Shuttle Contact LOST-No Tracking Data During RE-Entry!

Nasa TV | 02/01/03 | GRRRR

[GRRRRR]

Shuttle has NOT been heard from or seen on tracking radar since 0800Hrs CDT. No contact at Merrit Island tracking station, no voice comm...DEVELOPING.

[Mr. Silverback]

Do you have the entire text to the poem in your tagline?

Sure 'nuff.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

I plan for the first two lines to be my epitaph. High Flight is the offical poem of the United States Air Force. Here's a biography and photo of the poet.

High Flight was composed by Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., an American serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was born in Shanghai, China in 1922, the son of missionary parents, Reverend and Mrs. John Gillespie Magee; his father was an American and his mother was originally a British citizen.

He came to the U.S. in 1939 and earned a scholarship to Yale, but in September 1940 he enlisted in the RCAF and was graduated as a pilot. He was sent to England for combat duty in July 1941.

In August or September 1941, Pilot Officer Magee composed High Flight and sent a copy to his parents. Several months later, on December 11, 1941 his Spitfire collided with another plane over England and Magee, only 19 years of age, crashed to his death.

His remains are buried in the churchyard cemetery at Scopwick, Lincolnshire.

[ewing]

Some Texas farmer just said on CNN that there was another airplane in the area that he saw in the sky at the time of the accident..did anyone else see this too?

[Search4Truth]

DITTO

God bless these brave souls. Rest in Peace.

[Will_Zurmacht]

yes they caught the parachute guys. two who were apparently upset with disiplinary actions taken against them earlier...i say hang em

[P.O.E.]

[don-o]

It's irrelevant

[alisasny]

My 10 year old son was home that day, he was sick. Together we watched the shuttle take off. A few days later he decided to do his oral report in Language class on Neil Armstrong. I just ordered him new books, a space jump suit and the Apollo 11 patch for his presentation on Feb 10th. He has been very interested in the space program. This morning I had to take him to religion at 10 and did not tell him. I will tell him in a little while when I pick him up. Wish me luck.

[The South Park Republican]

I think from the ground, it's hard to tell if a plane is close to something else even if they are tousands of feets apart.

[Republic of Texas]

Local news reporting a LARGE Apartment fire in Plano, north of Dallas.

[July 4th]

BBC News 24 just went live on the internet. NBC et al are for the most part better, but the BBC has some footage from earlier at mission control that I hadn't seen yet. Controllers shocked, dismayed, heads in their hands...

[sinkspur]

BTW, did the perp who cut those US Marine's parachutes last year, ever get caught?

Yes. Two fellow Marines did it.

[prisoner6]

I was working at C/W statio WEEP -AM in Pittsburgh at the time. We had CNN on TV in the newsroom. The only one watching at the time was the anchor, the rest of us were at our desks doing our usual jobs...writing stories, putting music lists together etcetera. The newsman came out of his studio looking pale and shaken and said simply, "the shuttle blew up..."

He was a prankster so we didn't believe him until he turned and walked slowly back into the news studio.

It was one of the first tiems we didn't carry the launch live.

As an aside it took only about 20 minutes for "black humor" to start.

prisoner6

[primeval patriot]

Southern part of Cherokee county, Sheriff confirms finding tiles. Near Rusk.

[concerned about politics]

Just one more reason REAL Americans are coming back to the GOP

OMG. DUmmies are bashing Bush already. You're right. They're taking about politics!
No wonder they're called the pro-death party. They revel in the "beauty" of death. Sick!!!

Prayers go out to the families of these fine folks. How terrible for their families. I couldn't even imagine their greif.

[freedumb2003]

What terrible, awful, mean and evil people these DUers are. There was like one person who was criticizing their evil posts and they turned on him like a pack of jackals.

Thank God I am associated with the people here who I KNOW have only this heartbreak in minds -- irresepctive of ideology.

It must be a terrible burden for those folks to wake up every morning with such dark souls.

God bless the astronauts and, especially, their families. We can do no more for those brave souls who are with God now -- we have much to do here to make their sacrifices worthwhile.

[George W. Bush]

Police spokesperson just reported finding all sorts of debris all over East Texas, including arm and hand.

I don't believe this.

[JohnHuang2]

Prayers for the families and crew of Columbia ...

[Catspaw]

OMG, I had forgotten that Lauren Clark was from Wisconsin!

[P.O.E.]

[Servant of the Nine]

from what I've heard this morning,(Lovell,Aldrin et al.)it would appear that the computers that control the angle at which the shuttle makes contact with the atmosphere for re-entry failed!It's

NO.

What they said is that they could have failed. There are triple redundant computers. All three must give the same results or the odd one is locked out.

This is far more likely to be a result of Tank Insulation damaging tiles on the wing leading edge on takeoff. If that happened, white hot gas at 12,000 mph would have blown into the wing.

SO9