Hard drive recovered from shuttle Columbia used to complete experiment

Although it's been several years since the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, it looks like some of the data gathered during the orbiter's final mission will be put to good use. A hard drive salvaged from the wreckage contains the results of an experiment to study the way xenon gas flows in microgravity, and the results were published in the April edition of a journal called Physical Review E. The 400MB Seagate drive was originally thought to be destroyed, but workers and engineers reconstructing the orbiter from the remaining debris found it during the process and sent it off for recovery, where 99 percent of the data was extracted. It then took several years for lead researcher Robert Berg and his team to analyze the findings, but they're happy with the results -- we only wish they hadn't come at so dear a price.

[Thanks, Laura]

[Nastro @ May 6th 2008 2:57AM]

How could it have taken 7 years, when it crashed in 2003?

[Ayman @ May 6th 2008 3:00AM]

It says SEVERAL NOT SEVEN


also results WILL be published in April .... and we are in May

[Ayman @ May 6th 2008 3:04AM]

http://pre.aps.org/

I checked the website and didnt find the info

[tim @ May 6th 2008 3:59AM]

what you are all missing here is that the technology has to stand up to extreme amounts of radiation.

they also (at least up to the last few years) have been running the equivalent of 200mhz processors that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars because of the time and testing put into them.

and to arcticfox..what the heck are you talking about? you have some personal issues against SSDs?

[tom @ May 6th 2008 8:34AM]

Isn't NASA grateful that they didn't install IBM "Deathstar" hard drive in their Thinkpad(s)?

hahahaha.

Kudos to Seagate

[srw985 @ May 6th 2008 3:06AM]

Billion dollar space shuttle with 400MB hard drive?

Can has 64GB SSD?

[kazels @ May 6th 2008 3:13AM]

Thats the first thing that came to mind...400MB on such a advanced piece of technology...

[ArcticFox @ May 6th 2008 3:22AM]

Dont forget these things have to withstand massive vibrations on lift off then the vacuum of space.

I dont know about you but i dont know what kind of effect those things have on SSD drives, maybe whatever format the HDD uses to record data can only store 400mb onto its medium.

How many SSD drives do you know that can withstand take off, space travel then unfortunately a burnup in atmosphere then a 50-60 mile drop to the earth?

Seriously use your brain.

[ZapBrannigan @ May 6th 2008 3:31AM]

400MB hard drive, pre-2003: $200
Engineers' salaries to design enclosures that are protected from extreme tempertures, booster shock and vibe, vibro-acoustics, emi, solar radiation, first mode response resonance, etc... : $$$$$$$$

[zephead @ May 6th 2008 3:33AM]

Ha, I read right over that and automatically assumed MB was a typo. But yeah, what ArcticFox said seems logical.

[joshky @ May 6th 2008 7:45PM]

you're also forgetting the space shuttle has been in service since the early 80s. Im not saying they dont update their equipment but they dont do it on a regular basis, esp the hardware so its no surprise that it is a really small hdd

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ May 6th 2008 5:02AM]

In agreement with ArcticFox, 400MB should be enough to store important scientific information. A smaller capacity drive does make more sense when you consider that the higher the drives density the harder it is to recover it's data and the more prone it is to data loss. It's much easier to recover data from a 400MB drive than a 400GB drive with only 350MB of data on it. This is the very reason why enterprise class SAS/SCSI/FC-AL drives have such smaller capacities for data reliability and recovery reasons.


SSD are highly prone to data loss in the presence of solar flares (solar radiation or EMF) where Hard Drives in the presence of solar radiation will fry their controller circuits, but will retain their data on the HARD DISC. SSDs would not likely survive the high temperatures of space re-entry, but hard drives have been known to still have recoverable data on them even after being engulfed in flames for several hours.

NASA knows what they are doing. My best advice is not to be 'too critical' of their technical decisions.

[Mike10010100 @ May 6th 2008 6:06AM]

If you think the hard drive size is pathetic, it's because they are
working off of technology that is several years old. This is because
they must test EVERYTHING for even the slightest chance that it would
be affected by radiation.

The space station that everyone dreams of that looks like some sort
of futuristic living habitat is not real. Most of the space station
is held together with duct tape! This makes sense because they can't
use welding torches because it burns with the oxygen in the air, and
duct tape is strong and flexible (and isn't affected by radiation).

[dexter fillmore @ May 6th 2008 8:05AM]

you can weld in space (and underwater also)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_manufacturing

[Stellar @ May 6th 2008 9:44AM]

Mother of Per... Duct take CAN do Everything!

[Rohan @ May 6th 2008 3:09AM]

Has anyone at Scientific American ever taken a grade school SCIENCE CLASS?

Check out photo 3.

A micrometer is NOT a "thousandth of a meter", it's a "millionth of a meter".

I know it's Scientific "American", and Americans don't have the ability to understand complex measurement schemes like METRIC, but seriously.... How can you trust the scientific integrity of a publication that can't get their basic unit measurements right?

[ethan @ May 6th 2008 3:19AM]

hopefully they meant thousandth of a millimeter

[Zorque @ May 6th 2008 3:31AM]

Yep, Amerikkkan$ sure are dumb! Why can't those idiots stop using arbitrary measurements and realize they weigh 3 stone and 14 grammetons!? No sir, I will not give you a "gallon" of soda, whatever that is. You will accept this 147.345 deciounce flagon and like it!

