I am a bit too young to really get to experience it since I was only five when the final space shuttle was launched in 2011 but I always saw it as the most beautiful space ship ever built for sure
@jonathanflugge3557 Not only was it obsolete.. it was never needed to begin with and a colossal waste of not only money.. but human lives. The Soviets showed that you didn’t need a shuttle to build a space station. Expendable rockets have been shown to be cheaper and more reliable. The Shuttle is the single reason we haven’t been back to the moon. Horrible horrible system with so many single points of failure that weren’t even realized during service. Like the zero survivable abort modes while the SRBs are still attached.. and a mere 5% thrust variance between the two is enough to destroy the entire stack. 40 years of going the wrong direction.
Reminds me of that Simpsons joke where a doctor commented on Mr. Burns health, saying that all his various ailments and diseases were competing against each other in a way that was so in balance that they were keeping him alive.
As an engineer, I've seen many cases where one bug/flaw hides visibility of other bugs/flaws, so that when you fix the first bug, the other ones pop-up, usually sequentially. But I have NEVER seen a flaw actually counteract/compensate for a second flaw. Very strange.
@@Jesus_Christ_loves_you_alot No, this was not a miracle. There is a logical explanation for what happened, and fortunately the chain of events did not lead to a disaster. What about the other 2 space shuttle disasters (Challenger in 1986, Columbia in 2003) ? Why wasn't there a much-needed miracle there ?
@@gregebert5544 You don't know if it was a miracle or not. God frequently uses mundane details for transcendent benevolence. What you're really asking is why bad things happen to good people.
@@DistracticusPrime It's common for people who are unable or unwilling to grasp reality (which could be anything from artistic to scientific) and attribute seemingly impossible events to God. Beethoven and Isaac Newton were both religious people, and both made unparalleled contributions to arts and science. But they, like many others, were brilliant people; their contributions were not miracles. At the other end of the spectrum, not long ago it was widely believed that lightning and eclipses were the wrath of God; we know beyond any doubt that is untrue.
I am also sure that there were many many more cases of flights being very close to a disaster where the public doesn’t have any idea of or even the NASA itself…. Just some unnoticed very very little problems, and circumstances and coincidences.
The shear number of successful missions point to the contrary. The program had problems but thus far there has not been a manned platform with more successful missions, with the least lose of life and vehicles and won't be for sometime. Sadly we will likely lose more astronauts too. Going to space is dangerous and never routine no matter how much it may seem in current times.
Luck had nothing to do with it. Manslaughter at least. NASA knew they had a wounded bird and did nothing. NASA has killed 17 astronauts due to negligence
@@jam98fl STS-51F: main engine failure. A second engine very nearly shut down and was overriden by a quick thinking ground controller. A 2 engine failure meant loss of crew and vehicle pre-Challenger. STS-27: severe heatshield damage. Looking at the post-mission footage of the thermal tiles is….eye opening.
It is interesting to listen to the flight controllers and crew on STS-51F, if I recall correctly a flight controller tells the crew to override the computer to prevent a 2nd engine shut down...as well as the ATO calls and procedures
The space shuttle is very sentimental to me. I was at the launch of sts 135, and it was one of the best days of my life. I'll never forget seeing Atlantis roar into the clouds.
Another miraculous escape a Space Shuttle experienced, this time Discovery, took place roughly a year before the Challenger disaster. On January 24th 1985, on a cold January day, Discovery was launched on mission STS-51-C. At first, it looked to be a textbook launch, but when the Solid Rocket Boosters were recovered and examined by engineers of the company that built them for NASA, a problem was discovered with the right booster. Around one of the field joints, they discovered signs of scorching. Worse still, they discovered that not all the O-Rings, which are supposed to seal the Field Joints with the ignition of the Solid Fuel, worked as they should have done. The cold temperatures prevented them expanding as they should have done. In actual fact, the O-Rings were only millimetres away from burning through completely. One engineer in particular, Roger Boisjoly, was so shocked at this, that when he tried in vain to stop the ill-fated Challenger takeoff, he presented pictures of Discovery's SRB's as proof of the danger to his colleagues in a conference call with NASA management
"Truth, Lies, and O-Rings" written by Allen McDonald, another of the engineers at Thiokol, is a fantastic, if somewhat infuriating read, about everything that went wrong from the technical side through the management side.
i've heard elsewhere that there was one dissenter for launching the mission, but when it came down to decision time, he eventually had enough doubt it was a mission critical problem that he didn't use his power to actually call off the missions, as any senior engineer had the power to do. he might have still had strong doubts, but without any backup, ultimately he didn't follow through. so close, and yet so, so far.
@@xymaryai8283 The entire decision on flying Challenger that morning became a lesson on "groupthink". A few years later I was attending a continuing education session on engineering ethics and it was one of our case-studies. By then most of the session participants had been active in the engineering profession for a few years and we all had (obviously less dire) experiences where pressures by the team had led some of us to stop raising our objections to something that just didn't work out by the numbers. I think it was particularly sobering to a few engineers who had been 'champions' behind groupthink and had badgered and berated other engineers in to agreeing to a more risky outcome. Of course you always have some co-workers or peers who just don't 'get it' and they continued their arrogant bullying ways. I had some grim satisfaction when I was the lone objector and the team took it the other way, only for it to result in a very expensive misstep that often killed a project or forced a complete re-design. Those types of engineers eventually 'promoted' themselves in to sales positions (thank god!).
This shows how, on that fateful day, a decent-sized group of engineers knew *EXACTLY* what had happened, the moment it happened! The tape showing the SRB plume was all the confirmation they needed..
@@xymaryai8283 I think you'll find there would have been tremendous pressure on him to ok the mission by people above him with no technical qualifications in the field he specialised in.
