NASA commissioned the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) to conduct a thorough review of both the technical and the organizational causes of the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia and her crew on February 1, 2003. The accident investigation that followed determined that a large piece of insulating foam from Columbia's external tank (ET) had come off during ascent and struck the leading edge of the left wing, causing critical damage. The damage was undetected during the mission. The Columbia accident was not survivable. After the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) investigation regarding the cause of the accident was completed, further consideration produced the question of whether there were lessons to be learned about how to improve crew survival in the future. This investigation was performed with the belief that a comprehensive, respectful investigation could provide knowledge that can protect future crews in the worldwide community of human space flight. Additionally, in the course of the investigation, several areas of research were identified that could improve our understanding of both nominal space flight and future spacecraft accidents. This report is the first comprehensive, publicly available accident investigation report addressing crew survival for a human spacecraft mishap, and it provides key information for future crew survival investigations. The results of this investigation are intended to add meaning to the sacrifice of the crew's lives by making space flight safer for all future generations.

The operational amplifier ("op amp") is the most versatile and widely used type of analog IC, used in audio and voltage amplifiers, signal conditioners, signal converters, oscillators, and analog computing systems. Almost every electronic device uses at least one op amp. This book is Texas Instruments' complete professional-level tutorial and reference to operational amplifier theory and applications. Among the topics covered are basic op amp physics (including reviews of current and voltage division, Thevenin's theorem, and transistor models), idealized op amp operation and configuration, feedback theory and methods, single and dual supply operation, understanding op amp parameters, minimizing noise in op amp circuits, and practical applications such as instrumentation amplifiers, signal conditioning, oscillators, active filters, load and level conversions, and analog computing. There is also extensive coverage of circuit construction techniques, including circuit board design, grounding, input and output isolation, using decoupling capacitors, and frequency characteristics of passive components. The material in this book is applicable to all op amp ICs from all manufacturers, not just TI. Unlike textbook treatments of op amp theory that tend to focus on idealized op amp models and configuration, this title uses idealized models only when necessary to explain op amp theory. The bulk of this book is on real-world op amps and their applications; considerations such as thermal effects, circuit noise, circuit buffering, selection of appropriate op amps for a given application, and unexpected effects in passive components are all discussed in detail. *Published in conjunction with Texas Instruments *A single volume, professional-level guide to op amp theory and applications *Covers circuit board layout techniques for manufacturing op amp circuits.