Posted on 06/24/2003 11:15:15 AM PDT by yonif
NASA has released almost 10 hours of videotape and 92 photographs taken during Ilan Ramon's space shuttle mission. The videotapes and film were recovered near San Augustine Texas during the three month search for debris from Columbia. All together 38,500 kgs. of debris were recovered over an 6,400 square km. area in Texas and Louisiana.
Out of 337 videotapes 28 had usable footage. The first videotape with recovered video showed flight deck as the astronauts prepared for reentry. It was released a couple of weeks after the accident. NASA delievered the rest of the recovered videotapes to the National Transportation Safety Board which has the resources to recover videos which have been damaged in accidents.
NASA spokesperson Kyle Herring said "It was a fairly long and tedious process. The NTSB has the expertise in dealing with [damaged videotape]." The first video released showed astronauts Laurel Clark, Rick Husband, Kalpana Chawla, and Ilan Ramon as they were waken up to the song "Love of My Life" on the 12th day of the mission. The song was requested by Ilan's wife Rona.
Another video showed Ilan Ramon brushing his teeth. Apparently he was rather agressive because one of his crewmates kidded him about disrupting the microgravity. In another clip he took out a kiddush cup from a plastic bag.
The videos showed showed normal life in space with the seven crew members enjoying themselves while going about their regular activities.
The film included both 35 mm. and 70 mm. The only usable 70 mm. film recovered was a group shot of all seven crewmembers. The 35 mm. film includes photos of the crew working on their experiments and views of the Earth outside the window. One person familiar with the photos noted that most of the Earth observation images were Israel.
Presumably most of those photos were taken by Ilan Ramon since most space travellers like to take photos of their hometowns. There were 137 rolls of 35 mm. and 70 mm. film on Columbia, only 21 rolls were found with recoverable photos.
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board gave NASA permission to release the photos because they didn't have anything to do with the accident.
Seems silly that, with so many tragedies taking place in the world every day, that this one should still bring tears to my eyes, but there it is.
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