Something in development having issues isn't a fair comparison to something in active service having issues. An issue Starship has one flight could be fixed the next and it actually has an opportunity to get a true shakedown test and keep making changes till its right unlike STS@@davidrussell7530
Honestly, I see this as a testament to the sheer tenacity, and hubris, of mankind, and the effort, from the engineers and scientists, that went into these behemoth machines.
My grandfather worked for Rocketdyne back in the shuttle days. He left me some cool stuff when he passed, but nothing can compare to the stories he had.
2:39 Having gotten used to more modern rockets like Falcon 9 and Starship, it's crazy to think that losing one engine would have completely destroyed the whole vehicle. Meanwhile there's early Starship prototypes losing a half dozen engines on a test launch and just continuing on like nothing happened.
I've heard of this story many times but this animation really puts it into perspective while also being entertaining. Side note: Your Space Shuttle appears to be missing part of it's tail at 6:50
Damn imagine if nasa hadn't been forced to operate with a shoestring budget. Shuttle really was held together by bubble gum and duct tape. It's kind of endearing
At this point after the Cold War, that is true. Engineers were ordering parts from EBay and Amazon because the company that made the Shuttles (Rockwell International) in Downey CA was no longer.
"...forced to operate with a shoestring budget." I find your thought process extremely disturbing. BECAUSE they were operating at less that super generous funding levels you think it is JUST PEACHY KEEN to risk lives and not do required maintenance on a MAN RATED system. Launching when you KNOW you are not doing your best and "hoping" things turn out. That precise attitude is what killed everyone on TWO lost shuttles. "It's kind of endearing." That is just sick. Congrats.... you may be qualified to be a NASA manager. "If only we had more funding we wouldn't have to unnecessarily risk peoples lives...."
@@phlogistanjones2722 no part of my comment means any of what you saidit means. I'm not brain dead obviously mismanagement is fucking dumb my dude. God forbid I make a half joking comment in passing about the dark irony of the situation on the internet without some random person that literally doesn't know me from the next guy assuming they know my take on the actuality of what these circumstances mean for the people with their lives on the line. Relax it's the youtube comments section
When you said about the engines ripping them selves apart I pictured it and ending in a challenger style explosion,but I’m so thankful that those other problems saved the crew
Just the other day, mechanic was changing break pipe on my car, it got damaged and started to leak, but to my interest he started cutting some old rubber pipe in small peaces and putting it around the pipe in all random areas. I asked why? he said to support it so it would not vibrate so much and not ware out so fast. Now it amazes me how is that eave possible that the engineers in NASA have overlooked such a detail. You live your life and don't even know how many detail are responsible for your existance/nonexistance.
I really love these kinds of videos that go in depth about problems, and it is really interesting to see how two problems that are catastrophic just saved the lives of 5 people. Thank you Primal Space!
The space shuttle is like a distant relative to me, my rocketry coach worked on the space shuttle designs and the ISS designs so sometimes he pulls out blueprints for us to see and it is SO COOL.
That example captures how marvelous machine the space shuttle is, even if a possibly lethal problem occurs, if the engineering and technology won't save you, luck sometimes can 😅
It's broke my heart that I won't be able to see one of these taking off. Space shuttle was one of the most beautiful machines ever made. Thank you for this amazing video.
Twice I tried to replicate the Space Shuttle in Kerbal Space Program. I learned a lot about asymmetric thrust vectors and dynamic balancing, but never could make it work without cheating just a little. The more I delve into the engineering decisions, the more I appreciate the beauty of that machine.
Maybe if we see a crew-rated Dream Chaser, you'll get your chance at something not too far off... Too bad the cargo variant hides inside a fairing for launch!
Loved the explanation- very clear- I’m a system engineer I don’t think they were mere coincidences: sure there was a lot of luck involved, but the way in which the systems are redundantly designed is precisely to try and tackle this kind of situation: difference, checks, and balances
It was way crazier than this. The Main Engine Flight Controller recognized it as a nozzle leak shortly after staging but it was only 1/2 the level that the rules allowed to be modeled in the ground tracking software. At main engine shutdown, the Main Propulsion Flight Controller called, "LOX LOW LEVEL CUT!" One hell of a day.
This is crazy. I've never heard of this before. That Shuttle had one hell of a lucky escape. Thanks for bringing an amazing animation and such a cool story to the world!
Thank you for such an informative video. I had heard about this incident, but never realized 'till now of how dangerous it actually was. A stand alone pin should never have been the fix in the first place! Please make a video on the other 2 close calls.
I met Eileen Collins in October of last year, and she told me that she was trained in similar scenarios, and that she had no time to panic. She and her crew were able to work around the problem to get the Columbia into a slightly lower orbit than planned, but nevertheless were able to get the heavy Chandra X-Ray observatory into a high Earth orbit by using the IUS booster that was attached.
In my opinion, the Space Shuttle has been one the most important spacecraft to have ever existed! It was very complex, and unfortunately some mishaps happened, but these sacrifices were surely not vain. This spacecraft gave us an incredible deal of scientific data and... The ISS!! Actually, this is one of my favorite space ships ever.
It was a poorly designed spacecraft. It never should’ve been put into service. All of the things it did in space could’ve been done for less money and time with conventional rockets. It meant NASA couldn’t do anything beyond low-Earth orbit for 30 years. They should’ve developed from Saturn V instead and not scrapped it.
