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 ...
My layperson's guess is that the Columbia will never fly again, and should not fly again, and lots of NASA types, and lots of ancilliary contractors, should all be put out of jobs. There is a budget deficit you know.
Becuase shuttle flights had become so common any news of the shuttle was not hitting the new cylces. And if it was not considered a major problem, it obviously would not have made news.
It seems like the potentially significant detail that it is now becuase hindsight is 20/20.
He said "eluded" when he meant "alluded" because he was probably "Quaaluded."
No.
First of all, this is a shot of the front bulkhead of the cargo bay, and the stovepipe-looking object is one of the closure latches of the cargo bay doors.
Yesterday someone posted much clearer pictures of the same thing from another Shuttle mission.
The "crack" on the left is actually a wire lanyard holding the white cylindrical object at its end, and evidently plays a role in securing the doors.
The "crack" on the right is actually a seam between covers over something-or-another on the bulkhead. It's designed that way.
One other thing: There is some aparent bleed-over of the earth image in the background, over the edge of the cargo bay bulkhead. This looks to me like a combination of artifacts, beginning with slight lens flare and ending with the compromises in the image transmission and compression. I really don't see it as a faked image. Except for the red circles (~<)B^).
And the most amusing thing is that the photo wasn't even the WTC. :-)
Right and I believe that like I believed their "don't touch the shuttle remains, they could be toxic" baloney. I am losing all faith in NASA telling us the truth about anything. They tried to bury the Challenger cause, now their trying to bury this one. Maybe its time to find a new space agency.
If they took photos, then they most likely used a digital camera. I can not imagine that they would take photos that were not downloaded to Houston within minutes (even instantaneously) of taking the pictures. Hello, NASA...
I heard a NASA spokesman state emphatically "all pictures taken by the astronauts were shot on FILM and then stored to be delivered to Houston after the flight"
I heard a NASA spokesman state emphatically "all pictures taken by the astronauts were shot on FILM and then stored to be delivered to Houston after the flight"
Once more for emphasis:
I heard a NASA spokesman state emphatically "all pictures taken by the astronauts were shot on FILM and then stored to be delivered to Houston after the flight"
So in the 21st century we're sending men into space in a 20th century craft and they're thaking pictures with 19th century technology.
So much for the space age. (or someones lieing)
You are assuming the damage was on the bottom of the wing, the top is fairly visible from the cargo bay windows, and probably from the flight deck windows too. If they could see something, or thought the camera might see something, then it must have been on the top of the wing. The message could have been sent to his brother and to NASA of course. No need for either/or.
I'm also sure the message would have to go through NASA.
I don't think the astronauts had a separate "road-runner" line hooked up for private e-mails. Do you??
My understanding is that they do. The line of course would go through NASA servers, but that doesn't mean somebody at NASA would have to see it.
No, but they can see the top, or part of it anyway. If they go EVA, they can see all of the top, even without leaving the cargo bay, they could go walk on the top if they wanted to. The bottom could be examined if they'd had the manipulator arm onboard, or an MMU, which would allow a "fly around" without risking damaging the tiles by actual contact.
The article says the pictures were not sent, only mentioned in the email. I'm sure if they had been sent, we'd be seeing them on the Senator's website by now!
Not necessarily, they may have used the same camera(s) used to take pictures of the separation of the external tank. My understanding is that those are 35 mm film cameras. Up until very recently film had better resolution than most digital cameras. Goverment projects alway lag behind the current state of the art in technology, unless it's custom stuff they did just for the project.
That is an assumption. We don't know that whatever they took pictures of, if they took them, had anything to do with the tank debris hitting the underside or leading edge of the wing.
AP writers use a proprietary system, not Windows. I don't think it even has a grammar check, since AP writers are supposed to be able to ... you know, write...and the editors edit...
A fair amount of it is visible from the cargo bay windows, just aft of those on the top of the crew compartment, when the cargo bay doors are open. There was picture here somewhere yesterday showing the science module in the bay (don't know if from another mission or this one), and you could see the wing upper surfaces better than I would have thought.
But not necessarily when they want to. The best imaging satellites are in fairly low and polar orbits. The shuttle and the satellite might not ever cross paths during a mission, even though the satellite goes over everyplace on earth nominally twice a day. Don't believe everything you see on "Enemy of the State" (a great movie nonetheless). And when they did cross paths, they might be moving right smartly relative to one another. Some or even most of that "blur" might be compensatable, since the same is true of points on the earth, only less so.
They always do that, at least since "stuff" started falling off the tank on launch.
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