NASA Press Conference LIVE THREAD

Fox, CNN, networks, NASA TV | February 2, 2003 | NASA

[snopercod]

Any time now...

[hole_n_one]

Are the transcripts of these pc's available on the net?

[fooman]

Ok, but I prefer listening to the guy Ron.

[Budge]

Video in slo-mo of ice hitting wing on lift-off.

http://www.floridatoday.com/columbia/debrisvideo.htm

[dfwgator]

I don't know why Fox keeps showing pictures of the apartment fire that occurred in Plano. It started five minutes before the shuttle passed over Dallas.

[William McKinley]

That is the way I heard it. An answer he just gave right now seemed to say the same thing. He is telling us basically that is where the problem will eventually turn out to have been, but he can't and won't openlly speculate about it at this point.

[Fitzcarraldo]

All wiring of failed sensors goes through wheel well area.

Perhaps the wheel and attached strut extended over California and took some sensors/wiring with it when it snapped off...

[A Citizen Reporter]

It appears that Dittemore has attended the Rumsfeld school of press conferences!

[KC_for_Freedom]

Yes, and they are being extradordinarily open with their data, usually the teams keep this stuff to themselves until it starts to make sense, because the usual tendency is to jump to conclusions (which is a bad thing in this case). and the media jump to conclusions better then the average freeper.

That said, they are making a compelling case for tile loss (drag and possible trailing debris). Tile loss would lead to increased temp, and increased temp can lead to structural failure. Now, the coincidence of the insulation damage on the same side may be an initiating factor.

They are duty bound to look at everything else that might also explain the data, and doubtless the story will change as it takes form.

[snopercod]

It's called "Load, Dump, and Compare".

During the launch countdown, CVFS loads the onboard MMUs [Mass Memory Units], then their memory is dumped and the dump data compared to master tapes which are kept in a safe in the LPS room at KSC.

[_Jim]

It started five minutes before the shuttle passed over Dallas.

Word I heard was that it was called in at 8:04 ...

[Jael]

http://ltp.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/journals/katnik/sts87-12-23.html

During the STS-87 mission, there was a change made on the external tank. Because of NASA's goal to use environmentally friendly products, a new method of "foaming" the external tank had been used for this mission and the STS-86 mission. It is suspected that large amounts of foam separated from the external tank and impacted the orbiter. This caused significant damage to the protective tiles of the orbiter.

[Amelia]

I can understand that they don't want the debris moved around, just because the location & aspect might give clues...but I'm having trouble understanding the toxicity thing - were they doing biological experiments up there, or is it just the materials the shuttle was made of?

Yesterday, one of the reporters or NASA people said the fuel components were toxic - but they mentioned hydrogen gas, ammonia, and nitrous oxide - most of which it seems would have been vaporized coming through the atmosphere.

[Aaron0617]

Fox News shows Bush to meet with NASA Chief tomorrow and offer $469 million extra to NASA budget.

[Robe]

"computer may have overcorrected"

A symptom possibly, but NOT the cause....looks like aerodynamic tile loss resulting to burn through.

The computer seems to be working overtime to keep it going stright

[snopercod]

"Crew was alerted to the debris impact on the orbiter."

[djf]

I'm listening to the broadcast as I type... the guy plainly said not two minutes ago "We had no temp increase in the wheel well... we had a temp increase on the left side.."?????

[Jim Noble]

It's a good thought but I bet the external pressures on the vehicle during this phase are so high that the gear motor couldn't extend the strut if it was trying to.

[snopercod]

but I'm having trouble understanding the toxicity thing

There is no hazard. They just want to scare people into staying away from it.

[Jael]

AEDC Performs Shuttle Materials Test for NASA/Lockheed Martin

ARNOLD AFB, Tenn.
-Arnold Engineering Development Center is assisting the National Aeronautics Space Administration with improvements in existing Space Shuttle materials. According to NASA, during several previous Space Shuttle flights, including the shuttle launched Nov. 29, 1998, the shuttle external tank experienced a significant loss of foam from the intertank. The material lost caused damage to the thermal protection high-temperature tiles on the lower surface of the shuttle orbiter.
The loss of external tank foam material and subsequent damage to reentry tiles is a concern because it causes tile replacement costs to significantly increase,,u. however, it is not a flight safety issue. As a result, NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center selected AEDC to perform flight hardware materials tests on the shuttle's external tank panels in the center's von Karman Facility Supersonic Tunnel A.

The purpose was to establish the cause of failure for the tank thermal protection materials at specified simulated flight conditions. "NASA chose AEDC due to its technical expertise and historical program successes," Steve Holmes, a NASA-MSFC technical coordinator, said

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(From another article)
A review of the records of the STS-86 records revealed that a change to the type of foam was used on the external tank.
This event is significant because the pattern of damage on this flight was similar to STS-87 but to a much lesser degree. The reason for the change in the type of foam is due to the desire of NASA to use "environmentally friendly" materials in the space program.
Freon was used in the production of the previous foam. This method was eliminated in favor of foam that did not require freon for its production. MSFC is investigating the consideration that some characteristics of the new foam may not be known for the ascent environment."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/834139/posts?page=54#54