@@qasimmir7117133 successful missions, tens of thousands of orbital man hours, and more payload carried to and from space than any other manned vehicle program in history says otherwise. Every iteration of technology has to crawl before it can run, often times through dangerous territory. Those dangerous crawls give us the insights necessary to make those next steps better and safer. The STS may have been an engineering over-reach, but it was a significant one...and quite successful. Space flight has ALWAYS been incredibly dangerous, and while the shuttle program did suffer two tragedies, they were both tragedies of bureacratic negligence left unchecked. Say what you will about the shuttle program: but they put the very first orbiter in space on the first try without loss of life or equipment while "some" programs today are still trying to get their rockets into space without them coming apart. Attribute it to luck if it makes you sleep better at night, but all i see is alot of money being dumped into the hole just trying to get modern space programs back to a capability that was first achieved all the way back in the 60s. Most of it is fueled by a mentality similar to yours that says we should not iterate on what the STS program did...rather than learning from it and taking the next step.
Shuttle will always have a place in my heart. As a kid in the 80s and 90s, my room had wallpaper that looked like the blueprints to the shuttle. Grandma worked at Stennis (then called NSTL) in Bay St Louis and she gave me shuttle mission stickers now and then. Today my kids are interested in space too. My son is currently reading The Space Shuttle Operator's Manual. 😁
You wonder how the Russian equivalent compared....externally they looked very similar. The only time it flew was on the back of a Russian plane. How did the Russians get hold of the plans?.... Conspiracy theorists " maintain there is active collusion between the major powers.....all sides cooperate....the ruling power being a composite of deep government/s.....headed up by Israel/money power. So when the Syrian president flees Syria safely it is more likely pre-arranged....so technology is probably being passed onto China at this moment!. Politicians are actors with no allegiance to any country....Trumps multiple bankruptcies are hardly mentioned....there is certainly some low end trash in all governments.....makes no difference which party. That gargoyle Pelosi is obviously protected just for example.....no doubt Starmer the liar is the same....worse the blowhard Musk has been invited to the in-group With this stuff going on its a miracle they have got this far!!
I was at this particular launch. I remember hearing the non-standard callouts shortly after liftoff regarding the fuel cell readings and electrical issues.
I recently purchased the Lego Discovery shuttle, its beautiful, just like the real thing, the space shuttle, while dangerous and costly, was one of the greatest projects made by humanity, it allowed us to do so many things and see so many things, spaceflight wouldn't be the same without it.
I'm an avionics technician and install a lot of harnesses into aircraft, this is a great example of WHY installation requirements and regulations are so stringent. Many times have I seen chaffing wires that were in bad shape. I just can't imagine how that bolt got past inspection.
When I was in my teens, I had a book with the parts of the space shuttle and I was immediately amazed! Since the project has been cancelled, I can’t wait for a new successor to come along!
The space shuttle is very sentimental to me. It started flying when I was a kid and remember being eager to see the launches and landings on the TV news.
Well, now I know why they stopped building those things. Too much dangerous accidents like this one should've canceled the program, but I guess someone up there really liked those shuttles. Facinating disaster breakdown done in an interactive way. Amazing video!
The fact that 3 things went south at the same time but they just all happened to perfectly compensate each other out of sheer luck is really frightening. The shuttles were interesting but the engineering should have been improved multiple times instead of the hot-fixes they gave everytime. I guess they lacked money.
The Space Shuttle era was absolutely incredible! I Love seeing videos on missions like STS-41-B's untethered spacewalk. It truly paved the way for the future of space exploration!
Fantastic video! Primal Space's "The Space Shuttle’s Luckiest Escape" about STS-93 and the Columbia mission is incredibly detailed and well-researched. The explanation of the unexpected hydrogen leak and the subsequent challenges faced during the mission was both captivating and educational. Your ability to convey complex technical issues in an understandable and engaging manner is truly impressive. Keep up the great work, Primal Space!
The computers were trying to compensate for the loss. Yes it was burning more LOX but the computers goal was to maintain pressure not save fuel. 🤙✌️ great observation keep learning
You know what makes this particularly eerie? It is parallels between this and STS-51-F. Both missions saw the Shuttle endure unprecedented luck (STS-51-F saw an Abort-to-Orbit being implemented) and also marked the third-to-last EVER flight for that Shuttle overall too (STS-51-F was of course flown by Challenger), with each Shuttle flying only one more mission successfully before being destroyed in the follow-up.
This is one of these moment after and you sit at the bar subliminally questioning "absurdity" in life. to quote Julis Renard" Look for the ridiculous in everything, and you will find it." This event as a whole is both frightening and intriguing.
Ever since I was a kid, the Space Shuttle is one of the reason why I got fascinated with space travel. From the complexity of it's launch and landing I'm in awe of this awesome machine. Even though it has already been retired last 2011, I'm still replaying videos of shuttle's past videos and the people who made this awesome machine possible. How I wish I was able to see the launch in person.
Several shuttles were extremely lucky to not suffer damage like Columbia as it had been a known problem for large foam chucks to come off during launch.
What can you even really say about the Space Shuttle? Such an ironic vehicle that will leave so many countless memories to myself after all the time going to see it as a youngling. Miss it but always excited for the future
Space Shuttle is the most impresive thing that humans have made, it got us a lot of information about space with its travels but we had some loses with Columbia and Challenger disasters
It really isn’t the most impressive at all. It never shuttled between Earth and space. Everything it did could’ve been done with conventional rockets for much less money and time.
That really is some serious luck. Like, to have the opposite problem happen right after the first is crazy. And then it cancels itself out so the shuttle still made it, only off by 5m/s even. And the very idea that they found a single overtightened screw had been a part of this. That’s amazing.
