[AP SCOOP] Space Shuttle Columbia Will Be Visible In San Francisco Area (6AM Pacific)

nasa

[leadpenny]

Space Shuttle Columbia is in a decent for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and will pass over the San Francisco Area around 6:00 AM Pacific Time. Route will take the Shuttle over Las Vegas, Flagstaff, etc. NASA has still not decided which runway will be used. Landing will be at 9:16 AM Eastern.

[LowOiL]

Leadpenny, I have been harping the virtues of FR to a friend of mine (he usually groans and mentions that this stuff is boring). I used your thread as an example of how fast FR is at getting the news and how people (Texas in this case) report so you get a first hand look at the news as it happens without the liberal spin. There is no better proof of FR's greatness that you thread. It was just perchance that you hit a news story on the head, but you did.

FR rocks because people like you share your news. There is no better source of news IMHO.

[TEXOKIE]

I try to write to my elderly mother on a frequent basis. In each letter I close with a prayer. I wanted to share today's with you now.

Our Beloved Heavenly Father, Our Lord Christ Jesus,

We come before you now and beseech you to please care for the souls of these precious ones in our space program who gave their lives in the quest for greater knowledge of the Cosmos which you created. Take these precious souls in your arms and place them gently into the highest places in your Mansion that you possibly can. Heal their souls of any wounds which the trauma may have caused them. Comfort their souls as they leave behind their friends and families.

Hold their friends and families close to your heart and give them legions of comfort angels. Help them to find strength in you during this period of intense raw pain. Help their families gracefully adjust to the changes in dynamics which occur when we lose dear ones. Protect these ones who are very much in the public eye. Let them know that we CARE about them. Guide the media personnel in their efforts to gain stories for those of us who do care. Let them be sensitive to the pain of these precious souls who have lost so much while those stories are gathered.

Father, we pray for the people in the space program who were involved in this mission. We ask that you will guide them in finding out the root cause/s so that any future reoccurence may never happen again. We further ask that you will enlighten people who find debris as to the importance of it being turned in to authorities. One just never knows which little bit might spell the key for us to understand the disaster. Please Lord, if there is such a piece or pieces, please let them be found and turned in by unselfish citizens.

Father, we ask for your mercy and care not only for the souls involved in this national tragedy, but for any and all who have given their lives wearing our military uniforms. We have had recent helicopter crashes and other incidents where we have lost soldiers. Father, we include them and their families in our prayers. We continue to pray for all of our military who are actively serving in any capacity, and their families.

Father, guide all of our leaders in their decisions which are needing to be made. Especially give our President grace and wisdom in his decisions to deploy our forces. We pray and trust that whenever he bows his head in prayer, which he has indicated he does do, that he will have an extraordinary ablility to hear Your words and guidance. We support him and lift him up in our prayers and are grateful that you have allowed us to have in office one who does sincerely believe and depend upon the arm of the Lord. We would ask that each and every person in office or who is in a leadership and decision-making capacity also have an extraordinary ability to hear heavenly guidance when they bow their heads in prayer. We are in a very crucial time in many levels and many fronts, Lord, and we have never needed your intercession more. Grant us that intercession, our Father! Grant us the vision as a united people that we need in order to allow your own divine plan for our nation and civilization to be made manifest.

Father, we place all of this upon the altar and we give gratitude and praise to you that you do indeed hear and answer our prayers. We ask that all of our prayers will be adjusted according to thy will, for we do not wish to pray amiss in any way whatsoever. In the name of the Everlasing Word,

Amen

~written by TEXOKIE Feb 1, 2003~

[Winston_Wolf]

... That is amazing, thanks for sharing it. God Bless the brave crew and their families.

[winodog]

According to the NASA press conference you are right.
The times they are giving fit right in.

[Chesterbelloc]

Well, last night I went to http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/groundtracs to make sure I had the correct time for it passing over my area. I live high up in the Sierra Nevada mountains in Central California. The kids and I go out there this morning and the big beautiful fireball trailing a plume of smoke goes by amazingly fast right on schedule at around 5:55. I tell the kids in just 20 minutes it'll be on the ground in Florida. Think about going inside and turning on the tv to watch it land, but go back to bed instead. Wake up and turn on the news later - what a horrible sick feeling! God Bless those 7 precious souls...

[LowOiL]

Now people are trying to sell pieces on Ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3205211710&category=413

[Chesterbelloc]

BTW, if you visit the spaceflight site to see it's Deorbit flight path - it was orbit 255 (the top one) that it took.

[leadpenny]

I heard that right after the news conference. The Feds will track those E-Bay sellers down I would imagine.

[leadpenny]

I'm sure if you would have seen anything coming off the shuttle you would have said so but did anything look out of the ordinary?

[leadpenny]

How far apart are you two?

[leadpenny]

That is very nice. I have a couple of cousins who will like receiving that in an E-Mail.

[TLBSHOW]

The first sign of trouble here at Free republic

To: leadpenny

It wasnt a glow that spread back like a comet but it must have been "on fire" because it was bright and big.


18 posted on 02/01/2003 9:03 AM EST by winodog

[leadpenny]

. . . I have been harping the virtues of FR to a friend of mine . . . .

I do the same thing. Most of the time, about a week later, I get, "What did you say that site was?"

Their loss.

[winodog]

The more I read the more it hits home that the bright red light in the center was something burning up.
Of course it could have just been the shuttle itself and it is normal for it to be red hot.

[TLBSHOW]

this thread connects to that post 18

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/834060/posts?page=16

[TLBSHOW]

You were there and you annouced this tragedy that was to be.

[leadpenny]

Yes, I think winodog was probably seeing some trouble at the time but that comment was in response to me asking if the Columbia was glowing. I had just figured the heat shield was getting warm on re-entry. As we went back and looked at it later we both think something was happening over Nevada and maybe even California. The latest news conference kinda confirms this, I think.

[Michael81Dus]

God Almighty, this thread is fascinating. I heard of the tragedy on FR - while local/national news agencies here didn´t react. Five minutes after hearing on FR that something was wrong, I could read it in the news here.

[Chesterbelloc]

I didn't see anything that I didn't expect to see - it was a fireball with a plume trailing behind it. No sudden changes in brightness - nothing separating off from it. I was going to video tape it, but didn't. It passed slightly north of me - I'm at Shaver Lake, California.

[TLBSHOW]

He didn't know it at the time that he saw trouble. As seen from his next post but he saw it and add in the report from Cal and the shuttle looks to me to of been on fire as it came in and by the time it had reached Texas it exploded.