Posted on 02/04/2003 7:29:17 PM PST by TLBSHOW
Looking West for Clues
Feb. 4 — NASA investigators are hoping reports of wreckage from the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia out West will give them new clues into what caused the orbiter to disintegrate just before its scheduled landing, killing all seven astronauts aboard
As many NASA officials took time off to mourn their fallen colleagues at a memorial service today, teams of investigators were dispatched to California and Arizona to respond to reports of pieces of the shuttle being found there. Witnesses have reported to NASA investigators that parts of Columbia began falling off Saturday morning as it flew over California and Arizona — before the ship disintegrated over Texas.
Early reports, officials said, indicate that the debris belongs to the shuttle's wing.
Investigators hope the reported debris — if connected to the Columbia — will help them piece together what caused the fatal accident. The parts would represent the early stages of Columbia's disintegration and could give insight into what went wrong with the aircraft before its final moments.
"We've had reports that there are pieces on the ground in California and Arizona, and because we feel these results are potentially credible, we have dispatched NASA recovery teams to go and take a look at this material," said Michael Kostelnik, NASA deputy administrator.
Kostelnik also said larger and denser pieces of Columbia, including one of the engines, fell in Louisiana and are being recovered. Investigators also are getting new military photographs of the Columbia's fiery streak across the country from an Apache helicopter that was flying during its re-entry and recorded the shuttle's path.
In addition, investigators in Florida have studied sea currents in the Atlantic Ocean near the Kennedy Space Center, trying to determine where heat tiles or other parts that might have fallen off the Columbia during its launch would have wound up.NASA officials are also examining devices that measure winds from the ground, up to 53,000 feet in altitude. These devices, show that particles from the shuttle were falling over Louisiana and east Texas for about five hours.
Pinpointing the Beginning of the Problem
Investigators in Houston intend to study every second of data that Columbia sent back during its flight, trying to determine exactly when and where the problem started — with the analysis focused on what effect the loss of tiles during the craft's launch might have had on its re-entry.
Searchers are looking for debris from Columbia in east Texas and Louisiana. (ABCNEWS.com/ Maps.com)
The prime suspect in the disaster is insulating tile damage that occurred in the first 80 seconds after liftoff on Jan. 16. A 20-by-16-inch piece of insulation foam that weighed three pounds broke off the gas tank approximately 80 seconds after liftoff and hit the underside of the left wing of Columbia.
At the time, NASA experts looked at the damage and dismissed it as possible cause of any potential problems. They even looked at the possibility that tiles could have been missing over an area as large as 7 inches by 30 inches, but on the shuttle's 12th day in space, engineers concluded that the damage would not be "sufficient to cause a catastrophic event," according to a NASA memo.
But as the shuttle re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on Saturday, there was a sharp rise in temperature on the left side of the craft before the shuttle broke up. Kostelnik said today that the piece of foam that fell off Columbia was the perhaps the largest yet, but officials did not believe it would pose a catastrophic danger. Investigators are now working on the assumption that the insulation foam did enough damage that those tiles were unable to protect the shuttle from extreme heat on re-entry.
Still, investigators say, on almost every shuttle flight, the craft has lost some of the more than 24,000 tiles that cover it to protect it from the heat of re-entry. Some parts of the shuttle are more critical than others, though, when it comes to safeguarding the craft. Sensors show there were unusually high temperatures on the left side and especially in the wheel well, but the investigators examining the data are not convinced that is where the problem began.
"That missing link is out there. We just to go out there and find it," shuttle program coordinator Ron Dittemore said Monday. "But we may never know the exact root cause and so we're gonna have to use our best judgment as to root cause. But we're gonna work our darnedest to figure that out and fix it."
For that reason, NASA engineers want to know exactly where the heat spike began, because it could give them the crucial clue to what went wrong. Engineers are also examining 32 seconds of computer data that came just before all communications with Columbia were lost and hope to have some information on Wednesday.
More Crucial Shuttle Parts Found in Texas
Meanwhile, searchers today found more key parts of the shuttle in Hemphill, Texas, recovering parts of its fuselage, circuit boards and landing gear. Searchers found the shuttle's nose cone late Monday. All these parts could help investigators figure out Columbia's trajectory and provide other clues.
"Some of those parts can possibly be processed in a way that will give you an indication of what was going on during the last few seconds when the shuttle was obviously desperately trying to adjust its altitude and stay on the flight path," ABCNEWS space consultant Jim Slade said.
Officials have told ABCNEWS that remains of the astronauts will be taken Wednesday from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for examination. Identification will need to be done almost entirely through DNA analysis.
All of the wreckage reports from California so far have panned out as bogus.
Life has a 100% mortality rate.
The fortunate few die doing what they love.
Never the less, it's tragic.
Faith doesn't enter into it--the wreckage must actually BE there (not likely), must be where it can be found (i.e., where there are people--and people are very thin on the ground along that portion of the flight path), and, finally, it must actually BE found by someone looking on the ground (which implies a major search effort).
Problem: how long do you keep looking for a piece that isn't likely to be there?
You look till you find it thats how!
One more time: how long do you have a full-court press searching for a piece that is unlikely to even be on the ground in the first place?
One year?
Two years?
A decade?
And while I have your attention, in this post to me yesterday
To: Howlin; TLBSHOW
Changing the subject slightly, you told me the other night the Columbia crew knew of their damaged wing. I took your word for it, then I read this.
Had the Columbia crew known of damage, though, there was probably little they could have done about it, said Sally Ride, America's first woman in space and a member of the commission that investigated the Challenger disaster. The Challenger shuttle exploded during liftoff 17 years ago.
Sally Ride tells me something different here. Who am I to believe? I'd appreciate any clarification you can provide. Thanks.
Source: http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/news/020403_nw_theory.html
486 posted on 02/04/2003 5:37 PM EST by Fred Mertz
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You insinuated that Sally Ride said that the shuttle crew was not informed about the object hitting the shuttle.
Kindly point out where she said that in that article you linked.
I sure do. You.
If you're going to talk about me, ping me.
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