Aren't you supposed to have 3 redundant sensor readings for mission critical data to cancel out the "bad" one by voting it off, instead of just averaging 2 deviated values where one could be way off? Also how come flight computer isn't doing projected fuel usage calculations and instead just compensating for lower pressure? So many questions
It’s crazy how sometimes something else needs to go wrong to make everything right in the end. The shuttle really was unique and inspiring vehicle and if its design wasn’t so flawed it probably could be flying today
Oh my gosh, you wouldn’t believe how much I love the Space Shuttle. It’s stylish design and snappy delivery if you know what I mean. I would really appreciate this poster.
Opinions on the Space Shuttle? - Shoutout to Incogni for making this vid possible, check them out here and get 60% off: incogni.com/primalspace
It was awesome. I watched the first HUBBLE fixed with my dad in '92. 👍 💯 🇺🇲
I am a bit too young to really get to experience it since I was only five when the final space shuttle was launched in 2011 but I always saw it as the most beautiful space ship ever built for sure
I miss the Space Shuttle. I guess it turned obsolete. It's iconic, though, and is what I'll always think of when people talk about astronauts.
@@Dulcimerist Wasn't obsolete it was retired by 2 jackass presidents.
@jonathanflugge3557
Not only was it obsolete.. it was never needed to begin with and a colossal waste of not only money.. but human lives.
The Soviets showed that you didn’t need a shuttle to build a space station. Expendable rockets have been shown to be cheaper and more reliable. The Shuttle is the single reason we haven’t been back to the moon.
Horrible horrible system with so many single points of failure that weren’t even realized during service. Like the zero survivable abort modes while the SRBs are still attached.. and a mere 5% thrust variance between the two is enough to destroy the entire stack.
40 years of going the wrong direction.
Reminds me of that Simpsons joke where a doctor commented on Mr. Burns health, saying that all his various ailments and diseases were competing against each other in a way that was so in balance that they were keeping him alive.
Beat me to it
The “Three Stooges effect”!
yes! So true!
Basically why blue whales don't suffer cancer. At least die because of it.
"Indestructible!...."
Imagine landing and hearing from some one that you almost God damn died because of a pin, but got saved because of a bolt
friendship ended with pins, friendship started with bolt
Emotion change like in scene in "THE DICTATOR - HIV Aladeen"
Now bros got beef with pins
Not the first time , at least on got the same problem that crashed Columbia , as the gap was smaller the shuttle survived
Absolutely terrifying. I can't even imagine how it would have felt to be a part of that mission.
As an engineer, I've seen many cases where one bug/flaw hides visibility of other bugs/flaws, so that when you fix the first bug, the other ones pop-up, usually sequentially. But I have NEVER seen a flaw actually counteract/compensate for a second flaw. Very strange.
It was God’s miracle
Huh
@@Jesus_Christ_loves_you_alot No, this was not a miracle. There is a logical explanation for what happened, and fortunately the chain of events did not lead to a disaster. What about the other 2 space shuttle disasters (Challenger in 1986, Columbia in 2003) ? Why wasn't there a much-needed miracle there ?
@@gregebert5544 You don't know if it was a miracle or not. God frequently uses mundane details for transcendent benevolence. What you're really asking is why bad things happen to good people.
@@DistracticusPrime It's common for people who are unable or unwilling to grasp reality (which could be anything from artistic to scientific) and attribute seemingly impossible events to God. Beethoven and Isaac Newton were both religious people, and both made unparalleled contributions to arts and science. But they, like many others, were brilliant people; their contributions were not miracles. At the other end of the spectrum, not long ago it was widely believed that lightning and eclipses were the wrath of God; we know beyond any doubt that is untrue.
It became obvious some years ago that the fact that any shuttle flight was not a disaster was more like a miracle than science.
So true.
I am also sure that there were many many more cases of flights being very close to a disaster where the public doesn’t have any idea of or even the NASA itself…. Just some unnoticed very very little problems, and circumstances and coincidences.
Makes sense, but failed two times...
So what you are saying is space travel essentially equates to just we blew a bunch of stuff up under this thing and recorded how far it went?
The shear number of successful missions point to the contrary. The program had problems but thus far there has not been a manned platform with more successful missions, with the least lose of life and vehicles and won't be for sometime. Sadly we will likely lose more astronauts too. Going to space is dangerous and never routine no matter how much it may seem in current times.
Seems Columbia used up all it's luck in this mission. Sad to know it was gone just a few missions later.
Also Atlantis is my favorite Shuttle!
This point is really sobering
Luck had nothing to do with it. Manslaughter at least. NASA knew they had a wounded bird and did nothing. NASA has killed 17 astronauts due to negligence
If they keep rolling dice, eventually it'll turn up a jackpot
Columbia was my favorite. 😥
I am old enough to remember when it first launched.
Mine's Discovery. Atlantis is the least favorite for me. Can I ask you why you like it the most?
Everyone's guardian angel was working overtime on that flight.
Absolutely.
Columbia STS-107 wasn't so lucky 😞
and the space shuttle ran out of its luck later
Were guardian angels taking the day off during challenger tragedy? Don't be silly, guardian angels don't exist
@@JonDoe-007 you must be fun at parties
A sobering thought: I consider this the LEAST extreme of the 3 shuttle ‘very near miss’ flights. The others being STS-51F and STS-27.
What happened on those 2 other flights?
@@jam98fl STS-51F: main engine failure. A second engine very nearly shut down and was overriden by a quick thinking ground controller. A 2 engine failure meant loss of crew and vehicle pre-Challenger.
STS-27: severe heatshield damage. Looking at the post-mission footage of the thermal tiles is….eye opening.
@@Alexander-the-ok holy cow! I never knew that the shuttle had an rs-25 shut down before mid flight
@@jam98flI believe it was the only time a shuttle aborted in-flight, with an abort to orbit.
