Here’s a link to Seagate’s web page, which includes specs and a product manual. (If the link doesn’t work, just go to http://www.seagate.com and enter the model number.)

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=4b925a802efbd010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD&locale=en-US&reqPage=Legacy

Also, here’s a COMPUTERWORLD site with better pictures of the recovered drive:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9083478

The ISS was effectively dead when they cut the crew from seven to three.

That is my impression too. First they starved the SST so that it became a nonmilitary-[military] expensive compromise, then they starved the ISS so it became a nonscience-[science] expensive compromise.

Wanna bet they starved the Orion so it became an orbit-[Moon] expensive compromise?

In cases like this, it’s very easy to second-guess the designers’ choices, since the design requirements are not apparent. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of factors that go into the choices of a particular component for space-flight instrumentation.

A likely scenario is that there were few changes between CVX-2 and CVX, flown in 1997 (which meant the design was finalized several years earlier). The maturity of HD technology over commercially available and cheap solid state drives, including rad-hard qualification was likely a driving factor.

In addition, pointing a chiding finger at NASA for what they (the big monolithic THEY) should have done is flat-out wrong. NASA didn’t build the experiment. While funded by NASA LeRC, the design specifics were the responsibility of the PI and whatever subcontractors were tapped to build the experiment.

I worked on an extremely similar experiment that flew twice on Columbia (STS-62 and STS-75). There are tens of thousands of decisions that are made during the course of the years of design. Without insight into those years of work, it’s really unfair to criticize.

On a personal note, one of the things I cherish from those two Columbia flights are the mission patches I have that flew on the orbiter along with the experiments during those flights.

~David D.G.

If Columbia had broken apart five minutes earlier when she was at Mach 20, there would have been much less surviving debris because the higher speed would have meant much greater heating of the debris. Heat rate is a function of speed to the third power, so Mach 16 experiences about half of the heating of Mach 20.

That being said I do think that it is vitally important that we understand what it takes to be/live in space. Everyday we learn how complicated it is to live in space. Everything from thermal control to air quality to structural health is dreadfully more difficult for low risk manned operations. If we want to put a man on Mars or back to the moon we will want to stay for a while. We need the technological know how and problem solving processes developed.

I do want it known that I do think there is great room for improvement. I just know that if we do not learn these lessons from the ISS and shuttle program future manned space flight will bear the development expense and it won’t be any cheaper later.

Jim wouldn’t have to call me to find out the model either, because I’d have that detail – and any other ones I could think of – on a double page spread in the New York Times, run TV ads around the clock on every major network, and already have hired Bruce Willis to star in an Armageddon-style ad for the Super Bowl.

The Scientific American article states that the hard drive was a Seagate drive. It doesn’t mention the model, but I will try to find out. (I have some very good contacts at Seagate.)

J/P=?

Nic

Anyway, surely it’s a plus. Given the terrible tragedy of the Columbia accident, to recover anything the crew worked on has got to be a bonus.

I do however agree with Phil’s comments re the science capabilities of the shuttle and space station, which seem kind of minimal, but if you are going to throw money at it, it’s good to get the data – even given the tragedy in this case.

My own government (British) have been dead against manned spaceflight for decades, and although I question the science capabilities of manned spaceflight – as it exists now – I like manned spaceflight. The Hubble servicing missions and the ISS construction has without doubt added immense experience to NASA and the Russian Space Agency about how to do large scale and delicate work – that will be useful in future. And of course the work on Mir.

I wonder how well the Chinese will manage in their forthcoming spacewalk. They do however have the advantage of Russian and American documentation about how it’s done.

The Russians and Americans have defined that – really rather thoroughly.