data whether these are actual representations of reality. a turnaround issue, what they meant was some level of rep...

It would cause localized heating, but no burn through, i believe were the words that they used. When we completed the analysis, none of the scenario showed a fatal outcome. I felt some relief. I thought we were in good shape, i believed him. Thats what you want to hear. You dont want to hear, were going to lose the vehicle. Whats missing in that is we should have had in boldface at the very beginning, these are Engineering Assumption cases. We do not know without extra data whether these are act...

Regularly than that? >> the one in a billion is a good figure. it comes right out of the faa handbook, its what we were taught at the academy. thats the way it works. but thats based on assumptions. thats based on engineering assumption and operational assumptions. so those assumptions, those figures, that billion, is only as good as the assumptions that we make. so if you look at the aloha accident. >> hawaiian airlines? >> yeah, aloha airlines, when the top of the aircraft came off, call it th...