ISRAELI PAPER-VIDEO SHOWS 2 'LONG' CRACKS ON COLUMBIA'S LEFT WING EVIDENT BEFORE RE-ENTRY!

ABC Australian News and the 'Daily Maariv' of Israel ^ | Tuesday, February 4, 2003 1:55 AM Austrailian Time | Staff Report

[ewing]

The Iseal Daily Maariv has published a picture of the United States Space Shuttle Columbia apparently showing two cracks in its left wing.

The picture was taken 11 days before the shuttle broke up on its way back to Earth on Saturday killing all seven crew.

The photograph was extracted from footage taken by a camera onbard the shuttle during a live staellite videoconference between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Col. Ilan Ramon the first Israeli to travel into space.

During the 15 minute conversation with Mr. Sharon and other Israeli officials, Ramon offered to share his view of Earth from the shuttle.

The video caught part of the shuttle's left wing showing two 'long' cracks, according to the paper.

[ewing]

Searching now for the tape..

[VaBthang4]

Perhaps you should've waited to have the actual images.

Just a thought.

[PhiKapMom]

From the article:

The Maariv report drew a guarded response from Tim Stevenson, an engineer at the Space Research Centre at Britain's University of Leicester.

In a phone interview with AFP, Mr Stevenson said that although he had not seen the pictures what looked like cracks were possibly a trick of the light.

"You can't see very much of the wing from inside the space station," he said.

"It may be that the shot you see there is of antennas. There are thin wires that run along the hinge of the payload bay doors and (in a picture) they would appear in contrast. They would appear over the wing as a thin line."

He added: "To be honest, the crew would have observed (a big crack) very, very quickly, particularly if it was big enough to be observed in any kind of video footage, and they would have acted very, very differently if they had observed it."

Another point, he said, was that a large, visible crack on the top surface of the wing "would manifest itself as a structural failure very early on.

"Given the point at which NASA said the break-up occurred, the shuttle would have already undertaken its S-turn manoeuvres (to slow its descent), which are relatively stressful.

"To put it bluntly, if the wing was going to break up, it was going to break up a long time before that point," he said.

[ewing]

The webpage of the paper is on overload, I get nothing but an error message.

[dennisw]

Be very skeptical. The image was on another thread and was half debunked.

[ewing]

Would there be two of those antennas on the wing?

[OXENinFLA]

If you are talking about this pic. It's Fake, no way it could be from Colombia.

[VaBthang4]

Try and see if you can take the image[s] from the particular site and load it up to your personal webspace.

May make it easier.

[ewing]

Is it a thermal pic, perhaps showing heat?

[r9etb]

It's Moby Dick in a top hat.

[Poohbah]

Nope.

It's as phony as Clinton's tears.

[ewing]

[Merovingian]

Thank you, and the article is patently irresponsible journalism...Stirring the pot...again

[ewing]

It looks like there is another crack by the wing base, if that isn't an antenna..plus the sun could be playing light tricks on the photograph

[Blood of Tyrants]

Here is a picture:

[ewing]

Are there any aerospace pros here that might know if it was a fake or not?

[finnman69]

can't be the wind edge...the wing edge is black (carbon edge..not tiles) for at least a foot back from the edge.

[Poohbah]

You're talking to one. The picture is rather obviously Photoshopped...

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

Too much curvature shown on the Earth in the background - Columbia was in a much lower orbit. A fake, IMHO.

[ewing]

There are three cracks, not two.. the one at the base stops about 2/3 of the way up the wing