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Topic: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost (Read 545 times)

Irishlass
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Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« on: Feb 1^st, 2003, 8:42am »

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It appears that the space shuttle Columbia has been lost in the sky over Texas this morning. Breaking news on TV now.

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MzWings
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #1 on: Feb 1^st, 2003, 9:07am »

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This is so horrible....I posted this info in Grapevine as well.

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Rhune
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #2 on: Feb 1^st, 2003, 9:32am »

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Columbia shuttle breaks up over Texas
Seven astronauts aboard space shuttle
Saturday, February 1, 2003 Posted: 10:25 AM EST (1525 GMT)

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Houston, Texas (CNN) -- The space shuttle Columbia, with seven astronauts aboard, broke up as it descended over central Texas Saturday toward a planned landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Residents as far east as Shreveport, Louisiana, reported seeing and feeling an apparent explosion.

Search-and-rescue teams from the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area were alerted and area residents were urged to stay away from any possible debris from the shuttle, which may be hazardous, said NASA public affairs officer James Hartfield.

President Bush was being briefed at Camp David, Maryland, and was expected to return to the White House by noon. The administration was preparing to convene a "domestic event" conference among all domestic and military agencies that may be involved in the next step.

An administration official said the shuttle's altitude -- over 200,000 feet -- made it "highly unlikely" that the shuttle fell victim to a terrorist act.

NASA officials said they last had contact with the shuttle about 9 a.m. EST, and it had been expected to touch down at about 9:16 a.m. EST.

Video of the shuttle tracking over Dallas showed multiple vapor trails, but NASA spokesman Kyle Herring said it was too early to determine the source.

Steve Petrovich, a police officer in Palestine, Texas, said he heard "a rumble and boom" at about 8 a.m. CDT (9 a.m. EST).

Jim Hubbs of New Boston, Texas, said he heard police discussing over a police scanner "a smoking object going southeast" that disappeared in the Bowie County area near the Arkansas state line.

Amy Townsend of Carthage, said she heard a loud boom that shook her house. She said there were two or three loud noises that lasted about a minute and that she saw a cloud of smoke outside her house.

Don Farmer of Lufkin, outside of Dallas, said he heard loud noises that lasted for 10 to 15 seconds. The noise sounded like dynamite exploding, and he thought it was an aircraft breaking the sound barrier.

Dozens of people, including several officers, reported seeing "a ball of fire," Bowie County Sheriff's office dispatcher Jodine Langford said.

"They saw it go out and then break into pieces," she said.

Officials said no tracking data were available.

Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, was among the seven-person crew.

There was no official reaction from the Israeli government, but a Defense Ministry spokeswoman said, "Like everyone else, we are feeling terrible, hoping the slightest hope that still remains at this stage will become a reality."

Shuttle commander Rick D. Husband, pilot William C. McCool, payload commander Michael P. Anderson, mission specialists David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla and Laurel Clark were also on board.

Columbia is the oldest of NASA's shuttle fleet, first launched in 1981. It was on its 28th mission.

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east
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #3 on: Feb 1^st, 2003, 1:00pm »

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this is just so sad....we have been watching cnn all morning off and on.

to those who have experienced loss, and indeed we all have in some way, may they feel the hand of God in their grief and pain. :hug:

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Irishlass
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #4 on: Feb 1^st, 2003, 10:56pm »

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Chickmama, I haven't seen you around here today.......I hope everything is okay in your area. Is this near where you live?

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chickmama
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #5 on: Feb 2^nd, 2003, 9:37am »

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Yes, this was right over our place. Sorry not to have been here earlier...Saturdays suck around here.
At 8:05 yesterday morning, an explosion shook my house, and the windows rattled. I didn't have the Television on, so I had no idea I needed to be looking to the sky for clues. Our chicken houses are heated by propane, and I really thought that one of the tanks had exploded. I ran outside, and when I could see that everything was ok here; I came back inside. I was grumbling about it being illegal for pilots to break the sound barrier, because that was my second thought. My husband called me from the post office a few minutes later and told me the horrible news.

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MzWings
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #6 on: Feb 2^nd, 2003, 10:02am »

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This tragedy very nearly struck a little too close to "home". Losing those seven astronauts hurts like hell and knowing that one of our MANY friends on the ground beneath the falling schrapnel could have been injured would have been horrendous.

I had my map books out tracking the fallout - I know the general area where some of you live. I was praying like crazy. In minutes the names of the towns were shown and people were posting here and on other sites about debris falling waaaaay too close to them - a block away and closer.

Officials were trying their damnedest to warn everybody NOT to touch any of it but to contact local authorities. So I hear this morning eight people are/were in hospital being treated for burns, etc. Geesh...... From what I hear, the burns are nothing compared to breathing the toxins delivered to the lungs.

So now it's been 24 hours since all this happened. It's a wait-and-see........

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MzWings
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #7 on: Feb 3^rd, 2003, 10:00am »

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....48 hours and reporters are shoving microphones in the faces of those grieving family and friends. "Tell me - how does it feel.....blah blah blah" Such stupidity....

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"Senility Prayer"...God grant me...
The senility to forget the people I never liked
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do
And the eyesight to tell the difference."

Rhune
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #8 on: Feb 3^rd, 2003, 10:05am »

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The worst part is people are already auctioning off "debris" on ebay.

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MzWings
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #9 on: Feb 3^rd, 2003, 10:15am »

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True Rhune and they started bidding on the debris only a couple of hours after this disaster. Sick people......

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"Senility Prayer"...God grant me...
The senility to forget the people I never liked
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do
And the eyesight to tell the difference."