It is interesting to listen to the flight controllers and crew on STS-51F, if I recall correctly a flight controller tells the crew to override the computer to prevent a 2nd engine shut down...as well as the ATO calls and procedures
This is the PERFECT example of how two wrongs make a right!
Two wrongs can make a right, but even when they do, you'll still be right for the wrong reason.
For sure!
@@carl8703 reminds me of how back in high school, I used to always use the wrong formula but still get the right result 🤣
@@El-Aziz_El-Jasimirelatable level goes 💯
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The space shuttle is very sentimental to me.
I was at the launch of sts 135, and it was one of the best days of my life. I'll never forget seeing Atlantis roar into the clouds.
Very cool!
I was there too. The cloud deck was so low, but I'll never forget that sound.
Another miraculous escape a Space Shuttle experienced, this time Discovery, took place roughly a year before the Challenger disaster. On January 24th 1985, on a cold January day, Discovery was launched on mission STS-51-C. At first, it looked to be a textbook launch, but when the Solid Rocket Boosters were recovered and examined by engineers of the company that built them for NASA, a problem was discovered with the right booster. Around one of the field joints, they discovered signs of scorching. Worse still, they discovered that not all the O-Rings, which are supposed to seal the Field Joints with the ignition of the Solid Fuel, worked as they should have done. The cold temperatures prevented them expanding as they should have done. In actual fact, the O-Rings were only millimetres away from burning through completely.
One engineer in particular, Roger Boisjoly, was so shocked at this, that when he tried in vain to stop the ill-fated Challenger takeoff, he presented pictures of Discovery's SRB's as proof of the danger to his colleagues in a conference call with NASA management
"Truth, Lies, and O-Rings" written by Allen McDonald, another of the engineers at Thiokol, is a fantastic, if somewhat infuriating read, about everything that went wrong from the technical side through the management side.
i've heard elsewhere that there was one dissenter for launching the mission, but when it came down to decision time, he eventually had enough doubt it was a mission critical problem that he didn't use his power to actually call off the missions, as any senior engineer had the power to do. he might have still had strong doubts, but without any backup, ultimately he didn't follow through.
so close, and yet so, so far.
@@xymaryai8283 The entire decision on flying Challenger that morning became a lesson on "groupthink". A few years later I was attending a continuing education session on engineering ethics and it was one of our case-studies. By then most of the session participants had been active in the engineering profession for a few years and we all had (obviously less dire) experiences where pressures by the team had led some of us to stop raising our objections to something that just didn't work out by the numbers.
I think it was particularly sobering to a few engineers who had been 'champions' behind groupthink and had badgered and berated other engineers in to agreeing to a more risky outcome.
Of course you always have some co-workers or peers who just don't 'get it' and they continued their arrogant bullying ways. I had some grim satisfaction when I was the lone objector and the team took it the other way, only for it to result in a very expensive misstep that often killed a project or forced a complete re-design. Those types of engineers eventually 'promoted' themselves in to sales positions (thank god!).
This shows how, on that fateful day, a decent-sized group of engineers knew *EXACTLY* what had happened, the moment it happened! The tape showing the SRB plume was all the confirmation they needed..
@@xymaryai8283 I think you'll find there would have been tremendous pressure on him to ok the mission by people above him with no technical qualifications in the field he specialised in.
"Two wrongs dont make a right"
This space shuttle:
the space shuttle: "observe"
Bro the sheer coincidence is insane ! Also i can't believe all these high quality videos are free on youtube thanks to u !
Thank you so much. I'm so glad that you enjoy watching them!
My godness, the STS was such a mess. What a miracle, that "only" 2 missions ended in disaster... Amazing video, thank you.
alexander the ok's recent video on the space shuttle's risk management process was an amazing watch
Starship seems to have its far share of issues TBF
@@davidrussell7530 flag on the play, unnecessary starship reference. 10 yard penalty, repeat second down
Something in development having issues isn't a fair comparison to something in active service having issues. An issue Starship has one flight could be fixed the next and it actually has an opportunity to get a true shakedown test and keep making changes till its right unlike STS@@davidrussell7530
Honestly, I see this as a testament to the sheer tenacity, and hubris, of mankind, and the effort, from the engineers and scientists, that went into these behemoth machines.
4:25 ad skip
Thank you @AD-SKIP
@jackiemorales8940 You're very welcome
The debriefing on this mission must have been fascinating…
I can only imagine!
I believe, had I been on this flight upon hearing this in debrief, someone would have shit my pants. And they would have shit alot
@@DubPaj quite a feat for someone else to shit your pants LOL
@@greggv8 don't underestimate NASA's capabilities
@@greggv8 Unless you happen to be Joe Biden.
My grandfather worked for Rocketdyne back in the shuttle days. He left me some cool stuff when he passed, but nothing can compare to the stories he had.
2:39 Having gotten used to more modern rockets like Falcon 9 and Starship, it's crazy to think that losing one engine would have completely destroyed the whole vehicle. Meanwhile there's early Starship prototypes losing a half dozen engines on a test launch and just continuing on like nothing happened.
I've heard of this story many times but this animation really puts it into perspective while also being entertaining. Side note: Your Space Shuttle appears to be missing part of it's tail at 6:50
haha thanks. And thanks for watching!
Columbia was the workhorse of the shuttle fleet. They kept sending that thing up until it couldn't take it anymore.
Damn imagine if nasa hadn't been forced to operate with a shoestring budget. Shuttle really was held together by bubble gum and duct tape. It's kind of endearing
Once the Cold War and Space Race was over, we didn't really care that much about space anymore
At this point after the Cold War, that is true. Engineers were ordering parts from EBay and Amazon because the company that made the Shuttles (Rockwell International) in Downey CA was no longer.
