Astronomer saw shuttle apparently in trouble over California

San Diego Union Tribune ^ | 02/01/03 | John Antczak

[Howlin]

Glad to oblige.

[Erasmus]

Yeah. I would say, on the Arizona-New Mexico border south of Gallup.

[Fred Mertz]

And we all know how right you usually are.

Keep NASA's feet to the fire!

TLBSHOW is often right and so are you and so am I.

Are you on the NASA damage control team?

Today's tragedy showed me that the feds are sometimes bumpling amateurs, not the omnipotent entity they want us to believe they are.

Today's TV coverage was overkill, to say the least. The networks preempted programming for too many hours to try to create this image of national tragedy. I look at it as the feds being incompetent and trying to control the news at the same time. I'm sorry those seven fine people died this morning it likely wasn't their fault.

[Jael]

Yes, and they are finding debris as far away as Arizona.

[Erasmus]

Also, where the heck is the vert stabilizer?

[Jael]

At the speed it was going, it could of been, yes.
In another thread someone did the math and it was a matter of minutes or less.

[r9etb]

I swear I thought it started with an E or a I sound......any ideas?

Elevon.

For delta-wing vehicles, the ailerons (flaps on an airplane wing) and the elevators (flaps on the horizontal tail) are all on the trailing edge of the wing.

Elevon troubles could also result from a thermal failure -- burning wires, perhaps -- or there may have been a hardware failure in the elevon actuators.

[TLBSHOW]

bttt

[Chesterbelloc]

I saw that on video shot on tv today and thought it was the shuttle too, but check out these two messages:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/834013/posts?q=1&&page=101 (post #126)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/834152/posts (post #35)

And thinking about it, that would be quite a zoom lens to get that much of a close up from at least 40 miles away.

[Howlin]

That's the part they were referring to.....at the very back, behind the wings?

The guy on CNN said they were burning the midnight oil, zeroing in on that section maybe. CAUTION: I am not up on the technical terms, but I believe this is what he was pointing to.

[r9etb]

Also, where the heck is the vert stabilizer?

Again, this looks like the Shuttle, but there may be distortion.

This was over Dallas, just prior to the final breakup. The Dallas video seems to show that the Shuttle was traveling sideways at this point -- probably the beginning stages of tumbling -- in which case the vertical stabilizer would undubtedly have snapped off.

[Fred Mertz]

A friend of mine interned with NASA about 15 years ago. What struck him most was the averageness of the personnel there. He was expecting to be working with rocket scientists, but was mildly disappointed.

[Howlin]

Thank you. That's a hard concept for most of us to get a handle on......especially those of us mathematically challenged.

[TLBSHOW]

In a letter to the White House, Don Nelson, who served with NASA for 36 years until he retired in 1999, wrote to President George W. Bush warning that his 'intervention' was necessary to 'prevent another catastrophic space shuttle accident'.

[r9etb]

And thinking about it, that would be quite a zoom lens to get that much of a close up from at least 40 miles away.

Agreed. Then again, it was taken with a professional-quality camera, and they're very good.

At any rate, in addition to actually being the Shuttle, the image looks like the Shuttle: it has all the right things in the right places, and even roughly the right colors. I tend to think that, because of a good lens, or a trick of the optical path, it is a true image of the vehicle.

[TLBSHOW]

Sorry, the fox news link to that mentions the letter sent to the President last summer!

http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77317,00.html

[MississippiMan]

I'm wondering if what was being seen early on, say over California, before the big breakup, was a bunch of the tiles coming off. I'm pretty sure I've read that when we watch these dramatic meteor showers like the Leonids, many of these objects are the size of grains of sand. If this is correct, something the size of these tiles could put on quite a display as it burns up there. If a bunch of them starting coming off from near the front and hitting other more aft areas of the aircraft, you'd be talking about 12,000 MPH projectiles that could've done serious damage. This is all pure conjecture on my part.

MM

[r9etb]

That's the part they were referring to.....at the very back, behind the wings?

Yup.

The guy on CNN said they were burning the midnight oil, zeroing in on that section maybe. CAUTION: I am not up on the technical terms, but I believe this is what he was pointing to.

I distrust them on this. Yes, there may be elevon indications, but those might be a result of the real failure, which could have damaged the actuators.

Had the elevon survived, the Shuttle may have been able to land. Once the elevon is lost, however, the mission's over: the Shuttle is inherently unstable (as are most high performance aircraft), and relies on working computers and working control systems.

Once those controls stop working, the things probably not flyable anymore.

[Fred Mertz]

Oh crap!

[TLBSHOW]

Howlin said I'll take NASA's word, if you don't mind.