[Will @ May 6th 2008 3:51AM]

Scientific American is not a peer-reviewed scholarly journal and thus should not be judged as one. Finding a mistake in a periodical destined to be sold in a newsstand is not difficult and should not be something that causes you glee as you utter slurs about the culture that shares it's name. Big deal, they made a mistake in a magazine. If you want everyone to know that you can read a micrometer then publish a magazine listing of all your talents.

[Funke, Tobias Dr. @ May 6th 2008 6:10AM]

I don't know what's more ironic: The fact that you call into question the technological competence of Americans in the comments for a NASA article, or that you used the internet to do it.

Get a life.

[Zorque @ May 6th 2008 3:31AM]

*pushes up glasses, posts comment*

[LordFarkward @ May 6th 2008 3:49AM]

*readjusts seating position, reads comment*

[alex @ May 6th 2008 3:54AM]

*sighs that no one appreciates the hard work that went in to recovering scientific data that was evidently important enough to send to space in the first place*

[karts41 @ May 6th 2008 4:06AM]

*comments meaninglessly*

[Vic the One @ May 6th 2008 4:18AM]

*needlessly points out typo in original comment, casts aspersions on the integrity of Zorque's mother, and inserts meaningless fanboyish zing in favor of some company having nothing to do with the matter being discussed*

[Rynth @ May 6th 2008 4:27AM]

*ponders commenting, then decides against*

Wait, oh! Crap....

[Tim Brown @ May 6th 2008 5:18AM]

* sits back in shock that no one has compared HDD size to their latest iProduct! Cant cope, has heart attack..........*

[Jack @ May 6th 2008 6:21AM]

*posts about how subject matter sucks compared to iphone and makes vista joke*

[BT @ May 6th 2008 3:53AM]

Is our children learning?

[JLTate @ May 6th 2008 1:30PM]

Isn't they?! If how not must know why.

I like to grammar, frequently.

[BatteryAcid @ May 6th 2008 4:34PM]

Calm down people it a Bush quote, Google it.

[mattclarkie @ May 6th 2008 3:58AM]

I still think that 400mb is a strange size.

Do you think that they were still using the HDDs that were installed on the shuttle in the 1980s?

[Jenny @ May 6th 2008 5:32AM]

Probably. When I took an Astronomy course in 2004, my professor (who had been laid off from NASA) said that at the time, the shuttles were still launched with computers running on punch cards.

Even if that's an exaggeration, it still expresses that the technology is old stuff.

[Jeff @ May 6th 2008 8:25AM]

Columbia was outfitted with a glass cockpit and all new electronics in 1999. It's a myth that these things were flying around with 1980's technology.

I'm also curious as to why everybody seems to think this was the only hard drive on board. This was just one of at least several.

And yes, 400MB in 1999 was quite large. And given that scientific data is generally stored as numbers in a database, it would be more than enough to store probably all the data ever collected over the life of the entire shuttle program. It was probably also being used for other things, but you get the point. It was plenty big enough.

[mattclarkie @ May 6th 2008 9:56AM]

In 1999 I had 12GB, and that wasn't large it was typical of a home PC at the time. I don't know why people think 400mb was large.

[Sma @ May 6th 2008 9:59AM]

I agree with Jeff about this being one of many HD's on the shuttle. Also usually the experiments/data logging has nothing to do with the shuttles computer system. More than likely data recording hardware is built into the experiment modules that are installed in the shuttle. They also take up notebook computers that I would assume have bigger hard drives on them, although I would imagine those arent as critical to experiments and survival but don't quote me on that :)

[JLTate @ May 6th 2008 1:44PM]

400mb isn't THAT much data. Data at 1 KHz with uncompressed 16-bit samples from 10 sources continuously for a 6 hour experiment is 412mb.

I'd be willing to bet this was in a drive mirroring RAID array and that they had a set of drives for each experiment.

[Court Kizer @ May 6th 2008 4:02AM]

Nasa generally uses HDD technology with the largest safe disk area. Blocks? I don't know, I just know that they consider sending a 400MB hard disk much safer than sending a 40GB hard disk.

Also it often takes years to get equipment certified.

[Byrdman @ May 6th 2008 4:28AM]

I guess this says alot about Seagate quality?

[nDee @ May 6th 2008 6:16AM]

at least they didn't use deathstar

[Marcus @ May 6th 2008 4:59AM]

*waits for another meaningless reply just like this onet*

[Marcus @ May 6th 2008 7:38PM]

stupid reply system >_

[Marcus @ May 6th 2008 5:01AM]

stupid comment system >:(

[Jason @ May 6th 2008 5:28AM]

Most of the experiment's data was sent to earth before the crash, this is just the last of the data.

[michas_pi @ May 6th 2008 6:41AM]

Yet another reason why I only purchase Seagate drives.

I wonder if they used that legendary five-year warranty :)

[Hardyboy @ May 6th 2008 8:14AM]

Now there's a great promotional tool..."Choose Seagate hard drives. They will last even if you don't!"...

[kr @ May 6th 2008 8:23AM]

That's a bit morbid....

[JLTate @ May 6th 2008 1:47PM]

It is morbid, but I bet they could still do up a commercial in a patriotic way saluting the astronauts.

[SOOPERGOOMAN @ May 6th 2008 9:22AM]

Seagate drives survive incredible explosions but my seagate crashed cause i left it on over night. meh. 99% data recovery thats something to talk about. Especially considering the explosion and the crash to the ground at Mach 11.

[nathan.wong @ May 6th 2008 9:32AM]

I don't think the terminal velocity of a hard drive would be Mach 11 by the time it hit the ground, but I understand what you're saying.