[jimpeel]

Here they come already. One guy thinks the shuttle was brought down by a "Scalar Strike" Scalar Strike On Columbia Ends WW3? (http://www.gulufuture.com/future/scalar_columbia_z.htm) which is described as a Tesla Howitzer (http://www.cheniere.org/books/part1/teslaweapons.htm) .

Another guy claims that the crew gave their lives selflessly when they realized that they would not make their destination and would crash into a populated area and decided to do the "right thing" over the lesser populated area of Texas. He had to ignore that big lo' gulf thingie sitting out there and the separable crew compartment, of course.

We all have our theories on what happened so here's mine:

When the foam broke off of the tank it hit the area where the landing gear door is located. This knocked several tiles off.

When the shuttle started to come back into the atmosphere, the landing gear door was exposed to heating which sent the temperature in the landing gear bay soaring. The temperature was great enough to cause an explosive blowout of the tire which either:

a) blew out a significant portion of the wing or;

b) blew the landing gear door open which caused the forces of the increasing temperature and increasing air pressure to tear the wing apart.

While either scenario is possible, I am more inclined to the second scenario than the first. The air pressure on the outside of the shuttle was very low and the air from the tire instantaneously filling the void of the landing gear bay would be devastating.

Remember that you heard that here first.

[Bainx]

Jim- I think you are on-target on this one.

It is hard for me as an engineer to dispute what I saw on the news....the piece of foam fall [a very small object on the screen] and at the bottom of the screen then, a large white cloud of debris falling from the bottom part of the wing [has to be tile material, what else could it be].

NASA is merely going about the investigation in a fashion that is spelled out by procedure.

[nemesis]

Just at the time that contact was lost and in the first moments of realizing something had gone horribly wrong, TXCN (Texas Cable News) showed film footage from two different sources which had been prepared to capture a normal reentry. I believe one may have been from a Dallas area station and my memory says the other footage was from further west, perhaps the panhandle or New Mexico.

Both captures showed visually differing but strikingly similar views of the shuttle at very high altitude, leaving a "contrail" but appearing in stable flight across the entire sky. What caught my eye was a large and brightly reflective object following the shuttle at a separation of about 35 degrees. It too was streaming a trail. It was large, bright, (appeared approximately) spherical and keeping pace with the shuttle. If I didn't know better, I would have presumed a "chase" plane had taken up a trailing formation. I do know better. What it was, I do not know.

What I do know is that I have not seen either of those two sequences again. After Saturday morning, they were no longer broadcast. It's your guess.

[bad_dad_brad]

Well, being as we are all armchair quarterbacks (in this case engineers) here are my thoughts on the subject.

Attached is an image of the shuttle over New Mexico by U.S. Air Force ground cameras from the Starfire Optical Range. I enhanced the image, rather I de-enhanced it to soften the demarcation between light and dark and then colorized the image. You can see the left wing appears to be damaged on the leading edge, and you can see a debris and plasma trail behind the shuttle on the left side.

The leading edge of the shuttle wing is lined with this very hard and strong but potentially brittle (under certain conditions and blows) stuff called RCC (reinforced carbon-carbon).

My theory is that chunk of booster tank foam but probably ice (hit the shuttle at over 700 FPS) that came off at launch damaged the leading edge RCC or a joint between the RCC panels, the hottest part of the shuttle during re-entry (almost 3000F), and a hot jet of plasma blew through the left wing near the fuselage (precisely where they had all those temperature sensor anomalies and failures).

As the shuttle's automatic pilot struggled to keep re-entry attitude, during a right S-turn roll reversal (used to slow the shuttle) there was a structural failure of the left wing.

[Ian]

Yeah, I think bad_dad_brad's nailed it. Both the wing damage and maximum temperature are on the leading edge of the wing, not back where the landing gear are. If there was a burn through on the wing, the heat would weaken the wing structure - combine that with Mach 18 maneuvering, and blam, there goes the wing.

[Art Eatman]

There are some fairly astute guys who post on economic issues over at TimeBomb2000. There is also a fair collection of tinfoilers.

The afternoon of the disaster, conspiracy and religious threads about it were starting up, with a startling amount of agreement.

