Shuttle Pic--SIDE VIEW!

WFAA | 02/01/03 | GRRRRR

[Jack Black]

It appears from these messages it was burning up on reentry.

Looking at the large picture of the shuttle posted above I am unhappy. It looks worn and tired to my simple eyes. It's doesn't have the sharp look of a multi-million dollar bleeding edge program, does it. The Stealth or X-15 always looked loved. This looks like the equivelent of a farmers tractor, well used and patched to keep working. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. I know the challenger disaster exposed many problems in the command and control of NASA. It will be interesting if they have been fixed, or have reappeard and contributed to this horrible disaster.

[HighWheeler]

The flying sideways you describe is an optical illusion, the shuttle is turning, but it is in a 57 degree roll, not yaw. Any sideways motion is minimal, only as a result of the tangent to the turn radius.

[jaugust]

"When Fox first ran it, they had a graphic that cleary stated amateur video.
WFAA gets credit for gathering it."

I stand corrected on the source of the video. Thanks.

[jaugust]

The altitude of the shuttle was 200 thousand when contact was actually lost. What altitude was it at when the videos were taken? And what part of Texas was the videographer positioned in? And when did he start shooting?

[Jack Black]

One of the commentators said that while Apollo re-entries had a short 9G segment and a longer 4G segment the much slower angled re-entry of the shuttle only put 1.5 Gs on the pilots and crew. I suspect they were alive and doing well until it started to break up, after which they were almost instantly dead.

[eddie willers]

Guess I'll have to wait for the book....my eyes are bleeding from trying to see what ya'll are seeing.

I have a satellite receiver with a built-in hard-drive (like a TiVo) which has immaculate frame by frame advance and I have watched this closely.

I don't know optics and/or camera terms, but what you are seeing is a diamond shaped artifact probably caused by a combo of the ccd chip and lens at extreme zoom trying to resolve a bright spot 200,000 feet away.

The lower darker half is just a (larger) ghost of the brighter top half.

[miele man]

Judging from the white and black areas (burned tiles), it looks like the view is toward the rear of the shuttle and from slightly below. As it flies from right to left could it mean the craft was beginning to spin?

[brooklin]

I believe that you are correct. Unfortunately alot of people are going to believe what they want to see. I thought that I saw the shuttle flying sideways when I first saw the picture, then the focus got better and the image was much smaller.

[6ppc]

I downloaded the video, and in the video you can see a faint trail of something red behind it (to the right) for a couple of seconds before it zooms out. The video picture is clearer than the still shot.

[brooklin]

I think the fuel tanks on the Apollo missions were spereical, so I think that it is one of the propellant tanks for thrusters or such.

[FreedomCalls]

Here is a photo of the aperture in a Sony video camcorder.

The outline of this is what you would see if you photographed a very bright light while the lens was out of focus. Does it look familiar? Before you complain about it being upside down, remember that a lens' image on the CCD in a camcorder is upside down.

[jaugust]

The altitude of the shuttle was 200 thousand when contact was actually lost. What altitude was it at when the videos were taken? And what part of Texas was the videographer positioned in? And when did he start shooting?

[jaugust]

The altitude of the shuttle was 200 thousand when contact was actually lost. What altitude was it at when the videos were taken? And what part of Texas was the videographer positioned in? And when did he start shooting?

[jaugust]

Oops! Sorry folks. Wrong button

[Jael]

The important thing to note here is that this re-entry was doomed BEFORE the shuttle started breaking up.

I'm probably out of the loop on the information as a whole. But would you mind telling me what you mean about it being doomed?

[coloradan]

Bump for some pictures ... the sphere might be a fuel tank.

[Justa]

Great Job!!! on the mpg. Yes, I agree that at the time of this picture and in the film it is flying sideways port (left) side leading. The verticle stabilizer does not show! It is gone. Imo it has already broken off in this photo and is visible early in your mpeg trailing off to the lower right!

[plsvn]

This is apparently from underneath and I can't make out the rudder sticking up. I've created a page with this and other stills. I'll try to create some short mpeg clips, too.

This video has been played on Fox numerous times. This image folks here are saying is a view the the rear of the Shuttle is JUST AN OUT OF FOCUS IMAGE!! In the video, the cameraman focuses his camera, and this bloated image collapses to a pinpoint of light as it should be!!! Jezzz, come on people. No handheld instrument could take such a highly magnified image of the Shuttle.

[Redcloak]

You've called it correctly FreedomCalls. This is simply out-of-focus light. The odd, but symetrical, shape is a combination of pixel saturation from the brightest parts of the image and features in the camera's entrance pupil. (such as pick-offs for the exposure sensor and the auto-focus sensor)

And no, I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night; I'm an optical engineer.