But remember, the shuttle looks "like it's on fire" even during a normal re-entry:
Being really bright and trailing plasma plumes looks impressive, but can be a normal part of the re-entry, *before* anything went wrong.
Posted on 02/01/2003 2:25:26 PM PST by socal_parrot
By John Antczak
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12:03 a.m., February 1, 2003
LOS ANGELES – Space shuttle Columbia appeared to begin trailing fiery debris as it passed over Eastern California early Saturday, well before its destruction over Texas, according to a California Institute of Technology astronomer who witnessed its fiery transit.
Anthony Beasley observed the shuttle's re-entry from outside his home in Bishop, Calif., near Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory, where he is project manager of the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy.
"As it tracked from west to east over the Owens Valley it was leaving a bright trail. As it actually moved over the valley there were a couple of flashes. ... Then we could see there were things clearly trailing the orbiter subsequent to that," Beasley said.
Beasley said he, his wife, Anne, and mother-in-law, Anne Finley, had gone outside in the early morning darkness to watch the re-entry from the small town 225 miles north of Los Angeles. He said the sky was clear and dark, and the shuttle was immediately visible when it cleared the Sierra Nevada peaks to the west of Bishop.
He said he had never witnessed a shuttle re-entry before and is not an authority on shuttles, but he immediately thought Columbia was having problems.
"In particular, there was one very clear event where there was a piece that backed off the orbiter. ... It was giving off its own light, then it slowly fell from visibility," he said.
Beasley said he thought the shuttle might be losing some of the heat-resistant tiles that protect it during the fiery re-entry. He said he did not learn of the shuttle's destruction until he went to the observatory and compared notes with two news photographers who had arranged to photograph the re-entry through a telescope.
Beasley said they compared notes and all agreed they had seen what he termed "the bright event, the third event."
"The analogy, I think, is it looked like the shuttle dropped a flare," he said.
He described the scene again: "Pretty soon after we started to see it track there were brief flashes of light. It would sort of flash a little bit and there was an indication of material trailing the orbiter. They would sort of disappear from view. ... That happened two or three times. One of these was very bright. It was a very clear thing. It separated itself from where the orbiter is. It sort of fell behind in the trail and it was burning itself. It was hot itself ... and then the orbiter continued heading toward Texas."
I am not insinuating anything. You have misunderstood my meaning. I just thought it an eerie coincidence that the last word I heard from them (sorry about the spelling of Mike's name -- I've never seen it written) was that Texans were to expect a big noise shortly, but not to worry. Then THIS tragedy struck only minutes after they made that comment. I even thought it was odd that they made the comment because I've never heard anyone track the landing and comment about the noise in recent years.
Of course the hosts at Fox & Friends were not making light of the tragedy -- they had no way of knowing what was about to happen. And, as you report, they did not even know about it until a half hour, or more, later.
I am a faithful fan of Fox and Friends and tune away only on Saturday morning to get my doggie "fix".
When my husband rushed in to tell me (he was watching in the other room because he doesn't like Animal Planet as much as I do) I first said, "No, no, no. Mike Jarrick said that there was to be a big boom when the shuttle passed over Texas. It's probably normal." My husband said, "But Houston has lost contact and they can see pieces breaking off."
I couldn't believe it at first because I had been the one who had rushed in to tell him to turn on the TV 17 years ago because the Challenger had exploded. We sat there paralyzed for days watching that explosion over and over. It is too soon for another accident of this magnitude.
It'll be interesting to see what comes out of this. I was listening to the press conference on the radio and said the first sensor problems started at 5:53, well that was when I was watching it over California. And then when they mentioned Owens Valley - that is just east of me so he was watching the shuttle when the sensors were showing problems. I wonder if he was videotaping it?
Nope.
Had that been happening, the crew would have given a call.
I try and find out. I'm sure the "newspeople" or whatever, were from the local Inyo Register newspaper in Bishop assigned to get a picture of the shuttle for the front page - relief from the weekly photos of ducks in the park.
Have you observed previous re-entrys? Just asking for a comparison to this AM.
I know you're just relaying what you heard the guy on TV say, but there was no sonic boom across Texas (at least in my part) the last time I watched a shuttle approach. If there was one, it wasn't even loud enough to upset the dogs and they hear everything. The folks in Florida hear one because the shuttle is at a lower altitude by then.
We did hear a boom or loud noise this time though... which points to something extremely out of the norm.
But remember, the shuttle looks "like it's on fire" even during a normal re-entry:
Being really bright and trailing plasma plumes looks impressive, but can be a normal part of the re-entry, *before* anything went wrong.
And some Freepers just post rumors trying to make something out of nothing.
The guy himself said he had never seen one before, but that's not good enough for the "experts" around here, is it?
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..
Yes, it was. The reporter asked about California and he answered about Hawaii.
Thanks for the facts.
KCRA, Channel 3 in Sacramento was interviewing someone in Diamond Springs, a suburb of Placerville which is considerably west and north of the Owens Valley and Las Vegas. At the same time they were showing the trajectory going right over Sacramento and Placerville, south east toward Texas and Florida.
The individual was watching at 5:58 PST as it passed over and as it headed toward the Sierra horizon before sunrise, he could see things that "looked like the shuttle was dropping flares!" They interviewed a couple of others that like this guy, claimed to hear something that didn't sound like the typical sonic boom the shuttle has made in past approaches.
They described as sort of a pop-thud, very brief and not as loud as a sonic boom.
I didn't post this as a challenge to your attitude of certitude and I have no idea if these televised interviews of civilians is even worthy of anyone's consideration. But I know I've witnessed things that were not UFO's or even tinfoil hat stuff that turned out to be verified later to the consternation of "experts" and those obsessed with "conventional wisdom."
Keep NASA's feet to the fire!
Nope, I haven't seen any other before. So if someone asked me if it was brighter than usual or a different color than usual, I wouldn't have a clue. I can say that I didn't see anything come off of it or any changes in brightness. I was viewing it unaided with my eyes - sky was pretty clear up here - sun wasn't up yet.
I can't get my mind off those seven precious souls that flashed across my sky. I'll never forget them.
Very well said.
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