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Astronomer saw shuttle apparently in trouble over California
San Diego Union Tribune ^ | 02/01/03 | John Antczak

Posted on 02/01/2003 2:25:26 PM PST by socal_parrot

By John Antczak
ASSOCIATED PRESS

12:03 a.m., February 1, 2003

LOS ANGELES – Space shuttle Columbia appeared to begin trailing fiery debris as it passed over Eastern California early Saturday, well before its destruction over Texas, according to a California Institute of Technology astronomer who witnessed its fiery transit.

Anthony Beasley observed the shuttle's re-entry from outside his home in Bishop, Calif., near Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory, where he is project manager of the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy.

"As it tracked from west to east over the Owens Valley it was leaving a bright trail. As it actually moved over the valley there were a couple of flashes. ... Then we could see there were things clearly trailing the orbiter subsequent to that," Beasley said.

Beasley said he, his wife, Anne, and mother-in-law, Anne Finley, had gone outside in the early morning darkness to watch the re-entry from the small town 225 miles north of Los Angeles. He said the sky was clear and dark, and the shuttle was immediately visible when it cleared the Sierra Nevada peaks to the west of Bishop.

He said he had never witnessed a shuttle re-entry before and is not an authority on shuttles, but he immediately thought Columbia was having problems.

"In particular, there was one very clear event where there was a piece that backed off the orbiter. ... It was giving off its own light, then it slowly fell from visibility," he said.

Beasley said he thought the shuttle might be losing some of the heat-resistant tiles that protect it during the fiery re-entry. He said he did not learn of the shuttle's destruction until he went to the observatory and compared notes with two news photographers who had arranged to photograph the re-entry through a telescope.

Beasley said they compared notes and all agreed they had seen what he termed "the bright event, the third event."

"The analogy, I think, is it looked like the shuttle dropped a flare," he said.

He described the scene again: "Pretty soon after we started to see it track there were brief flashes of light. It would sort of flash a little bit and there was an indication of material trailing the orbiter. They would sort of disappear from view. ... That happened two or three times. One of these was very bright. It was a very clear thing. It separated itself from where the orbiter is. It sort of fell behind in the trail and it was burning itself. It was hot itself ... and then the orbiter continued heading toward Texas."


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: columbia; columbiatragedy; feb12003; nasa; spaceshuttle; sts107
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To: TomServo
Glad to oblige.
141 posted on 02/01/2003 10:34:53 PM PST by Howlin
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To: Howlin
Yeah. I would say, on the Arizona-New Mexico border south of Gallup.
142 posted on 02/01/2003 10:36:42 PM PST by Erasmus
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To: Howlin; TLBSHOW
And we all know how right you usually are.

Keep NASA's feet to the fire!

TLBSHOW is often right and so are you and so am I.

Are you on the NASA damage control team?

Today's tragedy showed me that the feds are sometimes bumpling amateurs, not the omnipotent entity they want us to believe they are.

Today's TV coverage was overkill, to say the least. The networks preempted programming for too many hours to try to create this image of national tragedy. I look at it as the feds being incompetent and trying to control the news at the same time. I'm sorry those seven fine people died this morning it likely wasn't their fault.

143 posted on 02/01/2003 10:37:51 PM PST by Fred Mertz
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To: TLBSHOW
Yes, and they are finding debris as far away as Arizona.
144 posted on 02/01/2003 10:38:55 PM PST by Jael
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To: r9etb
Also, where the heck is the vert stabilizer?
145 posted on 02/01/2003 10:40:00 PM PST by Erasmus
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To: Howlin
At the speed it was going, it could of been, yes.
In another thread someone did the math and it was a matter of minutes or less.
146 posted on 02/01/2003 10:40:16 PM PST by Jael
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To: Howlin
I swear I thought it started with an E or a I sound......any ideas?

Elevon.

For delta-wing vehicles, the ailerons (flaps on an airplane wing) and the elevators (flaps on the horizontal tail) are all on the trailing edge of the wing.

Elevon troubles could also result from a thermal failure -- burning wires, perhaps -- or there may have been a hardware failure in the elevon actuators.

