[Keith in Iowa]

They said during the NASA press conference that most likely what was seen over California is plasma, not shuttle parts.

[Born to Conserve]

"... compared notes with two news photographers who had arranged to photograph the re-entry through a telescope."


What?
Where are the photos!
Will a telescope be able to track something moving that fast?

[Lady Jag]

We are going to be finding debris for years. How many seconds is it from CA to TX for the shuttle and how many states can see it all at once.?

[vger]

I hope the film they got helps solve the cause of this tradegy.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[TLBSHOW]

The trouble was reported here at FreeRepublic at 9:03 from a freeper from las Vegas.

here

It wasnt a glow that spread back like a comet but it must have been "on fire" because it was bright and big.


2/1/2003 9:03

[cgbg]

This report and the Vegas report later in this thread make sense.

Temperature sensors started failing several (five, six, seven) minutes before loss of contact over Texas. At 12,000 miles an hour in five minutes we are talking 1,000 miles.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Bttt......And they will determine, without a doubt where the spacecraft started breaking up. I personally believe this guys account, given his background, etc.

[don-o]

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.

End of discussion.

A downside of the instant information available, is that all sorts of silliness gets broadcast, like this.

[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...

[JudyB1938]

Your observations are confirmed here.

[MississippiMan]

I'm wondering if what was being seen early on, say over California, before the big breakup, was a bunch of the tiles coming off. I'm pretty sure I've read that when we watch these dramatic meteor showers like the Leonids, many of these objects are the size of grains of sand. If this is correct, something the size of these tiles could put on quite a display as it burns up there. If a bunch of them starting coming off from near the front and hitting other more aft areas of the aircraft, you'd be talking about 12,000 MPH projectiles that could've done serious damage. This is all pure conjecture on my part.

MM

[snopercod]

did you see this?

[TLBSHOW]

add this story now

An Italian astronaut who's been on two space flights says an incorrect angle of re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere could have caused the space shuttle Columbia to disintegrate.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/834290/posts?page=

[Mat_Helm]

Early saturday Fox was showing an ameture video that they are no longer showing? (Confiscated by NASA) In that video STS107 is a normal single glowing contact with no contrail. @2 seconds later there is a bright flash and a small single piece is seen falling away with a slight contrail to it. Within seconds STS107 begins to develope a large contrail that is not normal as the second target piece also developes a larger contrail. Within another 5 seconds avery large contrail developes with what apperas to be tiles blowing off as there is a cloud of small targets coming off. Within a few more seconds a huge firball starts and the contrail is huge and as the contrail rotates an explosion (main engine tanks) creates a greator puff into the contrail which now appears to goe more sideways and than all hell breaks loose and now STS107 begins to massively break up into large parts and than multiple break ups into many parts.

Fox showed this video for a few times until around 1:00 PM pacific time and than cut off the first @7 seconds of this video when shwoing it again. Why? Anyone else recall this amature video?

[TLBSHOW]

BUMP

[TLBSHOW]

Your thread was right on and only hours after the shuttle story broke!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/846469/posts?page=

[TLBSHOW]

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