KALPANA: THE POWER OF IMAGINATION

Rakesh Sharma

摘要

I stand before you, with mixed feelings. As an aviator, even though one who is now done with aviation, I recognize the momentous occasion that this is: the centennial of powered flight, a celebration of the day a 100 years ago when the Wright flyer took to the air for the first time. Then again, as an Indian and a Space buff, like most everybody on this Planet, I grieve the passing on of Kal-pana Chawla and her 6 colleagues who perished when Columbia started disintegrating over Texas on 01 February this year. While on the one hand I am amazed, in technological terms, of the advancement achieved in the field of Aerospace in the hundred years just gone past, as a professional I remain curious and very interested in knowing what exactly went wrong with Columbia; what the contributory factors were and whether there is a message embedded for us, somewhere in the pages of the voluminous investigation report. I, therefore, intend to share the report with you as part of this, the First Kalpana Chawla Memorial Lecture. During this time, we shall examine the accident from various aspects. I shall attempt to bring out the message that seems to be hidden and that which, I hope, will serve to make not only Indian Space programmes but also our aeronautical programmes, safe and successful. I have borrowed heavily from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's report, which was submitted in Sep 2003 to the US Government, some 7 months after the accident. Admiral Harold Gehman Jr headed the Board. Physics dictates that to reach orbit, without falling back to Earth, we have to exceed about 28500 kmph. If we cannot vary performance, then the only thing left to change is the amount of payload -the rocket designers began with small payloads and worked their way up. Rockets, by their very nature, are complex and unforgiving vehicles. They must be as light as possible, yet attain outstanding performance to get to orbit. Mankind, thankfully, is getting better at building them. In the early days more often than not, the vehicle exploded on or near the launch pad; that seldom happens any longer. It was not that different from early airplanes, which tended to crash about as often as they flew. Aircraft seldom crash these days, but rockets still fail between two-and-five percent of the time. This is true of just about any launch vehicle -Atlas, Delta, Soyuz, Shuttle regardless of which nation builds it or what basic configuration is used; they all fail about the same amount of the time. Building and launching rockets is still a very dangerous business, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future while we gain experience from it. It is unlikely that launching a space vehicle will ever be as routine an undertaking as, say, commercial air travel -certainly not in the lifetime of anybody in this auditorium. Scientists and engineers are continually working on better ways but, as of now, if we want to go into outer space, we must continue to accept the risks. With this as a preamble let us begin the journey. I shall be touching upon Kalpana's remarkable journey from Karnal to Near Earth Orbit in the Introduction segment of my talk before covering STS -107's Mission Background. Thereafter, I shall cover the Accident itself, the Analysis Process and the Learning that came out of it, before concluding.

机译：我站在你面前，百感交集。作为一名飞行员，即使现在已经从事航空工作，我也意识到这是一个重大时刻：电动飞行百年纪念，这是对100年前赖特传单首次登台的纪念日。再说一次，作为印第安人和太空爱好者，就像这个星球上的大多数人一样，我为卡尔帕纳·乔拉（Kal-pana Chawla）和她的6位同事的逝世感到悲痛。今年2月1日哥伦比亚开始在得克萨斯州瓦解时，她和她的6名同事丧生。一方面，就技术而言，我对过去一百年来在航空航天领域取得的进步感到惊讶，但作为一名专业人员，我仍然对知道哥伦比亚到底出了什么问题感到好奇和非常感兴趣。造成大量影响的因素是什么，以及是否在大量调查报告页面的某处为我们嵌入了信息。因此，我打算在第一届卡尔帕纳·乔拉纪念演讲中与您分享报告。在这段时间内，我们将从各个方面检查事故。我将尽力传达似乎是隐藏的信息，我希望该信息将不仅使印度航天方案而且使我们的航空方案安全，成功。我从哥伦比亚事故调查委员会的报告中大量借用，该报告是在事故发生大约7个月后于2003年9月提交给美国政府的。小哈罗德·盖曼海军上将领导董事会。物理学表明，要到达轨道而又不回落到地球，我们必须超过28500 kmph。如果我们不能改变性能，那么剩下的唯一要做的就是改变有效载荷的数量-火箭设计人员从较小的有效载荷开始，然后逐步提高。从本质上讲，火箭是复杂而无情的工具。它们必须尽可能轻，但要取得出色的性能才能进入轨道。值得庆幸的是，人类在建立它们方面正在变得更好。在早期，车辆经常在发射台上或其附近爆炸。很少再发生了。它与早期的飞机没什么不同，早期的飞机往往在飞行时坠毁。这些天飞机很少坠毁，但是火箭仍然有百分之二十五的时间会失败。这几乎适用于任何运载工具-Atlas，Delta，Soyuz，Shuttle，无论是哪个国家建造的，或使用的是哪种基本配置；它们全部失败的时间差不多相同。建造和发射火箭仍然是一项非常危险的工作，在我们可以从中获得经验的同时，在可预见的将来，火箭将继续如此。发射航天器不太可能像商业航空旅行那样成为例行公事，这肯定不是在这个礼堂的任何人的生命中。科学家和工程师一直在努力寻找更好的方法，但是到目前为止，如果我们要进入太空，我们必须继续承担风险。以此作为序言，让我们开始旅程。在介绍STS -107的任务背景之前，我将在我的演讲的“引言”部分中谈到Kalpana从Karnal到近地轨道的非凡旅程。此后，在结束之前，我将介绍事故本身，分析过程以及由此而来的学习。

KALPANA: THE POWER OF IMAGINATION

摘要

著录项

相似文献

相关主题

期刊订阅