I have difficulty in seeing a causal relationship between the breakup and the debris falling on Palestine. Yeah, okay, so there's a Palestine that's not in Texas...But the reason they Mediahcrities spoke of Palestine, Texas, is because they didn't know how to pronounce "Nacogdoches".

:D, Art

[SodaPop]

I can't stand the cospiracy theory crowd. Why can't people just die in accidents?

I'm sure when they finally announce that Osama is dead he's going to be showing up with Elvis at a few malls.

[P95Carry]

Yep - I think b_d_b has it about wrapped up. I am tho one to keep an open mind these days on all things .. we have seen way too many cover-ups over the years but this was I think much as stated.

Having said that ...... I still retain a modicum of ''flexibility'' ..... subject to further evidence being available. The obvious is not ... every time .. always quite ''the obvious''.

[bad_dad_brad]

One of the things that makes me think the leading edge RCC (reinforced carbon-carbon) was damaged, was some of the tests done with ice hitting this surface at high speeds (over 700 FPS). Behind the leading edge of the wing, which is bolted on to the shuttle, is a flat surface of aircraft aluminum. The RCC shape provides the the aerodynamic edge. Without it, at 350F aluminum starts to break down, and the flat surface increases drag.

A link about debris at launch impacts - very interesting:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/870193.asp?0cl=cR

Apparently during the last few minutes, the shuttle's autopilot (at this point in re-entry no human was in control) was struggling with increased drag on the left wing, so much so that wing elevons could not compensate, and yaw reaction jets started firing.

It's a shame that accidents happen. But I think this was an accident. The real problem lies in that NASA had no contingency plan and they are starting to cover up. They really had no choice but to return a potentially damaged shuttle, and take the risk. They had no fuel to get to the space station. They had no way to inspect the wing. They really could not have launched another shuttle for a rescue. Now, NASA is firmly entrenched in the typical cover up game.

That is the real shame. The Seven had no options. You go up, ya gotta come down. But, let us not forget, the Shuttle is an X-craft and every launch is a military mission. The media, politicos, and some NASA managers try to ignore this, but when you go up in the thing, you have a 1 in 148 (NASA's own figure) of not coming home. Well, now they are a bit behind the odds.

It is clearly time to find a new way to go up into space, and come back down. The shuttle is obsolete. Let us not kill any more of our best please.

[TexasVet]

quote:
______________________________________
I have difficulty in seeing a causal relationship between the breakup and the debris falling on Palestine. Yeah, okay, so there's a Palestine that's not in Texas...But the reason they Mediahcrities spoke of Palestine, Texas, is because they didn't know how to pronounce "Nacogdoches".
______________________________________

none of the mike-toters seem to know that "Palestine" Texas is not pronounced like pallas-(beer)stein in the middle east, but like palace-steen. :rolleyes:

(where did you cut and paste "Nacogdoches" from? 'Cause nobody can SPELL that right, usually:D )

[Art Eatman]

Texas Vet, there are 254 counties in Texas. Last count, I've been in about 220 of 'em. :) Cut and paste? Not this ol' hoss...

:), Art

[Mike Irwin]

Uh...

I don't think the Columbia, or any of the shuttles, have jettisonable crew capsules that can be used in the upper atmosphere at speeds of Mach 12ish, which is where Columbia broke up.

I know this was discussed after Challenger, but it was technically and logistically pretty much impossible to do, IIRC.

Of course the conspiracy theorists are coming out of the woodwork... They came out of the woodwork after Challenger, you just didn't see as much of it because the internet wasn't as pervasive.

As for the shuttle crew "steering" away from a landing in a populated area, that's not going to be happening either. You don't steer in the upper atmosphere at Mach 12. You're there for the ride, nothing else.


As for the Tesla Howitzer...

Jesus Christ... The Freak Fairy is out in force these days..

Anyone think that an EM pulse capable of doing something like this would go unnoticed? Like by most anyone who was watching TV, listening to the radio, or talking on a cell phone at the moment it went off?

No, the Freak Fairy won't have anything to do with these people. The FUBAR Fairy got to them first, AKA Tom Bearden...

