Space Shuttle Columbia Crew Studies Sprites and Elves

AP ^ | January 20, 2003

[Shermy]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Sprites and elves dancing on thunder clouds have been captured by cameras on the space shuttle Columbia.

The sprites, which are red flashes of electricity shooting up from thunderclouds 13 miles (20 km) into the ionosphere, and elves, which are glowing red doughnut shapes radiating 190 miles (300 km), were photographed Sunday by astronaut Dave Brown on the sprite hunt's first orbit.

Columbia and a crew of seven astronauts are on a 16-day science mission that began Thursday. The study of sprites is part of an Israeli experiment known as MEIDEX that includes the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon.

"This is the first time (we've successfully taken) such images with a calibrated instrument from the shuttle and it's causing really great excitement with our colleagues around the world," said Yoav Yair, project coordinator for Israeli experiments on the shuttle science mission.

Yair said Brown did not see the luminosities or know that he had captured their images until scientists on the ground downloaded and analysed the pictures.

"One has to be extremely lucky to catch one because it lasts only 0.1 milliseconds -- less than a thousandth of a second," Yair said. "Luckily, God was on our side this time and we caught one."

The discovery of sprites in 1989 and elves in 1994 has opened up a new area of study in the field of upper atmospheric physics. Until now, images of them have been limited to those taken from the ground or aeroplanes.

The shuttle cameras that captured the flashes are onboard primarily to facilitate the Israeli's Mediterranean-Israeli dust experiment (MEIDEX) designed to study the impact of dust particles on global climate.

Zev Levin, of Tel Aviv University, who heads up the Israeli experiments, which were originally scheduled to fly in July 2001 but have been delayed by technical and scheduling problems, said that winter is the worst time to be searching for dust storms in the Mediterranean.

Levin said the team has not yet encountered any dust storms and is instead following plumes of pollutants from Europe wafting over the study area.

All in all, Yair said, Israeli scientists are "having a great time working with NASA (news - web sites) around the clock and getting good scientific data and already exceeding our, I would say, wildest expectations of getting science from this mission."

[dasboot]

Roger that on the search, BUT...

Regardless of the actual cause of the "accident", evidence has come to light that NASA knew of the high probability of tile failure at launch, and had devised NO RELIABLE MEANS to assess damage to the underside of the shuttle; and, thus, had NO WAY to determine the real-time necessity of mission abort. They got caught, pants down, p***s in-hand. A camera facing the bottom of the vehicle, attached to the tank-struts--or something like that--could have saved this particular crew. Instead, they relied on a computer model that told them that the shuttle was either OK or very much dead--two days after the information would have been useful. They crossed fingers, threw dice, and hoped for continued providence. OOPS.

Then there's the fact that they had neglected to provide for a "plan B" if the orbiting shuttle couldn't re-enter safely. These guys are smart?

In my mind this was inexcusable negligence--athwart the common sense available to anyone, and certainly not up to the standards set by the early mission directors. I expect better.

[Alex Murphy]

Ahhh - Another TZ Fan....I thought the remake was better than the original.

Me, too.

[dasboot]

AHHHHHHH!! The nightmares will return! DON"T PULL THE CURTAIN, WILLIAM!!!!

[dasboot]

OR....photo of left shuttle wing taken by California astronomer 20 minutes before landing.

[TomServo]

OR....photo of left shuttle wing taken by California astronomer 20 minutes before landing.

Careful - you might get some folks started around here...

[mrsmith]

muawiyah suggested it in this earlier thread.

[Shermy]

Yep. Muawiyah was the first!

[Hanging Chad]

"Educate yourself, and then come back here and say that the space program hasn't done anything to improve the quality of our lives."
- - -
Mostly it is propaganda ... to keep a bunch of scientists and engineers employed.

[Boundless]

> ...evidence has come to light that NASA knew...

No new "evidence" is required for abundant finger pointing. The STS has always had substantial risks, only some of which were mitigated after Challenger. I was dismayed when I saw "NO COMM" during the re-entry, but not the least bit surprised.

Here's a "how come?"....
The ISS is designed for 7 crew. It is presently limited to 3 because misson safety rules require escape-to-earth capability for all on board (and the spare Soyuz holds only 3).

If the ISS rules were applied to STS (which is a much riskier system than ISS), the fleet would have been grounded years ago.

> ...neglected to provide for a "plan B"...

Here's another observation. The space race is over, and has been since the fall of the USSR, if not since 1969. Why hasn't NASA stopped running the race, paused, and created ANY kind of space rescue capability?

We are 42 years into human spaceflight. If we date the submarine age to 1900 (USS Holland), there was rescue capability less than 40 years later, and it was used 39 years into the sub age (USS Squalus).

STS has never lived up to its billing, and the cost and delays of running it not only killed Saturn V (and Skylab), but every potential replacement program.

This time, at least, there are no spare parts to build another orbiter. Doing something completely different will be cheaper.

[blam]

Circular Elves And Blue Jets (See the bottom of the image for 'regular' lightning)

[TLBSHOW]

BTTT