![]() The tape so far has revealed that the first heating event on Columbia occurred earlier than previously reported. On Sunday, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which was created to search for the cause of the accident, announced that "significant data" had been found on the recorder's tape from about 420 temperature and pressure sensors, and more data extraction is expected. Instead, the device was left intact, and it provided information now being scoured by investigators to determine what happened to the ship. There were likely people at NASA who suggested that the OEX recorder be omitted at some point during the shuttle program, or that it be made lighter or smaller, all in the name of progress, he said. "New technology often promises more than it can really live up to," Petroski said. ![]() Henry Petroski, a professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University in Durham, N.C., who specializes in engineering failure analysis, said NASA is fortunate to have had the recorder on board Columbia. We definitely overendow new technology without having tested it properly." "Sometimes its the old, reliable stuff that counts. "This is a wonderful example of old stuff that's still working," said Peter Neumann, principal scientist in the computer science laboratory at SRI International, a research institute in Menlo Park, Calif. The low-tech device may have yielded the best information so far about what occurred on board during Columbia's last mission, because key parts of the modern radio telemetry being beamed back to Earth from the shuttle ended when the ship was torn apart. It was switched on before take-off and turned off once the shuttle was in orbit, then was turned back on before re-entry and shut down after landing. The device remained on the shuttle since its first launch, providing information on each flight from as many as 800 different sensors that monitored control surfaces, temperatures, pressure, vibration, acceleration and other variables. "It wasn't designed as an accident 'black box,' but to provide information after landing," Beautel said. The Orbiter Experiment Support System recorder (OEX) recovered from Columbia.
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