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."
JWFIV ADDED: "It looks to me already burning when the video begins."
Are you referring to a video that you shot or something you just saw/taped off a TV broadcast? If a TV broadcast, what station? Where is the station located?
JWFIV ADDED: "Then the burning becomes obvious and the shuttle begins to spin like a rifled bullet and then break apart 2-3 seconds later."
I could not get out to see it pass over head because I'm in the hospital with my sick daughter. I couldn't see much detail in the TV broadcast videos (limited to the area's local channels's own video coverage and one of the "Big 3" network channels). I couldn't/didn't see any spinning in the video I saw.
JWFIV ADDED: "The fireball we see before breakup might be 300 yards across, and there were heroes in its center."
Were you seeing/taping it through a telescope? Are you just imagining that the crew must have still been in their seats or are you saying you actually saw them in the middle of it all? If the latter, I assume you must have had a very high-powered telescope and it must have been very eerie to see. Actually, it was eerie no matter what you saw about it.
JWFIV ADDED: "It's a terrible terrible sight, my eyes and heart are in pain."
Just as I was with Challenger's fateful flight, I am stunned, wet-eyed and grief-stricken. I only hope that the heroes either made their peace with God before their journey or did so quickly if they were able to see their doom. The nation and world mourns for them and their families (all except Iraq, of course).
See http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=BJKKZDZVFUFBACRBAELCFEY?type=worldNews&storyID=2152926).
I retract that statement.
I believe it is possible that the atronomer did see tiles falling off the wing.
Hell, I was in the firing room there when the challenger was lost, and had no idea what had happened until I got back to my motel several hours later and turned on the news.
The left wing seems to be intact in this just-before-breakup photo.
I'm thinking that these "flares" that the Californians saw dropping off were left elevon flipper-doors or parts of the elevons themselves.
Due to the instrumentation failures that occurred, I'm guessing the problem developed LIB elevon area. That would allow the heat into the cove area to burn thru both the inboard and outboard hydraulic line temp sensor wires at the same time.
(The elevon coves are the recessed areas at the back of the wing structure into which the elevons fit. The elevon hinges are in there, as well as hydraulic lines, actuators, and wiring.)
At the second NASA press conference yesterday, they said that the problem seemed to work from the back to the front. Left elevon cove...wheel well...main spar.
That would also help explain why the orbiter got sidewise in the first place. I can't recall at what altitude the aerosurfaces become effective.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/groundtracs/sts-107/ksc255/DOL.html
Entry flight control is maintained with the aerojet DAP, which generates effector and RCS jet commands to control and stabilize the vehicle during its descent from orbit. The aerojet DAP is a three-axis rate command feedback control system that uses commands from guidance in automatic or from the flight crew's RHC in control stick steering. Depending on the type of command and the flight phase, these result in fire commands to the RCS or deflection commands to the aerosurfaces.
In the automatic mode, the orbiter is essentially a missile, and the flight crew monitors the instruments to verify that the vehicle is following the correct trajectory. The onboard computers execute the flight control laws (equations). If the vehicle diverges from the trajectory, the crew can take over at any time by switching to CSS. The orbiter can fly to a landing in the automatic mode (only landing gear extension and braking action on the runway are required by the flight crew). The autoland mode capability of the orbiter is used by the crew usually to a predetermined point in flying around the heading alignment cylinder. In flights to date, the crew has switched to CSS when the orbiter is subsonic. However, autoland provides information to the crew displays during the landing sequence.
BTW, ABC did a telephone interview with astronomer Beasley yesterday in which he reported the same info. I thought he was very credible mainly because he refused to answer any "leading" questions.
Good point. Some of the debris field is in wooded areas - people will come upon debris for years after yesterday...
Gimme a break. I don't believe any of that shit.
I was trying to point out how ridiculous that statement by NASA was:
They said during the NASA press conference that most likely what was seen over California is plasma, not shuttle parts.
How can they make that statement based on no evidence whatsoever? It was irresponsible. Any account such as that should be investigated and verified. Because it would indicate a much earlier failure to the heat shiled and indicate an ongoing threat that the crew was obviously not aware of and would give investigators a point in time to look at when analyzing the telementry and data leading up to the failure. Which is the only evidence they have. Anything they find on the ground will give them no real clues.
Save your vitriole for someone else. I don't own any tinfoil headgear.
True enough. But pieces of debris or possibly protective heat shielding tiles coming off and trailing the orbiter is not. That's what needs to be looked at. Hopefully this astronomer can provide some good info to NASA. Hopefully investigators will interview him and not blow off his account.
All my speculation, and it is purely the guessing of an an untrained eye, comes form just watching the video on FOXNews.
The spinning I thought I saw was my perception based upon the behavior of the smoke/vapor trail just before it start to break up.
Yes, I was just imagining the crew was in the center of the fireball, but not necessarily in their seats...I figure it disinegrated into small parts very quickly.
I woke up this morning hoping that yesterday was a bad dream, but I flick on the tube and the nightmare continues.
Thanks for asking me to be a little more clear in my speech, er, writing....and, I wish you and you daughter much good luck and wellness, and hope she gets to leave the hospital soon...)
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