[Stetson_CO]

Art and Texas Vet,

I am willing to bet that there is still debris 'deep in the heart of the piney woods', all over Timpson, Teneha, Bobo and Blair. But who is going to go deep in the dark woods to find this stuff?
:eek:


c):{

[Preacherman]

This is NASA's radar-tracking map of the debris field. Lots of ground to cover...

[bad_dad_brad]

Another bit of informtion that suggests a failure of the RCC leading edge of the shuttle's wing:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/870674.asp

[Art Eatman]

I can see the corrosion problem from dissimilar metals. Heck, that's a problem on an old Cessna. Seems to me, though, that absolute proof would require visual inspection of the wing. You can suspect a cause from checking records, but I don't think that's good enough to close the books on it.

Art

[Ironbarr]

In another life (1950's) when the Navy was using Rockport (Aransas County) as a bounce field for ADs out of Kingsville, Beeville and Corpus C, we crash crew, tower flower, and twidget (Me) folks had our share of NAVCAD mishaps.

One day I watched as a touch-and-go on the north/south runway neglected his rudder trim in the switch between landing and full power takeoff details. Little by little the left wing came down finally resulting in a three-point landing - in this case, wing tip, prop and landing gear. He tailed over nose a few times, falling out of the cockpit, getting up and running off the airport property to sit on the shoulder of the road. Fortunately for the runway, the AD bounced and stopped off-runway.

What got me was, in the watching, I followed one prop blade as it snapped off, arced high - very high - into the air and headed generally in my direction. Slow motion almost, it finally hit the ground between the east/west runway and taxi strip - about 40/50 yards from me. This blade hit like a spear, pointy end first - AND - it disappeared into that which every Texan knows, sandy soil. We found it finally after the fire was squelched.

In a different crash event at a target on Padre Island an F-9 doing a 60 degree angle bomb drop failed a pull-out. The plane's remains were buried in something like a 20 foot hole in the sand.

Now my point... I'd suspect that some of those Columbia parts are buried in Texas sandy soil. Whether or not an air or ground sensor search is done, there will probably be items never found.

What does surprise me is that so many identifiable pieces have been located. Actually, to me, it's amazing.

-Andy

[Stetson_CO]

Ironbarr,

East Texas isn't sandy like SE Texas is(I was born in this area). East Texas has a nasty clay like quality to the ground. It's fun in the rain on a John Deere but it sucks when digging post holes....

It's just that the woods are thick and dark....and spooky as all get out to a 12 yr old. As thick as it is in there, finding anything will be hard.


c):{

[jimpeel]

One of the landing gear doors has been found and NASA has stated that it is a critical find as that is where the first indication of trouble began. The very first place that an indication of something wrong occurred in the landing gear bay of the left wing. There was a distinct temperature rise in that bay.

NASA said the first signs of a problem came only minutes before contact was lost, when sensors stopped working on the shuttle’s left wing.

Shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore told reporters that those failures were followed within minutes by several other problems, including the loss of sensors for tire pressure and temperature.

If the temperature rise was great enough to cause the tire to blow, it would have devastated the wing area or blown the bay door open. Note the following from the Michelin webpage at:

http://aviation.webmichelin.com/about/space.html

Interesting facts and figures:

Number of tires on the Space Shuttle:
4 - main landing gear tires 44.5x16.0-21, 34 ply, 263 mph
2 - nose landing gear tires 32x8.8, 20 ply, 250 mph

The space shuttle tires are filled with nitrogen (as are most aircraft tires) due to its stability at different altitudes and temperatures. Due to the extremely heavy loads these bias ply tires are inflated to 340 psi (main gear) and 300 psi (nose gear).

The main landing gear shuttle tires are only used one time and the nose landing gear tires are used for two landings.

Weight: Since weight is of extreme importance, Michelin designs the tires with a minimum amount of tread to conserve weight, allowing for larger payloads. A few pounds may not seem to make much difference, but when you add up all of the ways to decrease weight throughout the Shuttle it can have a significant impact.

Do the math on how much area this much nitrogen at that pressure would expand to while noting that the air pressure on the outside of the craft would be nearly zero PSI. It would be like a bomb going off.

I stand by my contentions that this was the cause.