Posted on 02/05/2003 12:38:34 PM PST by 1ofmanyfree
Southern N.M. facility might have information on Columbia
WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE (AP) — Monitoring systems at the White Sands Test Facility near Las Cruces could contain information about Saturday’s Columbia space shuttle disaster. The facility includes NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, which records and transmits all data sent from space shuttles to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Ron D. Dittemore. shuttle program manager for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said Monday from Houston that he would send a team to White Sands to try to extract extra information. ‘it might just be that there’s a few more seconds on that equipment than was received at Johnson.” said Steve Nesbitt. a NASA spokesman. ‘We’re looking for every scrap of informa-tion from every extra second of data that we can get.” When a space shuttle is in the air, it continuously trans-mits data from its critical systems to two satellites orbiting on opposite sides of the Earth. Those satellites transmit the data directly to White Sands, which relays it to the Johnson control center. ‘Our satellites collect all the data, and we save all of that on tape here,” said Jim Gavura, director of the White Sands station. “If there is a communications outage at any tune, we always save that, and that data is avail-able.” Gavura said he wasn’t sure the station had received any-thing that wasn’t sent to Houston, but he will help NASA examine the tapes. “They don’t want to leave anything (unchecked) that might have a clue as to what happened,” he said. NASA officials also are examining a photo taken by the Starfire Optical Range at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque as the Columbia passed over New Mexico before it broke up at 200,000 feet. “We did take a photograph of it on its way in,” said Rich Garcia, spokesman for the Air Force Base research labo-ratory. The picture has been turned over to NASA, Garcia said. Air Force and NASA offi-cials would not comment on what the picture showed or whether it would help the Investigation. The commander of the Air Force Safety Center at Kirt-land is also involved in the investigation. Maj. Gen. Ken-neth W. Hess is working on a special commission to try to determine what went wrong.
The very first day it was said that there were 32 seconds of additional data that would easy to access.....suddenly, it's not so easy, or they don't want to reveal what they know.
I believe you are correct..it may be too painful for the families..
But if you're trying to tell him over the phone, what you saw and heard before the car went on the bum, it's pretty hard for him to diagnois it.
And of course, this vehicle is now in a bizillion pieces which doesn't help and "diagnois that" is a little difficult.
There have been statements made repeatedly that there was more data than that recieved by NASA.
the early cable stories were saying that... (honest... they really, really said that). i think... or maybe my dog told me or something...
anyhow, i did find this:
Data flowed 32 seconds after contact lost
A precious 32 seconds -- that is how long the space shuttle Columbia continued to send data back to Earth after NASA lost contact with the astronauts. On Monday, experts said some of this data might yield clues into the final seconds of the doomed flight.
Ron Dittemore, the space shuttle program manager, said on Monday that reconstructing the data was proving harder than originally thought. Finishing the job, he said, might take another day or so.
The data discovery was made possible because the shuttles have a little-known way of keeping in touch. Space vehicles streaking back to Earth generate a fiery plasma, a cloud of electrically charged particles, on their undersides that blocks radio waves, creating a communications blackout.
But in addition to having communication gear that sends its signals earthward, where they are blocked by the hot plasma, the shuttles have an antenna system that points up. These signals are received by Tracking Data and Relay System Satellites.
One of these high-orbiting satellites received data from Columbia and relayed it to Earth. -- NEW YORK TIMES
...i think this is the white sands data.
12,500 x 5280 = 66,000,000 feet/hr
66,000,000 ft/hr x 1 hr/3600 sec = 18,333 ft/sec
muzzle velocity of high powered rifle is approx 3000 ft/sec.
ever watch hydrafoils racing... they're running along fine, and in an instant there's an explosion of fiberglass and water and the race ends instantly for that driver.
well, try to imagine a ship the size of a house tumbling out of control at a speed that is 6 times that of a bullet.
my guess is that they never knew, God bless em.
NASA officials also are examining a photo taken by the Starfire Optical Range at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque as the Columbia passed over New Mexico before it broke up at 200,000 feet.
“We did take a photograph of it on its way in,” said Rich Garcia, spokesman for the Air Force Base research labo-ratory.
The picture has been turned over to NASA, Garcia said. Air Force and NASA offi-cials would not comment on what the picture showed or whether it would help the Investigation.
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