"...forced to operate with a shoestring budget."
I find your thought process extremely disturbing. BECAUSE they were operating at less that super generous funding levels you think it is JUST PEACHY KEEN to risk lives and not do required maintenance on a MAN RATED system. Launching when you KNOW you are not doing your best and "hoping" things turn out.
That precise attitude is what killed everyone on TWO lost shuttles. "It's kind of endearing." That is just sick.
Congrats.... you may be qualified to be a NASA manager.
"If only we had more funding we wouldn't have to unnecessarily risk peoples lives...."
@@phlogistanjones2722 no part of my comment means any of what you saidit means. I'm not brain dead obviously mismanagement is fucking dumb my dude. God forbid I make a half joking comment in passing about the dark irony of the situation on the internet without some random person that literally doesn't know me from the next guy assuming they know my take on the actuality of what these circumstances mean for the people with their lives on the line. Relax it's the youtube comments section
The problem was that the shuttle was a designed by committee kludge from day one, not that they lacked resources
Every other step of this setup sounded like "We were trying to shave money off of our budget."
When you said about the engines ripping them selves apart I pictured it and ending in a challenger style explosion,but I’m so thankful that those other problems saved the crew
sorry Challenger did not Explode. if it had exploded there would have been a cloud of plasma not pieces
@@philiprice7875 oh my bad
Just the other day, mechanic was changing break pipe on my car, it got damaged and started to leak, but to my interest he started cutting some old rubber pipe in small peaces and putting it around the pipe in all random areas. I asked why? he said to support it so it would not vibrate so much and not ware out so fast. Now it amazes me how is that eave possible that the engineers in NASA have overlooked such a detail. You live your life and don't even know how many detail are responsible for your existance/nonexistance.
I really love these kinds of videos that go in depth about problems, and it is really interesting to see how two problems that are catastrophic just saved the lives of 5 people. Thank you Primal Space!
And thank you for watching! Glad you enjoyed the video. Good luck in the giveaway!
@@primalspace this actually makes me feel really special, thank you for replying! 😊😊
The space shuttle is like a distant relative to me, my rocketry coach worked on the space shuttle designs and the ISS designs so sometimes he pulls out blueprints for us to see and it is SO COOL.
primal space never fails to drop an absolute banger video
Thank you so much! So glad that you enjoy them - it really means a lot!
That example captures how marvelous machine the space shuttle is, even if a possibly lethal problem occurs, if the engineering and technology won't save you, luck sometimes can 😅
The Three Factors:
1.) Skill/Technical know-how.
2.) The hand of God Himself.
3.) Just plain LUCK!
Really? Saved by a screw?
It's broke my heart that I won't be able to see one of these taking off. Space shuttle was one of the most beautiful machines ever made. Thank you for this amazing video.
Me too. I always wanted to see one lift off.
Twice I tried to replicate the Space Shuttle in Kerbal Space Program. I learned a lot about asymmetric thrust vectors and dynamic balancing, but never could make it work without cheating just a little. The more I delve into the engineering decisions, the more I appreciate the beauty of that machine.
Maybe if we see a crew-rated Dream Chaser, you'll get your chance at something not too far off... Too bad the cargo variant hides inside a fairing for launch!
It shouldn’t have been allowed to make it into service. At least not in the configuration it was designed.
I find the Space Shuttle incredibly inspiring, a symbol of what human engineering and bravery can achieve
Speechless. This is…just pure luck, chance, whatever. Amazing.
Loved the explanation- very clear- I’m a system engineer I don’t think they were mere coincidences: sure there was a lot of luck involved, but the way in which the systems are redundantly designed is precisely to try and tackle this kind of situation: difference, checks, and balances
Task failed successfully 😭
That’s called business as usual at NASA
It was way crazier than this. The Main Engine Flight Controller recognized it as a nozzle leak shortly after staging but it was only 1/2 the level that the rules allowed to be modeled in the ground tracking software. At main engine shutdown, the Main Propulsion Flight Controller called, "LOX LOW LEVEL CUT!" One hell of a day.
Columbia escaped once from a major disaster, the second time the shuttle and its crew wouldn’t be so lucky…
The animations and general level of detail of these short little documentaries is insane!
That was by far the craziest story of the entire program. Great video.
Thanks so much. So glad you enjoyed it!
i recommend watching Alexander The Ok's videos about Shuttle, you'd be suprised
@@xymaryai8283 The new one about the Challenger launch decision? That was one of the greatest videos I’ve ever seen.
love how you blend humor with your informative content!
The animations are so smooth making better to understand shuttle
Thank you so much. So glad you enjoyed them and good luck in the giveaway!
This is crazy. I've never heard of this before. That Shuttle had one hell of a lucky escape. Thanks for bringing an amazing animation and such a cool story to the world!
the fact that such simpel objects can carry such big results. it shows that the little things is were it's at.
So true.
Thank you for such an informative video. I had heard about this incident, but never realized 'till now of how dangerous it actually was. A stand alone pin should never have been the fix in the first place! Please make a video on the other 2 close calls.
I met Eileen Collins in October of last year, and she told me that she was trained in similar scenarios, and that she had no time to panic.
She and her crew were able to work around the problem to get the Columbia into a slightly lower orbit than planned, but nevertheless were able to get the heavy Chandra X-Ray observatory into a high Earth orbit by using the IUS booster that was attached.
If the Chandra mission had failed it might have set cosmology back by a decade or more.
@@alphgeek True. But cosmetology would have been unaffected.
highly elliptical orbit actually...
@@lukestrawwalker That was planned.
3 problems, not two. The microcomputer processor failure in the center engine was vital here.
