Shuttle Lost Parts Over Calif. (finally confirming what amateur skywatchers from Day One said)

ap ^ | 2/18/2002 | MARCIA DUNN

[jimtorr]

Large craft like the space shuttle and the Concorde produce double sonic booms caused by bow shock and wake shock.

I recall that we wanted to mute some of the wild speculation that was going on, though I don't recall much of the intensity that you describe.

I noted the above, because a few weeks ago I was talking with an actual "rocket scientist" who works for the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Laurel, Maryland.

Anyway, he didn't know about the double sonic booms, as noted above, and was speculating about debris based on reports of the double booms. He also didn't know about the strange behavior that plasma sometimes exhibits on re-entry.

This is why

[Fred Mertz]

Todd, this is old news isn't it?

Thanks for the flag.

[Hila]

I remember having read the early report of the sighting from California here in Freeperland. I am grateful for Free Republic and also very proud (in the humble manner) to be part of such an informed group of citizens. THANKS JIM and thanks all who contribute the truth.

[TLBSHOW]

lol for some of us its really old!

[don-o]

I believe I retracted a post I made, when I began to think that the reports indicated that she was breaking up over Calif.

That was on the Sunday after she crashed.

[fire_eye]

I want to know who is the Dick Feynman on this panel.

Dream on... You wish...

They might do OK anyway, though. They've got their last bad example to not follow.

[Joe Hadenuf]

I recall that we wanted to mute some of the wild speculation that was going on, though I don't recall much of the intensity that you describe.

There was a few different threads where things got slightly heated over speculation on where the spacecraft started experiencing trouble, and actually breaking up.

In any event, I personally, after hearing the reports from several in California, including the people in the SF and Bishop area, noted at the time that they sounded extremely credible when I first heard the radio reports of their observations. I knew, they were not just not your average garden varity witnesses.

[Joe Hadenuf]

I knew, they were not just your average garden varity witnesses.

That too.....

[Lord Basil]

I don't know if anyone read the following concerning the external fuel tank foam:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77832,00.html

--begin excerpt--

Until 1997, Columbia’s external fuel tanks were insulated with a Freon-based foam. Freon is a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) supposedly linked with ozone depletion and phased out of widespread use under the international treaty known as the Montreal Protocol.

Despite that the Freon-based foam worked well and that an exemption from the CFC phase-out could have been obtained, NASA succumbed to political correctness. The agency substituted an allegedly more eco-friendly foam for the Freon-based foam.

PC-foam was an immediate problem.

The first mission with PC-foam resulted in 11 times more damaged thermal tiles on Columbia than the previous mission with the Freon-based foam.

A Dec. 23, 1997, diary entry on the NASA Web site reported: “308 hits were counted during the inspection, 132 were greater than 1-inch. Some of the hits measured 15 inches long, with depths measuring up to 1.5 inches. Considering that the depth of a tile is 2 inches, a 75 percent penetration depth had been reached.”

--end excerpt--

[Resolute]

This one maybe? Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster Archive

[Cold Heat]

LOL! We had these things nailed down on the 3rd or 4th of FEB. Our assessment was that they were too small to have survived to the ground.(via XBob)

When are we going to NM to find the big piece?

[TLBSHOW]

BUMP

[tubebender]

When are we going to NM to find the big piece?

As soon as I learn to pilot a ultralite. BTW, Dittemore said from day one they were interested in finding debris in Calif. Did you hear about the photos taken at a obsevatory in Hawai ?

[Cold Heat]

I had not heard about the photos surfacing, but someone said somewhere, that Hawaii was in the loop on the re-entry.

[Joe Hadenuf]

That's it. Thanks......

[DouglasKC]

How ling long do you think it will take to get an apology for all the grief you took when this was first proposed? :-)

[TLBSHOW]

I have 2 quotes from when I have asked this same question...

when pigs fly

and

when hell freezes over

LOL

that is alright, as I always tell the non-believers and anti-TLBSHOW people, time is on my side and the truth will come out in the end, it may be a day later or a week, a month or year but it will come out that I was right....
Thanks for asking :>)

[VRWC For Truth]

Where all all the NASA defenders on this thread? The ones calling this a rush to judgment over tile damage, a left wing problem, and a breakup earlier than Texas. Seems the so-called AMATEURS know more than NASA bureaucrats and expert defenders on FR do. As I've said previously, NASA is not made of the right stuff anymore.

[1rudeboy]

When what exactly was first suggested? I remember TLBSHOW spamming Ford TriMotor photos.

[TLBSHOW]

What ever did happen with the Drudge-report picture or was that a world net daily picture or wait was that a picture from some site from Israel? Anyways that was later that week. We are talking about post 4 and the link in it on this thread.

I said that picture was nothing and not the point to anything. And it wasn't spam because I only posted it twice. LOL