Astronomer saw shuttle apparently in trouble over California

San Diego Union Tribune ^ | 02/01/03 | John Antczak

[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."

[ApesForEvolution]

As far as it is most assuredly a coincidence with regards to it happening in conjunction with other world events, and simply a horrible, sorrowful tragedy...if someone did possess a satellite born or other technology and took the shuttle down to send a point to the American administration, I would agree China would be the likely culprit both because of their many satellite launches (thanks xxxlinton) of the last several years as well as their clandestine technologies programs that America is desperately trying to gain more knowledge about.

I mean, that would be quite a statement about 'missile defense' capabilities as well as a warning to America that the agressor nation will be calling the shots now.

[don-o]

You are correct.

They began to notice that sensors were giving unusual readings. Could a ground observer noted that?

[jlogajan]

And "they" also said that no one could possibly have seen missile contrials leading up to Flight 800...or no one could possibly have seen an explosion before the tail fell off of the flight that crashed in a New York neighborhood...

Ha, kook!

No one ever said one couldn't see a missile contrial. They said the evidence didn't support that. Your first lie.

No one ever said that an explosion couldn't have been seen before the tail fell off that flight. They said the evidence didn't support that. Your second lie.

No one said the shuttle couldn't have been experiencing decay prior to arrival over Texas. The NASA guy was just saying that there are alternate explanations, such as plasma, and that max heating was occuring over Texas. For some reason he was talking about Hawaii anyhow, not California.

[don-o]

No matter what, something was wrong over California and a freeper saw it on fire over Las Vegas.

Yes, something was wrong over California.

Freepers see all sorts of thing and hear voices, as well.

Columbia broke over Dallas, on a hard slow down turn. End of story.

[ErnBatavia]

And "they" also said that no one could possibly have seen missile contrials leading up to Flight 800...or no one could possibly have seen an explosion before the tail fell off of the flight that crashed in a New York neighborhood...

It's stupid "Television Sitcom Mentality" crap like what you wrote that gives the clowns over at DU all the goddam ammo they need when they want to call Free Republic a bunch of whackos. Get a grip, Sam.

[Joe Hadenuf]

As I said earlier, NASA first noticed the problem at 8:53 Eastern. The shuttle was over California at that time.

I would tend to agree with this. The will determine almost exactly where it was, and soon when the event first started.

[ladyinred]

I thought of the same post TLBSHOW. That was posted before we knew anything.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Right on. It's a far distance to travel, but the shuttle is going so outrageously fast that it covers that distance between states in a very short time.

[Wondervixen]

From Texas to landing in Florida would have been about 15 minutes, so I'd say from California to Texas would have been approximately 8 to 10 minutes.

[afraidfortherepublic]

I was half listening and half watching to Fox & Friends this AM when Mike Jared said at 7:58 or 7:59 AM, CST, "For our viewers in Texas, if you hear a big noise in a few minutes, it's just the space shuttle crossing your state." I then switched channels to watch Breed All About It on Animal Planet. About 45 minutes later my husband rushed into the room to ask if I'd heard the news.

"They've lost contact with the space shuttle and it's breaking up over Texas," he reported. A few minutes later the news said that the accident had ocdurred shortly after 8:00 AM, CST.

It's just erie to think that the talking heads on Fox & Friends had been lightheartedly joshing about the re-entry and landing just minutes before the whole thing exploded and burned.

[Howlin]

No, the guy replied about Hawaii, AFTER the reporter asked about California; I think he misunderstood her.

[SteveH]

I am reminded of the news stories surrounding the first shuttle flights. In those stories, a lot of attention was paid to the tiles, and in particular, to the potential for damaging the tiles on takeoff leading (if I recall correctly) eventually to a failure on re-entry. It seems to me that NASA and the entire crew could have been more aware of the potential and actual dangers than we might think or be led to believe by news reports at this point in time...

[cgbg]

NASA first noticed the problem at 8:53 Eastern. The shuttle was over California at that time

Yup.

I think NASA was doing a little "shading" in their press conference when it probably was not necessary.

Questions that were not asked and that they didn't want asked were:

Have these sensors ever failed in re-entry before?

When the sensors started to fail did it occur to anyone there that they might have a thermal event on their hands?

It may be that NASA had gotten a little complacent about re-entry after so many (100+) successful reentrys and didn't understand the problem for quite a few minutes.

But all that really is academic, because if the shuttle is in atmosphere reentry it is little more than a runaway rock and there is not a whole lot anybody can do if there is a major problem. :-(

[Wondervixen]

I was watching Fox & Friends at that moment as well, only unlike you, I continued to watch...

At 8:00 a.m. NOBODY in the media had any knowledge what was going on. When 8:15 arrived, Mike JARRICK mentioned that we were within a minute of the landing...

At 8:17 a.m. he mentioned that there was no word about the landing yet, and that this was unusual since the Shuttle is NEVER off schedule...8:16 landing means 8:16!

As the minutes went by and no shuttle was landing, Jarrick kept mentioning "Something isn't right here," and "This cannot be good."

DO NOT insinuate that the FOX & Friends crew were making inappropriate comments in jest over a tragedy, for as you said, you were busy watching Animal Planet for 45 minutes while the story was develloping.

[BullDog108]

Save your beer money:

USABLUE signed up 2003-01-14.
This account has been banned.

[#3Fan]

Columbia broke over Dallas, on a hard slow down turn. End of story.

Sensors in the wing detected nonconformancies over California. You don't think that there is any way tiles could've been coming off over California only to increase during maximum heat over Texas to the point of burn through?

[Joe Hadenuf]

You may be right. We will all know for sure in the following days.......

[#3Fan]

From Texas to landing in Florida would have been about 15 minutes, so I'd say from California to Texas would have been approximately 8 to 10 minutes

You should take into account over 1g of deceleration through this whole descent. Factoring that in, the time between California and Texas would be shorter than 8 minutes.

[TLBSHOW]

Your correct. That caught my mind first thing! As I read it after the fact the shuttle was lost. Then I tried to check other sites on the net and it seems as normal Free Republic was the only one that had a thread going about this landing before the landing. With posters on it that saw it come in from the west.

[Inyo-Mono]

BTW, at the press conference it was obvious that the NASA guys thought they were talking about the observatory in Hawaii, but the Owens Valley is just over to the east side of Sierra. I think that's the Long Tom area and we feel their earthquakes here at my home sometimes.

Actually, it's called Tom's Place, near Long Valley, just north of Bishop (270 miles north of Los Angeles, not 225 as the article states). My father-in-law works at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory with this Beasley guy. I'm going to try and find out more.