In my opinion, the Space Shuttle has been one the most important spacecraft to have ever existed! It was very complex, and unfortunately some mishaps happened, but these sacrifices were surely not vain. This spacecraft gave us an incredible deal of scientific data and... The ISS!!
Actually, this is one of my favorite space ships ever.
It was a poorly designed spacecraft. It never should’ve been put into service. All of the things it did in space could’ve been done for less money and time with conventional rockets. It meant NASA couldn’t do anything beyond low-Earth orbit for 30 years. They should’ve developed from Saturn V instead and not scrapped it.
@@qasimmir7117133 successful missions, tens of thousands of orbital man hours, and more payload carried to and from space than any other manned vehicle program in history says otherwise. Every iteration of technology has to crawl before it can run, often times through dangerous territory. Those dangerous crawls give us the insights necessary to make those next steps better and safer.
The STS may have been an engineering over-reach, but it was a significant one...and quite successful. Space flight has ALWAYS been incredibly dangerous, and while the shuttle program did suffer two tragedies, they were both tragedies of bureacratic negligence left unchecked.
Say what you will about the shuttle program: but they put the very first orbiter in space on the first try without loss of life or equipment while "some" programs today are still trying to get their rockets into space without them coming apart. Attribute it to luck if it makes you sleep better at night, but all i see is alot of money being dumped into the hole just trying to get modern space programs back to a capability that was first achieved all the way back in the 60s. Most of it is fueled by a mentality similar to yours that says we should not iterate on what the STS program did...rather than learning from it and taking the next step.
Nobody talks how slick you sneak your adds on your videos, it's awesome
Haha glad you enjoy them.
Its crazy how they had to wait for it to actually explode before they retired it
Twice.
Shuttle will always have a place in my heart. As a kid in the 80s and 90s, my room had wallpaper that looked like the blueprints to the shuttle. Grandma worked at Stennis (then called NSTL) in Bay St Louis and she gave me shuttle mission stickers now and then. Today my kids are interested in space too. My son is currently reading The Space Shuttle Operator's Manual. 😁
You wonder how the Russian equivalent compared....externally they looked very similar.
The only time it flew was on the back of a Russian plane.
How did the Russians get hold of the plans?....
Conspiracy theorists " maintain there is active collusion between the major powers.....all sides cooperate....the ruling power being a composite of deep government/s.....headed up by Israel/money power.
So when the Syrian president flees Syria safely it is more likely pre-arranged....so technology is probably being passed onto China at this moment!.
Politicians are actors with no allegiance to any country....Trumps multiple bankruptcies are hardly mentioned....there is certainly some low end trash in all governments.....makes no difference which party. That gargoyle Pelosi is obviously protected just for example.....no doubt Starmer the liar is the same....worse the blowhard Musk has been invited to the in-group
With this stuff going on its a miracle they have got this far!!
Man the shuttle is crazy dangerous with no escape mechanism
Total death trap.
Columbia survived the first incident.
they thought it was invincible
until it wasn't
rip to all the people who died on the Columbia disaster
I was at this particular launch.
I remember hearing the non-standard callouts shortly after liftoff regarding the fuel cell readings and electrical issues.
Wasn't this 3 separate problems? Leak, computer shutdown and faulty sensor?
It’s wild how cavalier NASA was compared to now.
@@firstduckofwellington6889 It took 14 dead shuttle astronauts to get them where we are today.
@@firstduckofwellington6889politics driven to get a better budget
I recently purchased the Lego Discovery shuttle, its beautiful, just like the real thing, the space shuttle, while dangerous and costly, was one of the greatest projects made by humanity, it allowed us to do so many things and see so many things, spaceflight wouldn't be the same without it.
I'm an avionics technician and install a lot of harnesses into aircraft, this is a great example of WHY installation requirements and regulations are so stringent. Many times have I seen chaffing wires that were in bad shape. I just can't imagine how that bolt got past inspection.
That is CRAZY!!! God was looking out for those astronauts! So cool…
Space Shuttle, greatest flying machine ever.
The family of the crew of STS-51-L & STS-107 might disagree with that statement.
@@Ajax1984yep 💀 more like most dangerous vehicle ever
When I was in my teens, I had a book with the parts of the space shuttle and I was immediately amazed! Since the project has been cancelled, I can’t wait for a new successor to come along!
I feel the same way. So glad you enjoyed the topic of this video and thanks so much for watching!
The Space Shuttle is iconic, I wish it was still around today!
No. It shouldn’t have been put into service in the first place.
This video had me on the edge of my seat! The engineering brilliance and a stroke of luck saved the day. Truly inspiring! 🌟
Honestly it's probably for the better that the shuttle has been retired.
DEFINITELY for the better... 2/5 or 40% of the shuttle fleet was lost to disasters in flight... not a good record
Such a cool concept for a rocket though I’m sad and glad it’s retired
It should have been retired after Challenger, in retrospect.
The space shuttle is very sentimental to me. It started flying when I was a kid and remember being eager to see the launches and landings on the TV news.
Well, now I know why they stopped building those things. Too much dangerous accidents like this one should've canceled the program, but I guess someone up there really liked those shuttles. Facinating disaster breakdown done in an interactive way. Amazing video!
The fact that 3 things went south at the same time but they just all happened to perfectly compensate each other out of sheer luck is really frightening. The shuttles were interesting but the engineering should have been improved multiple times instead of the hot-fixes they gave everytime. I guess they lacked money.
So glad you enjoyed the video. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment. Good luck in the giveaway!
The Space Shuttle era was absolutely incredible! I Love seeing videos on missions like STS-41-B's untethered spacewalk. It truly paved the way for the future of space exploration!
