Posted on 02/03/2003 7:02:42 PM PST by Ichneumon
Here's the original picture from an Israeli newspaper alleged to be the damaged "wing" of Columbia, shot during an in-flight interview with the Israeli astronaut:
Besides the obvious problems (you can't see much of the wings from the shuttle windows, the wings have no "stovepipe" structure as seen in the photo, no tiling is visible, etc.), the main problem with the photo is that it's of a different portion of the shuttle entirely -- it's the inside front edge of the open cargo bay.
The "stovepipe" object is one of the "lugs" that the cargo doors clamp onto when they close in order to form a firm seal, like the door latch hardware on an automobile door.
I knew the "stovepipe" couldn't be part of the wing, so I started browsing NASA photos looking for a match elsewhere on the orbiter. I knew I had struck paydirt when I found this panoramic view of the payload bay:
Note the "stovepipe" on the far right, identical to the one in the Israeli photo, including the black "post", the black square mounting flange, and the fact that it's mounted near a curved edge (which even has thin black edging in both photos).
Because of the "fisheye" curving effect of the panoramic camera view, it's not immediately obvious, but the "stovepipe" is mounted on the back face of the shuttle crew compartment (i.e., on the forward wall of the payload bay).
Here is a Quicktime VR shot of the same view in higher detail, which you can rotate around using your mouse: http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/Shuttle/lms/vr/bay_vr4.mov. It makes the physical positions of the different parts of the panorama much more clear, plus lets you zoom in on the "stovepipe" area (use the Ctrl and Shift keys on your keyboard to zoom in/out, and drag-and-drop portions of the picture to rotate the view around).
Here's a better shot of that bulkhead, although the "stovepipes" are fuzzier (they're the 3 black squares which ring the edge):
This photo was taken from inside the payload bay, facing forward, towards the crew capsule at the front of the shuttle. The larger black rectangle is one of the two windows that the crew uses to look back into the payload bay (the edge of the other is partially visible to the right of the other). The airlock which the crew uses to enter the payload bay from the crew compartment is below the bottom right corner of this photo.
Another view:
There's a camera mounted on this same bulkhead, inside the payload bay, and it's the one which takes most of the photos you see of activities in the payload bay. It usually takes photos facing the rear, which is why so many payload photos show the tail of the shuttle, like this one:
But it can be rotated to look "up and out" at satellites as they are deployed, or to get images of the Earth. That's clearly what was done in the Israeli photo, and it was cranked "upward" so much that it caught part of the bulkhead it's mounted to along with one of the "stovepipe" lugs that the big payload bay doors latch to when they close, as well as some of the fabric-like insulation which covers that bulkhead.
That camera is controlled from the Aft Crew Area, the Israeli astronaut must have been there controlling that camera and feeding its video signal to the folks on the ground he was talking to. They mistakenly believed they were seeing a shot out one of the windows, but actually the windows in the shuttle are small and give cramped views of the Earth, like this one:
This, by the way, is an actual photo taken aboard STS-107 -- Columbia's last flight. Nothing obviously is wrong with the wings, or at least the portions which can be seen.
Note also what a limited view of the "wings" is actually afforded by looking out the windows (this is the *best* window to see the wings from -- in fact, probably the only window they're visible from). Also note how different the visible portion of the wing is from the alleged Israeli "view".
Finally, scroll around this *very* detailed scrollable VR view of the entire Columbia payload bay (taken during ground-based operations, so there's a lot of scaffolding and stuff ringing the bay). Rotate around to view the same bulkhead, then zoom in to the area around the windows. You'll see that there's a ridge of insulating material about a foot inside the outer edge of the bulkhead (and inside the ring of "stovepipe" lugs), which corresponds extremely well to the cloth-like "ridge" running vertically along the right side of the Israeli photo.
I think you need to re-read the initial post. The alleged photo looks NOTHING like a shuttle wing.
You must get a grip. That is not the shuttle wing, and you are doing yourself and this site a disservice by promulgating an obviously false conspiracy theory.
1. I never said it was the wing
2. All info concerning this pic, etc. was not mine, but translations from the article
Therefore, you should not accuse me of promulgating a conspiracy theory, if the points in the theory are not mine.
Regards, Yoni
The initial story did, and you were quite supportive of it.
2. All info concerning this pic, etc. was not mine, but translations from the article
Once again, you continued to support the veractiy of the theory in the face of some very compelling evidence to the contrary.
Therefore, you should not accuse me of promulgating a conspiracy theory, if the points in the theory are not mine.
You said this: I believe this photo is real and therefore you can assume how I feel about NASA.
So you WERE promulgating this theory. Your posts are right here on this thread in black and white.
This is one of your posts from the other thread.
YOU MUST SEE THIS - VIDEO SHOWS CRACKS ON SHUTTLE.
If that isn't "promulgating a conspiracy theory", I don't know what is.
All that's missing is the transcript of an astronaut calling his parents. "Dear Mom and Dad. Everything is fine. The experiments are going as planned, and there's a three foot long crack in the port wing. Love, your son."
Nasa's probably got much more important things to do other than chase down every nutbar conspiracy theory, especially when lay freepers are doing such a good job on their own refuting the nonsense in question.
Your video clearly shows "cracks".....only they aren't cracks - they are wires taped to the edge of the cargo bay"!
By stopping the video after it starts to pan away from the view used in the Israeli paper, you can see the wire and the tape (looks like duct tape folks) holding it down to edge of cargo bay.
This proves that the Israeli newspaper photo is not what it proports to be.....intentional or unintentional....the picture is not of the wing!
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