Posted on 02/05/2003 1:23:55 PM PST by ewing
Crew members of the Space Shuttle Columbia were concerned about the orbiter's damaged left wing according to United States Senator George Allen. (Republican-Virginia)
One of the crew members, Mission Specialist David Brown, sent e-mail messages to his brother Doug during the mission, Allen said. In those e-mails, David Brown said that the crew took pictures of the left wing because they were concerned about it, Allen said.
The Senator was only repeating information he recieved from Doug Brown, said his spokeswoman, Carrie Cantrell. There was no phone listing for Doug Brown's home in Arlington and he could not be reached today.
A 2 and one half pound chunk of insulation foam struck the underside of the wing during lifoff as the shuttle sped upwards of 1,900 MPH last month. At the time NASA officials did not think the damage would be a problem, but the agency is now investigating the wing as a possible reason that Columbia shattered on re-entry into Earth's atmosphere on Saturday.
(Excerpt) Read more at floridatoday.com ...
Film? That doesn't make any sense if they are looking at possible damage. I see and share your concern, Jael.
How about that.
The crew has numerous hand-held cameras that they use to take about a zillion pictures per mission.
There are also cargo bay video cameras, which are mounted looking into the cargo bay, mounted inside the travel of the cargo bay doors.
The cargo bay video cameras wouldn't have had any better view of the wings than did the crew, due to blockages from the doors, and from (IIRC) being mounted lower than the crew cabin windows.
Pardon me, but the loss of the Challenger was caused by SRB O-Ring blowby due to loss of resiliance in the O-Ring material because of the 25 degree F cold temperatures, not "ice".
Agreed: from all I have read, there is no way that the astronauts could have viewed the wing from the habitat pod. Without going out into the payload bay they couldn't have taken a picture of the wing - and even then it would have required the arm (whatever they call it) to position the camera. And even then, they would only have been able to view the top of the wing; the damage was on the bottom.
This is probably the bogus picture from the Israeli newspaper surfacing again. That picture it turns out is a picture, not of the wing, but of the payload bay and the cracks are wires duct taped to the side of the bay. So much for "informed sources"! And we know Senators are some of the least informed!!
The ground informed them to look for damage and take some pics. They also take pics of the tank after separation as a matter of course.
The statement says nothing about any observed damage, but only that they were concerned, and we know that already via the briefings.
This is a nontrivial task, and given how few spy satellites we have these days, and how overtasked they are, it would be extremely difficult to line up all the wickets.
Not to mention that at a distance of 120 miles, and a relative velocity of 8500 m/sec. This requires a rotational rate of 2 degrees/second (which is a pretty high rate for high-accuracy pointing) in exactly the right direction. During the tracking event a spysat would have errors in its attitude knowledge, and jitter as it tracked, both of which will blur the image -- meaning that the 4x4 inch resolution you've cited is the absolute best you can do.
No, they use 35mm high res film. Digitals do not show the details needed to compare to high res film.
This fact was discussed at a previous briefing, or interview. I do not recall where I got it.
No arm, no EVA capability.
No. The crew knew quite well.
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