Columbia Discussion thread

Feb 1, 2003

[general_re]

Imagine how I feel -- I remember the JFK assassination.

Yeah, I remember my parents telling me about that :^)

[hole_n_one]

Astronaut Mark Kelly picks up a piece of debris from space shuttle Columbia in Nacogdoches, Texas, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2003. Space shuttle Columbia broke apart in flames 200,000 feet over Texas on Saturday, killing all seven astronauts just minutes before they were to glide to a landing in Florida. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

[ladysusan]

Understood.

FReegards

[TeleStraightShooter]

Were does this fit in, historicaly, as to national shocks over the last 62 years?

1) Attack on Pearl Harbor
2) 9/11
3) JFK assasinated
4) Reagan shot
5) Challenger
6) Columbia

Comments anyone?

[Lurking2Long]

Still no salient rejoinder...as expected...

[general_re]

Come on; I'm not old and I remember the Challenger. I was in electronics class in high school when that word came across the PA speakers.

Seriously. I was in the eighth grade, for crying out loud - it wasn't that long ago ;)

[MrNatural]

..Are there any other shuttles in the pipeline?

CFC: None right now; what we need is a new-design vehicle.

Steel Wolf: Air density at sea level is about 980 millibars - at 20,000 feet about
half that - at 40K it's about 200mb - at 60K about 100mb - at 100K feet it's
maybe 20 millibars = 2% of ground level. At 200K feet there is just not much
air; 207,000 feet is almost 40 miles.

[Route66]

'During the last 16 minutes before landing the orbiter performs four S-turn maneuvers to slow it down. Each of these turns removes energy from the vehicle very much like that experienced by a giant slalom skier. At this time the flight control systems such as the elevons and the rudder have sufficient air pressure to accomplish the maneuvers and the RCS is turned off.'
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If we are playing odds, I would make the guess that the anomalous event that occurred early on in what turned out to be this disasterous mission which did not occur on the other successful missions - [which was the breaking off the piece of insulation or ice that appeared to strike the wing area during the takeoff] - will be determined to be the cause of the failure which occurred on reentry.

[Dave S]

Brian Williams: It falls again to the President to calm the nation, but thankfully we aren't talking about terrorism. NBC Reporter: A huge disaster in the making and the president will want to address that. The Department of Homeland Security has sent officials to the states where debris is known to have fallen due to the dangerous nature of the debris. The president will reflect the grief that has overcome the country

Your point? What part of this is not true?

[general_re]

You know, a lot of things are reported after one of these events that are completely bogus. This may have been one of them. I appreciate your comments and agree that it sounds as if the report I heard was suspect.

No worries - nobody really knows a damn thing about what went wrong at this point, not even NASA. We're all just whistling in the dark here...

[Steel Wolf]

At 200K feet there is just not much air; 207,000 feet is almost 40 miles.

Even a tiny amount of air would produce a tremendous amount of heat at the speed the shuttle was traveling, right?

[general_re]

oms pod.

Once more, in English? For us non-rocket scientists ;)

[Darlin']

No offense/offence taken. :) My propensity for typos is well-known on some threads. In fact, they're referred to as Darlin'isms. I did, indeed, mean typical rather than atypical.

[Ichneumon]

Hard to judge scale, but that looks way too small to be one of the main engines - it has to be one of the smaller engines that they use for braking on re-entry...

Actually, they use the main engines for orbital braking, I believe.

To me it looks like the nozzles on the OMS (Orbital Maneuvering System), which they use for attitude adjustment while in orbit, which are quite small.

The main nozzle is quite large, not a lot smaller than the main engines, but note the many dinky little nozzles near it (just dots on the large photo, shaded pink in the drawing), they look about the size of the one in the debris photo (which is obviously small, given the size comparison of the pine needles near it).

[PhiKapMom]

The focus of terrorism has been that the shuttle was not attacked FROM THE GROUND.

That was a no brainer IMO. What I would like to know is if the onboard computer that controlled the shuttle received its information from the ground control.

[Ichneumon]

Once more, in English? For us non-rocket scientists ;)

See post #814

[DoughtyOne]

True. Take care.

[dep]

orbital maneuvering system. the smaller (but not tiny) rockets that are used to tune the shuttle's attitude while in orbit. one of the concerns during challenger was oms firing during the last part of the flight, in an apparent effort to correct the uncorrectable pitch caused by the piercing of the external tank.

dep

[Sacajaweau]

Something caused the shuttle to go off course. Is it possible that it "bumped" something floating in space??

Just thinking till they tell me what's up!!

[The Right Stuff]

I too, live near the Space Coast and we saw Columbia launch. Excuse my ignorance, but could the shuttle have been brought down by a device triggered by radio? (defective tiles, planted onboard ahead of time)

How secure is the system at KSC? I wouldn't let anyone with a Middle Eastern sounding name near the place, myself,and I'd tell CAIR to stick it. But, that's just me.