Addams
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #10 on: Feb 3^rd, 2003, 12:01pm »

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I am so grateful to hear that you are OK chickmama - and that no one appears to have been hurt on the ground. A miracle.

This was so sad - I just don't know what to say. I am in awe and admiration of the people who choose to be astronauts. God Bless them all - and keep them and their families in all of our hearts and prayers.

The ebay stuff just goes to show you how others in our community are not so upstanding - so put it kindly.

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MzWings
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #11 on: Feb 3^rd, 2003, 7:27pm »

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I hope to God no one in our community were involved in the ebay thing. Surely not......

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"Senility Prayer"...God grant me...
The senility to forget the people I never liked
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do
And the eyesight to tell the difference."

chickmama
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #12 on: Feb 4^th, 2003, 10:21am »

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Well, if the were/are they will be justly punished. Do you know that to this day people still try to auction off Challenger debris? NASA is voracious in thier pursuit of these people.

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Rhune
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #13 on: Feb 6^th, 2003, 8:41am »

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/0 2/06/MN22145.DTL

West Coast footage may hold clues to tragedy

Sabin Russell, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, February 6, 2003

NASA photo analysts are poring over videos and photographs taken from California of the doomed space shuttle Columbia, hoping to stitch together a sequence of visual clues to explain the increasingly puzzling loss of the orbiter and its seven-member crew.

Of particular interest is a startling image taken by an amateur astronomer in San Francisco, which appears to show a purplish bolt of lightning striking Columbia at it streaked across the predawn skies.

During a Houston news conference, Shuttle Program Manager Ron Dittemore said he hadn't yet seen the West Coast videos and photographs being gathered by NASA imagery and photo experts.

The pictures, shot from different angles and in different locales, coupled with eyewitness accounts from shuttle-watchers, may create a mosaic of evidence about the shuttle's crucial pass over California, when instruments first showed signs of trouble.

"Once you collect it all, you can look at it in time sequence," Dittemore said.

Top NASA officials had appealed for photographs or video evidence from amateur sky-watchers on the West Coast after receiving a detailed eyewitness report from a radio-astronomer at the California Institute of Technology. Anthony Beasley said he saw a flarelike object drop away from the shuttle as it streaked over the Owens Valley, on the east side of the Sierra Nevada.

Included in the new material gathered by NASA is a video taken in Sparks, Nev.

Dittemore did not address directly the provocative San Francisco image, which has not been shown to the public by the photographer but was examined by a Chronicle reporter before it was shipped to Houston.

EX-ASTRONAUT DELIVERS PHOTOS
NASA dispatched former astronaut Tammy Jernigan, who has flown five times on the shuttle, to pick up the photos and the camera itself. She delivered them to a NASA jet at Moffett Field, where they were to be flown to Texas on Wednesday.

Jernigan said she did not know what to make of the image but agreed it needed to be analyzed.

"We sure will be very interested in taking a very hard look at this," she said while examining the picture in the photographer's San Francisco home.

The images could turn out to be the result of a subtle jiggle of the camera or might depict some rare electrical phenomenon in the zone known as the ionosphere, more than 40 miles above Earth.

Photo analysts should be able to match the location of the strange lightning-like image with a precise point in space and time during the orbiter's descent. That's because the photograph also depicts a crisp field of stars in the background, which provide astronomical reference points.

The amateur astronomer, who does not want his name released, said he believes he snapped the images at 5:53 a.m. Saturday. That is the just about the time when a bank of shuttle sensors detected a modest heat buildup in a wheel well, followed by a cascade of failing sensors, increasing heat and ultimate loss of flying ability.

Seven minutes later, the orbiter broke up 203,000 feet above Texas and rained debris down a 160-mile swath into Louisiana.

With five flights to her name, including three on Columbia, Jernigan is well acquainted with the eerie visual effects of re-entry, when the shuttle slams into the thin upper atmosphere and the heat at the craft's leading edges builds to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

"It's an extraordinary light show," she said. "There are flashes of pinks and yellows and whites."

AREA PRODUCES ODD EFFECTS
Should the photograph prove significant, it would open the inquiry into a strange world of high-altitude electro-physics. The field studies a place in the skies once described by physicists as the "ignorasphere," because so little is know about it. It is populated by ghostly electromagnetic effects that the same wags named "blue jets, elves and sprites."

These mysterious electrical events -- once part of airline pilot lore -- are now extensively documented. In fact, one of the experiments conducted during Columbia's ill-fated mission by Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon involved observations of the sprite phenomenon.

Sprites are powerful electrical discharges that occasionally leap from thunderclouds to the borders of the ionosphere. But there were no thunderstorms beneath Columbia as it re-entered the atmosphere over California.

"Even if there was a storm in the area, it is not likely to be the cause of such a discharge," said Mark Stanley, an expert in high-atmospheric physics at Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico.

Nevertheless, he said the upper atmosphere is capable of building up enormous electric charges. "Streamers" of static electricity can conduct electrical charges at twice the speed of lightning based on the ground.

"I'm highly skeptical they could have had anything to do with Columbia's demise," he said. "But somebody needs to see how they interact with spacecraft.

In my opinion, it needs to be studied."

E-mail Sabin Russell at [email protected].

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chickmama
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Re: Space Shuttle Columbia Lost
« Reply #14 on: Feb 6^th, 2003, 11:43am »

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This is very informative. I haven't heard anyone speculating about this kind of possibility. Personally, I hope something like this is what caused the disaster. For me, it's preferable to human mistakes, or shuttle malfunctions.

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