Incredible indeed! Thanks for watching and good luck in the giveaway!
The space shuttle was an engineering marvel, greatest flying machine ever.
absolutely! Thanks for watching and good luck in the giveaway!
It really wasn’t. It was a poor and inherently unsafe design and shouldn’t have been put into service.
This is why im subscribed, extreme high quality animations and perfect explanations real good job
Fun fact, this was the first female commanded mission. Eileen Collins handled the situation like another day at the office. What a badass
Fantastic video! Primal Space's "The Space Shuttle’s Luckiest Escape" about STS-93 and the Columbia mission is incredibly detailed and well-researched. The explanation of the unexpected hydrogen leak and the subsequent challenges faced during the mission was both captivating and educational. Your ability to convey complex technical issues in an understandable and engaging manner is truly impressive. Keep up the great work, Primal Space!
video starts at 4:26
Titled chapters are also available in the description for anyone who'd like to skip ahead.
I saw this comment at 4:26
This was so dangerous that not even the crew knew what was happening, it is baffling how 2 problems canceled out eachother.
Nice video❤. hope to have a safe rocket in the near future, so we can colonize other planets. I made a video about this😊
Yess!!
Maybe
❤
Yes! So glad you enjoyed the video and good luck in the giveaway!
That pin that came loose, is really demonstrating what a lazy option that was. Just to tide the craft over.
Thank god the space shuttle was retired...
3:04 How can a reduction in chamber pressure due to reduction in flow of LH2 be compensated by increasing the flow of LOX? Isn't it making it worse?
The computers were trying to compensate for the loss. Yes it was burning more LOX but the computers goal was to maintain pressure not save fuel. 🤙✌️ great observation keep learning
Doing a flashback 4 minutes into a video is on the laziest way to stall content. This video could be 4 minutes total
A case where minus times minus gives a real plus
1 second no views no likes? Bro fell off
NPC comment
Totally original
He's looking for a man in finance, trust fund, 6'5", blue eyes
@@ch4.hayabusa ???
😂😂😂
You know what makes this particularly eerie? It is parallels between this and STS-51-F. Both missions saw the Shuttle endure unprecedented luck (STS-51-F saw an Abort-to-Orbit being implemented) and also marked the third-to-last EVER flight for that Shuttle overall too (STS-51-F was of course flown by Challenger), with each Shuttle flying only one more mission successfully before being destroyed in the follow-up.
This is one of these moment after and you sit at the bar subliminally questioning "absurdity" in life. to quote Julis Renard" Look for the ridiculous in everything, and you will find it." This event as a whole is both frightening and intriguing.
Ever since I was a kid, the Space Shuttle is one of the reason why I got fascinated with space travel. From the complexity of it's launch and landing I'm in awe of this awesome machine. Even though it has already been retired last 2011, I'm still replaying videos of shuttle's past videos and the people who made this awesome machine possible. How I wish I was able to see the launch in person.
It was a mistake and should not have been put into service. Inherently flawed design.
Several shuttles were extremely lucky to not suffer damage like Columbia as it had been a known problem for large foam chucks to come off during launch.
What can you even really say about the Space Shuttle? Such an ironic vehicle that will leave so many countless memories to myself after all the time going to see it as a youngling. Miss it but always excited for the future
Incredible and serendipitous - this mission was a miracle on many levels.
Great revealing Document,
Thanks for uploading
And thanks for watching.
The Space Shuttle did one of the best job for our work in space
Space Shuttle is the most impresive thing that humans have made, it got us a lot of information about space with its travels but we had some loses with Columbia and Challenger disasters
It really isn’t the most impressive at all. It never shuttled between Earth and space. Everything it did could’ve been done with conventional rockets for much less money and time.
Your interior crew capsule visual is downright magical.
Thanks for describing in detail with nice animation,loved it as a engineering student :)
That really is some serious luck. Like, to have the opposite problem happen right after the first is crazy. And then it cancels itself out so the shuttle still made it, only off by 5m/s even. And the very idea that they found a single overtightened screw had been a part of this. That’s amazing.
I remember the first rocket launch I ever watched was one of the space shuttle with my grandpa, one of my first memories I still have of him.
Aren't you supposed to have 3 redundant sensor readings for mission critical data to cancel out the "bad" one by voting it off, instead of just averaging 2 deviated values where one could be way off?
Also how come flight computer isn't doing projected fuel usage calculations and instead just compensating for lower pressure? So many questions
Honestly the best video you’ve made yet loving the production quality from this channel
Thank you so much. So glad you enjoy the content here and good luck in the giveaway!
Your videos read like old-school "Seconds from Disaster" episodes and OH MY GOD I LOVE IT
Well I'm extremely happy this short came across my feed..... didn't know i needed to know this but glad i did....... thanks
It shocks me how serious both problems were but they just canceled each other out and made things less of a problem
I can't even imagine the stress of being a part of it.
This is one of my absolute favorite Space Shuttle launches because of how insanely lucky they were
It’s crazy how sometimes something else needs to go wrong to make everything right in the end. The shuttle really was unique and inspiring vehicle and if its design wasn’t so flawed it probably could be flying today
Nice video. I knew about both problems with STS-93 but I didn't realise how the second fault helped avoid issues caused by the first!
Oh my gosh, you wouldn’t believe how much I love the Space Shuttle. It’s stylish design and snappy delivery if you know what I mean. I would really appreciate this poster.
So glad you love it too. Thanks for watching and good luck in the giveaway.
The shuttle was way ahead of its time!!
As always, i am eagerly waiting for prime space videos. Your videos unique and well explained. Big love 💕💕
Thank you so much. I'm so glad you enjoy the content here - it really means a lot!