The Morning Show Thread~3Feb~(FOX & Friends, Imus, C-SPAN)

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[leadpenny]

FOX & Friends:

7:20: The family and friends of Columbia’s crew remark on the courage and determination of their lost loved ones.
7:50: How long will it be until NASA's next shuttle mission? We’ll ask a former NASA administrator.
8:15: Is it time to rethink manned space travel? Sen. George Allen, a congressional subcommittee member, takes us inside the center of the debate.
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Imus:

6:00: Have a great weekend everyone! Don’t forget to tune in Monday morning at 6 am ET. Hopefully Bernard is back from his illness. Plus your daily dose of scum with Janice Dean and a years worth of scum with Sid. Let the year of the goat begin!
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C-SPAN Washington Journal:

7:45: Shuttle Columbia Explosion (45 Minutes)
Jim Asker, Managing Editor, Aviation Week
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Times Eastern.

[leadpenny]

I'm sure much more will be revealed today about the Columbia Disaster.

[leadpenny]

Imus is talking to Jay Barbaree, who is at Cape Canaveral.

[leadpenny]

MSNBC spelled his name wrong and so did I. Barbree.

[leadpenny]

A thought just crossed my mind. Even if the crew knew that extensive damage had been done to the wing tile at lift off, there was nothing they could do about it. Here's my thought: The ISS has an escape capsule that can get a crew to Earth in an Emergency. Why doesn't NASA consider a "Life Boat" for the Shuttle?

[leadpenny]

Imus just asked the same question. Barbree said it was considered and they did have ejection seats on the first four shuttle flights. An Emergency Return Pod would add too much weight, according to Barbree.

[Iowa Granny]

Interesting information. Thanx for posting.

[leadpenny]

Morning IG. Howard Fineman and Mike Barnicle will be on Imus later. I'm sure MSNBC would be preempting them if the talk was not centered on the Columbia Disaster.

Where were you when you heard about the Columbia? If you care to say.

[Iowa Granny]

I was in my kitchen,, the TV was blaring away, and I was paying it no mind. Suddenly the weekend FnF guy says 'they've lost contact with Columbia, but there is always a brief disconnect during reentry, it seems they are having trouble re establishing contact."

Next, they said "Columbia is overdue". I stopped what I was doing, and watched. I rearranged my schedule, and spent the rest of the day, glued to the set"

And you? Did you go to the CPAC event? If so, did you get Ann Colter's autograph? (I need the really important information,,,, understand ;~])

[leadpenny]

I think most people got caught up in it. I'm a space junkie and had started a discussion thread to have people along the route report sightings. Little did I know that we all somehow shared the last minutes of the astronauts lives.

BTW, if someone else doesn't do it I'm going to start a C-SPAN thread on the main forum. The Administrator, Sean O'Keefe, is going to be on Washington Journal at 7:45. I better go post it. Oh, and no, I didn't make it to any of the CPAC events. Maybe next year.

[Iowa Granny]

I"ll watch for your thread.

[leadpenny]

I'm sorry. I must have misunderstood the time. Anyway it is James Asker from Aviation Week.

[McGruff]

Good morning to you. Hopefully this will be a much more uneventful day than Saturday.

I heard about 10 minutes of this Jay Barbaree fellow. He seems very informed in this area.

Some interesting points he made about even if they knew that the shuttle was doomed basically there is nothing more that they could do to bring it home safely. They weren't in an orbit that would allow them to get to the Space Station.

The part about the piece of foam being frozen was new to me. I don't know if he was Breaking News with that report or not.

I'll have more to say when I get settled into my workday routine.

[YaYa123]

Good Morning leadpenny, and Congratulations.

Imus asked Robert Bazell my question. Did the astronauts know there was serious concern about their safety during re-entry, because of the possibly missing/damaged tiles?

Bazell says he does not know if the astronauts knew specifically about the inter-NASA memo that detailed the dangers, a memo that was written just two days before re-entry. But Bazell says yes, of course the astronauts knew about what happened on take-off, when tiles were damaged, but he doubts they knew about the existance of a specific memo, that has been exposed by Barbree this morning.

[McGruff]

I don't know if you heard this but Fred IMUS currently lives in Texas and heard this happen Saturday. How strange is that.

IMUS just mentioned that Jay Barbaree had a BREAKING NEWS report on the Today Show that someone in NASA sent a memo 2 days into the flight that there could be a problem with reentry.

I am disappointed with the way IMUS is handling this subject today. He’s way too emotional about a possible cover-up by NASA. We will have time for all of these allegations, but please give it some time.

[YaYa123]

I agree, IMUS is just looking for cover-ups and misdeeds...headlines. So much so, that he's misquoting what Bazell said about the President's interest in an independent investigative committee.

There has already been established a NASA investigation, and an independent investigation headed by the same retired Admiral who along with retired General William Crouch, investigated the USSCole, and over the week-end both senators Nelson and Kay Bailey, announced there would be senate investigations by the Commerce Committee, which by the way is headed by McCain.

[YaYa123]

Admiral Harold W. Gehman is the admiral named over the weekend, who will head up one of the initial investigations of what happened.

[leadpenny]

I was kind of thinking about the possibility of memos floating around right after Dittmore's News Conference on Sat. He said they had been working the problem of the foam since right after liftoff in anticipation of whatever they found, it would effect all of the shuttles. Everything is documented at NASA and the CYA factor means that much has yet to come out. Aside from the internal memos there are probably plenty of individual Memos For Record that were written even after minor conversations.

[leadpenny]

I had not heard the Fred reference. Imus is definitely exercised over it this AM. I hate to be cynical but I think he is daring MSNBC to cut away with their own programming. He has been wall to wall with all the good guests.

[McGruff]

Heads up: IMUS is going to try and get Jay Barbaree back on today.