147 posted on 02/01/2003 10:41:41 PM PST by r9etb
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To: Jael
bttt
148 posted on 02/01/2003 10:42:19 PM PST by TLBSHOW (God Speed as Angels trending upward dare to fly Tribute to the Risk Takers)
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To: r9etb
I saw that on video shot on tv today and thought it was the shuttle too, but check out these two messages:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/834013/posts?q=1&&page=101 (post #126)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/834152/posts (post #35)

And thinking about it, that would be quite a zoom lens to get that much of a close up from at least 40 miles away.
149 posted on 02/01/2003 10:44:02 PM PST by Chesterbelloc
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To: r9etb
That's the part they were referring to.....at the very back, behind the wings?

The guy on CNN said they were burning the midnight oil, zeroing in on that section maybe. CAUTION: I am not up on the technical terms, but I believe this is what he was pointing to.

150 posted on 02/01/2003 10:44:13 PM PST by Howlin
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To: Erasmus
Also, where the heck is the vert stabilizer?

Again, this looks like the Shuttle, but there may be distortion.

This was over Dallas, just prior to the final breakup. The Dallas video seems to show that the Shuttle was traveling sideways at this point -- probably the beginning stages of tumbling -- in which case the vertical stabilizer would undubtedly have snapped off.

151 posted on 02/01/2003 10:44:42 PM PST by r9etb
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To: TLBSHOW
A friend of mine interned with NASA about 15 years ago. What struck him most was the averageness of the personnel there. He was expecting to be working with rocket scientists, but was mildly disappointed.
152 posted on 02/01/2003 10:44:51 PM PST by Fred Mertz
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To: Jael
Thank you. That's a hard concept for most of us to get a handle on......especially those of us mathematically challenged.
153 posted on 02/01/2003 10:45:30 PM PST by Howlin
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To: Fred Mertz
In a letter to the White House, Don Nelson, who served with NASA for 36 years until he retired in 1999, wrote to President George W. Bush warning that his 'intervention' was necessary to 'prevent another catastrophic space shuttle accident'.
154 posted on 02/01/2003 10:45:51 PM PST by TLBSHOW (God Speed as Angels trending upward dare to fly Tribute to the Risk Takers)
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To: Chesterbelloc
And thinking about it, that would be quite a zoom lens to get that much of a close up from at least 40 miles away.

Agreed. Then again, it was taken with a professional-quality camera, and they're very good.

At any rate, in addition to actually being the Shuttle, the image looks like the Shuttle: it has all the right things in the right places, and even roughly the right colors. I tend to think that, because of a good lens, or a trick of the optical path, it is a true image of the vehicle.

155 posted on 02/01/2003 10:48:53 PM PST by r9etb
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To: Fred Mertz
Sorry, the fox news link to that mentions the letter sent to the President last summer!

http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77317,00.html
156 posted on 02/01/2003 10:51:23 PM PST by TLBSHOW (God Speed as Angels trending upward dare to fly Tribute to the Risk Takers)
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To: socal_parrot
I'm wondering if what was being seen early on, say over California, before the big breakup, was a bunch of the tiles coming off. I'm pretty sure I've read that when we watch these dramatic meteor showers like the Leonids, many of these objects are the size of grains of sand. If this is correct, something the size of these tiles could put on quite a display as it burns up there. If a bunch of them starting coming off from near the front and hitting other more aft areas of the aircraft, you'd be talking about 12,000 MPH projectiles that could've done serious damage. This is all pure conjecture on my part.

MM

157 posted on 02/01/2003 10:53:31 PM PST by MississippiMan
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To: Howlin
That's the part they were referring to.....at the very back, behind the wings?

Yup.

The guy on CNN said they were burning the midnight oil, zeroing in on that section maybe. CAUTION: I am not up on the technical terms, but I believe this is what he was pointing to.

I distrust them on this. Yes, there may be elevon indications, but those might be a result of the real failure, which could have damaged the actuators.

Had the elevon survived, the Shuttle may have been able to land. Once the elevon is lost, however, the mission's over: the Shuttle is inherently unstable (as are most high performance aircraft), and relies on working computers and working control systems.

Once those controls stop working, the things probably not flyable anymore.

158 posted on 02/01/2003 10:54:17 PM PST by r9etb
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To: TLBSHOW
Oh crap!
159 posted on 02/01/2003 10:54:34 PM PST by Fred Mertz
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To: Fred Mertz
Howlin said I'll take NASA's word, if you don't mind.




160 posted on 02/01/2003 11:01:32 PM PST by TLBSHOW (God Speed as Angels trending upward dare to fly Tribute to the Risk Takers)
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