The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

"If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." -- Gus Grissom, 3 weeks before the Apollo 1 fire.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Dan is an idiot, but he does a good job covering disasters, imho.

The caller was a Howard Stern fan, apparently; I didn't hear the call myself, and I'm just as glad I didn't.

[JenB]

That's such an incredible quote, Bear. It really says something about the best in humanity.

My heroes have always been spacemen.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Local news has cut away to coverage of a press conference with Texas Governor Rick Perry. Some highlights...

Pieces of debris have been identified from north of Dallas to Alexandria, LA. Some pieces are sizeable (a few feet across) but they expect most pieces to be about 1 to 2 inches in size. The 6th Civil Defense team (military hazardous waste disposal team, National Guard maybe?) has been mobilized and is standing by to help deal with any hazardous material found.

[JenB]

Wow.... how will they ever find it all? Has anyone been hurt by the debris?

[Overtaxed]

I've heard that some of it crashed through a dentist's office but haven't heard of any people on the ground being hit.

[JenB]

That's a small mercy, then.

[Overtaxed]

Especially considering how much debris was falling:

[Sam Cree]

They said this morning that debris had set an apartment building on fire. Did that turn out to be wrong?

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

According to Gov. Perry's press conference, there are no reports of anyone on the ground being hurt.

They've since cut away to cover the NASA briefing.

[JenB]

That is truly a horrible image, OT.

[Overtaxed]

Oh yeah...I heard that but didn't hear about anyone being hurt because of it....yet.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

There were early reports of an apartment building in Plano, TX, being set on fire by falling debris, but I haven't heard that repeated lately. It may be that they realized the fire was not actually caused by debris. Plano is just north of Dallas, btw.

[Overtaxed]

Sounds like they were losing readings (temperatures, I think) on the left side first.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Apparently a piece of foam insulation broke loose from the big center fuel tank during the launch, and struck the underside of the left wing. NASA evaluated the event and decided that it was unlikely to have caused any major damage to the wing. However, they didn't check for damage during the flight; for instance, they didn't do a space walk to examine the tiles.

There are news reports that telemetry was lost from the left wing, just before complete contact was lost. The last communication mentions an unexpected high pressure in the landing gear tires; part of the landing gear are in the wings.

What if: the heat tiles on the left wing were damaged, causing heat to build up in that wing (reflected by higher-than-expected tire pressure), which either caused a burn-through or weakened the wing so that it failed during the banking turns.

That's what I'm afraid of... that NASA could have checked for damage during the flight and realized the danger, but didn't, because they didn't think it was necessary.

[Overtaxed]

That's what I'm afraid of... that NASA could have checked for damage during the flight and realized the danger, but didn't, because they didn't think it was necessary.

Or maybe they didn't have a way to repair the damage during the mission.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

They probably wouldn't have had any way to fix it in space. But, could they have waited at the space station, until a relief shuttle could come to pick them up? I don't know; that's just purely speculation on my part.

[Overtaxed]

I maybe they could have. I'm freeping and listening to the news conference at the same time. Did I hear correctly that they have had material ( that foam stuff, I presume) break off before from the same general area but all it did was ding up some stuff. Could it have just dinged the exact wrong spot by chance? (just speculating)

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

I was listening to the NASA press conference as well, one of the NASA people went into what seemed like a litany of "events", pieces breaking off during launch which had no effect on the mission involved. One of the pieces he mentioned was the door covering the drag chute that deploys during the actual landing to slow the shuttle down. Amazing! It may be that this time it loosened or otherwise damaged a heat tile; only one small tile out of place would have allowed a burn-through, or what NASA calls the "blowtorch effect".

NBC is showing lots of pictures of debris, have seen one fairly large piece that looks like burned fabric; part of a seat, maybe? Something from the interior of the shuttle, I would think.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Local reporters from Austin have driven up to Nacogdoches, where large amounts of debris have fallen. Lots of video of debris pieces, roped off by police tape.

People are putting bundles of flowers near the pieces, or as near as they're allowed to get anyway.