Radar Shows Material Coming Off Columbia

Washington Post ^ | Feburary 9, 2003 | Thud

[Thud]

NACOGDOCHES, Tex., Feb. 8 -- Defense Department radar shows an object or material coming off the shuttle Columbia as it orbited Earth about one day after its Jan. 16 launch from Florida, NASA officials confirmed late today.

This kind of signal could represent a meteoroid impact, but NASA spokesman Kyle Herring, in Houston, emphasized that its true significance is not yet known. "The Department of Defense has provided the report to NASA, and we're assessing it."

... A report earlier had warned of possible serious damage from a meteoroid impact on the leading edge of a shuttle wing, and such an impact was already on the investigators' list of potential causes of the accident.

[Thud]

See this thread too: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/835531/posts?page=680#680

[Thud]

ping

[Jorge]

Could a meteor hit the shuttle in space without the crew knowing it..and without it throwing the shuttle off course?

And why are we just hearing about this now?

[MomwithHope]

It's just going to take awhile, but the whole story will come out. They have tons of data and I read that one of the crew wrote to his brother about concern over wing damage. If Nasa knew about it and repairs were not possible they could've tried to correct reentry angle to lessen the heat on that wing, as I read in another article.
I just keep thinking couldn't they keep them up there a few more days and do some kind of rescue with another shuittle. When I remember how they saved Apollo 13 - brainstorming and problemsolving - maybe they could've been saved somehow. We just have to be patient and we will get the whole picture.

[MomwithHope]

could be meteor but I would believe space garbage more

[Arkinsaw]

I would imagine there would be a noticeable bang if something caused enough damage to throw off something large enough to be picked up by ground based radar.

[fooman]

There was something on the tube today that said space junk was much more likely that a meteor.

But before space junk, there would be workmanship errors.

I still think that it could be the ice/foam. That enhanced foto shows a jagged wing precisely where the foam/ice hit.

Telemetry also shows that the left wing burned up....

[dc-zoo]

Looks like an attempt to manufacture a cause of this disaster that leaves nasa totally innocent of any wrongdoing.

[TLBSHOW]

btt

[Nick Danger]

Looks like an attempt to manufacture a cause of this disaster that leaves nasa totally innocent of any wrongdoing.

What is the point of finding someone to blame? Will it bring anyone back? Will it stop anything like that from happening again? Or do you just want to stick it to somebody because you like to hurt people?

[TXnMA]

(#%$@%# Wash Compost! I refuse to let their server write to my hard drive ["set a 'cookie'"] and it refuses me access to the rest of the article...)

--------

From what I've read elsewhere on this, the DOD radar detected an object 'departing' the shuttle at a relatively slow speed (~12 mph). AFAIK, nothing was said about anything approaching the shuttle prior to the "departure".

There is a good likelihood that this "departing object or material" will turn out to be ice from a routine wastewater dump.

[TLBSHOW]

So it doesn't happen again. Nasa was warned about problems and when warned they got rid of those people. But this time they are not going to get awat with it.........


CLOSER TO THE TRUTH

February 8, 2003 -- The likelihood that the truth of what led to the disaster aboard space shuttle Columbia will fully be known has increased dramatically - now that NASA has come to its senses and admitted it cannot control the investigation.

snip

To be sure, in-house investigation by government agencies need not automatically be suspect. But NASA, unfortunately, long ago surrendered any right to the benefit of the doubt.

Its investigation of the 1986 explosion of the Challenger space shuttle was marred by stonewalling and a marked reluctance to probe the chain of command.

Ultimately, it was discovered that officials at the Morton Thiokol firm, which manufactured the O-ring seals that caused the explosion, warned against launching the Challenger in extremely cold weather - only to be pressured by NASA brass into reversing their decision.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/30134.htm

[gg188]

I read that one of the crew wrote to his brother about concern over wing damage.

Do you remember where you read this? thx

[TLBSHOW]

awat =away

Nor did NASA reassure the public this time around by naming a panel whose members were tied almost exclusively to NASA, the military and the U.S. Transportation Department.

Even more worrisome, the panel's charter contained a clause requiring the probe to be conducted "in accordance with directions from the NASA administrator and the provisions of applicable NASA management instructions."

That sounded far too much like a recipe for cover-up - not the impartial and comprehensive investigation promised by NASA. Now, under direct pressure from 16 Democratic House members, the worrisome clause has been eliminated, and NASA insists that the panel will investigate "the full breadth of all the things that could possibly have contributed to this."

NEW YORK POST

[jlogajan]

the DOD radar detected an object 'departing' the shuttle at a relatively slow speed (~12 mph)

Okay, thanks for the de-hype. The av-leak description of the shuttle image (which turned out to offer little if any useful info) was similarly hyped way out of proportion. Clearly 12mph ejecta is inconsistent with a 50,000mph impact.

[jlogajan]

That enhanced foto shows a jagged wing precisely where the foam/ice hit.

The photo likely shows a hot air plume -- if it shows anything. Since it is not known exactly where the foam impacted the wing surface, your "precisely where" suggestion is simply wishful thinking.

[Jael]

Bump for a good insight post.

[TLBSHOW]

Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., said recently that he feared that layoffs "could well cut into the very muscle, if not the bone" of NASA's post-Challenger safety program.

Said Weldon: "It's a disgrace."
Knight Ridder February 2, 2003

[Fred Mertz]

Are you getting paid by NASA for your postings here?

It sure seems like it.

[supercat]

I just keep thinking couldn't they keep them up there a few more days and do some kind of rescue with another shuittle. When I remember how they saved Apollo 13 - brainstorming and problemsolving - maybe they could've been saved somehow. We just have to be patient and we will get the whole picture.

The Apollo 13 astronauts were amazingly lucky. Unbleepingbelievable lucky. Stuff of legends lucky. On the other hand, they did have one major thing going for them: since they were doomed, any new plan to bring them back, no matter the odds of success, would be better than the alternative.

In the Columbia incident, the astronauts did not have that; even if they'd known that there was probable damage to the tiles, they might still have felt that their odds of survival would be greater if they tried a normal landing than if they attempted Apollo 13-style heroics. While the normal landing obviously didn't work, that doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't their best choice.

One thing about this sort of situation is that decisions will always be second-guessed if things go wrong. Imagine that the crew had figured out how to do an EVA using the Shuttle to shield the outboard astronauts against the sun, and managed to figure a way to build a parachute and use some fuel as an explosive to detach the crew module from the rest of the ship after starting on a trajectory to yield an Atlantic spashdown. And suppose that the final result of this was that all the astronauts were badly injured on spashdown, six fatally. Would people be admiring the fact that someone survived, or would they be asking why the crew didn't just fly the Shuttle down in the manner it's designed for?