Australian astronomer's 'extraordinary account' of mishap

SMH ^ | Feb 2, 03 | AAP

[SLB]

An Australian astronomer in California could be a key eyewitness to solving the mystery of today's space shuttle disaster.

Anthony Beasley, an Australian working at an observatory north of Los Angeles, said he saw what could be tiles falling off the Columbia as it flew over California and on its way to the scheduled landing in Florida.

Most video footage and eyewitness reports of the shuttle breaking up came from witnesses in the central US state of Texas.

If Beasley is correct, it indicates the shuttle began to disintegrate on the west coast above California.

Beasley telephoned US television network ABC to tell of his sighting.

"After the first few flashes I thought to myself that I knew the shuttle lost tiles as it re-entered and quite possibly that was what was going on," Beasley, speaking live, told ABC news anchor Peter Jennings.

The Australian told how he saw "a couple of flashes" and "things clearly trailing" the shuttle.

"I think that after the particularly bright event I started to wonder whether or not things were happening how they should," Beasley said.

Two US space experts who were listening to Beasley's description said the information was highly valuable.

They said tiles falling off the shuttle would be too small to be picked up by NASA radar.

"This says that something was coming off the shuttle far earlier than what happened over Texas would suggest," former space shuttle astronaut, Norm Thagard, told ABC.

"It leads in the direction that tile loss or some type of structural loss like that was likely to be a cause. But it still doesn't rule out other possibilities."

Former NASA engineer, Jim Oberg, described Beasley's eyewitness report as "an extraordinary account".

"If the left wing is losing tiles you then not only have over-heating in that wing but you have extra drag and it's like flying along and having your wing run into something," Oberg said.

"It could violently turn, twist the nose of the ship to the left and that would be it. That would be the point where it would be torn apart."

[SLB]

Interesting. This is the first I have seen or heard of this. Nothing on the TV news.

[happygrl]

BUMP!

[tm22721]

It came up during the NASA news conference yesterday but was discounted by one NASA expert as being the hot plama which is normally seen trailing the shuttle on re-entry.

BUMP

[snopercod]

Astronomer saw shuttle apparently in trouble over California

[Quilla]

Have y'all seen this:

A San Francisco amateur astronomer who photographs the space shuttles whenever their orbits carry them over the Bay Area has captured five strange and provocative images of the shuttle Columbia just as it was re-entering the Earth's atmosphere before dawn Saturday.

The pictures, taken with a Nikon 8 camera on a tripod, reveal what appear to be bright electrical phenomena flashing around the track of the shuttle's passage, but the photographer, who asked not to be identified, will not make them public immediately.

"They clearly record an electrical discharge like a lightning bolt flashing past, and I was snapping the pictures almost exactly . . . when the Columbia may have begun breaking up during re-entry," he said.

The photographer invited The Chronicle to view the photos on his computer screen Saturday night, and they are indeed puzzling.

They show a bright scraggly flash of orange light, tinged with pale purple, and shaped somewhat like a deformed L. The flash appears to cross the Columbia's dim contrail, and at that precise point, the contrail abruptly brightens and appears thicker and somewhat twisted as if it were wobbling.

"I couldn't see the discharge with own eyes, but it showed up clear and bright on the film when I developed it," the photographer said. "But I'm not going to speculate about what it might be."

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/02/02/MN221641.DTL&type=printable

[dyed_in_the_wool]

Anything coming out of California, whether or not from an Australian, is suspect.
These people think socialism works and that disarming law abiding citizens ends gun crime.
Enough said.
Cripes, I give Nevada more clout...

[thinking]

If tiles were falling off, they will have an infrared signature and specialized satellites would confirm the observation...

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

"Anything coming out of California...is suspect."

Pure BS! Your bias glares! So if you give it no credence, why did you post it? If someone ran your car off a narrow mountain road and an eyewitness from California saw it and reported it would you say his report was suspect? Your logic is suspect, dyed . . . I think the wool has fallen over your eyse!

[MtHLancerFan]

Any idea why the header shows this?

Photos show odd images near shuttle
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
Sunday, February 2, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/834324/posts

[leadpenny]

FYI

[leadpenny]

Your link is this thread. ?

[Archangelsk]

This gives more credibility to the idea that something affected the longitudinal stability that the shuttle needs for a successful re-entry. If something did happen in that vain, then dampening out, or correcting, the error (considering the forces at work) would overwhelm the onboard systems.

Since the shuttle is a fly-by-wire vehicle with an integrated glass cockpit, I suspect a lot of attention will be focused on the software in addition to the hardware.

(Pinging Magnum for his input).

[MtHLancerFan]

Your link is this thread. ?

Exactly. That's what I noticed as well. If you click on the link to the article, that's what you'll see. At least I did.

[MtHLancerFan]

I went back again (after looking at the link twice) and it's gone. Very strange.

[Quilla]

I believe the header is automatically inserted giving the address of the page containing the link. I've never seen that before today.

[MtHLancerFan]

Click on the link at the end of post #5. You'll see what I'm talking about.

[Quilla]

I found the article via lucianne.com. When I first viewed the page the URL header had a link to her site.

[spandau-guard]

This is a copy of the E Mail I sent to Fox yesterday an hour after the shuttle went overhead.
I observed the re-entry of the Columbia from my location in California (38,120lat) at 5.55 AM PST. Here is what I observed; when the shuttle was directly overhead there was a bright flash with an expanding circular field of small objects. A few seconds later there was a brighter flash visable through binoculars which appeared to originate from the left wing area on the shuttle. Most of northern California was cloudy at this time but there was a temporary hole above us when the shuttle flew overhead. There were more flashes as the shuttle approached the eastern horizon at which point the shuttle could no longer be ovserved. Both myself and my son observed the same events described. He was 10 miles east-southest of my location at the time.

[js1138]

If tiles were falling off, they will have an infrared signature and specialized satellites would confirm the observation...

If I recall correctly, the Challenger investigation took many months, perhaps a year, and NASA resisted the o-ring theory right up until congressional hearings. At one of the hearings, physicist Feinman made his point by soaking a peice of o-ring material in his glass of ice water and demonstrating how brittle it became.

[winodog]

Thanks. I just woke up. It seems clear something happened to the Columbia a long time before Texas.
That "flash" I and others saw is puzzling.I am suprised there are not more stories coming out from eyewitness in the vegas valley who saw what I saw.
I will get the morning paper in a minute and see if there are any clues.
I always check FR first for all news