Shuttle

[philfran]

May God bless the shuttle crew and their families.

[APKhaos]

Amen.

[APKhaos]

Amen.
The loss of telemetry during the re-entry phase makes it very difficult to determine what happened. A tragedy.

[tmctguer]

i remember the day challenger exploded after launch in the '80's. like the challenger, this is a tragedy, and hopefully enough flight data and/or debri can be recovered to determine the root cause. just like challenger, this will ground the shuttle program for awhile.

in the days when challenger was lost, space shuttle flights had become quite uneventful and the complexity of the craft and the mission were taken for granted by the general public. ditto for the last 15 years of shuttle flights. when events like this happen, they serve to remind everyone of how amazingly complex, yet fragile these giant rockets are.

we live in interesting times....................

[rs911t]

Contrails from falling pieces. Another tragic image burned into our minds. amen.

[McDaniel]

Terrible thing. I also remember the Challenger explosion in
the 80's.
Radio reports continue to stress that there is no evidence of
terrorists activity.

[atlporsche]

Indeed McDaniel...they were at 200+k feet. No possibility of terrorist activity.

there was a malfuction when she was trying to slow down. IMO

NASA's gotta get it in gear for these high profile flights...this is strike two IMO.

sjd

[HawgRyder]

Space is a dangerous place....and sometimes you have to pay for the trip.
Taken in perspective....the safety record is pretty good....but unfortunately not perfect.
Condolences to the people left behind.
Bob

[poobala]

Did tou hear that moron prank call Dan Rather, sometimes I wish people would respect the situation and acknowledge the reality other people and there families are experiencing, my heart goes out to the families of the fallen crew.

[speeder]

It immediately brought back the memory of Jan. 27th, 1986. I will never forget where I was, watching the launch live on TV w/ co-workers. When it exploded we were just speechless. This is a tradgedy.

[Jim Sims]

The explosion was heard in northern New Mexico.

From an old Navy hymn: "O hear us when we lift our prayer for those in peril in the air."

Jim

[88911coupe]

I clearly heard the sonic boom here in Dallas this morning but did not know what it was till I turned on the radio to wash the car. I'd heard lots of sonic booms as a kid growing up in Oklahoma near Tinker AFB. It seems to shake everything aound you.
Very sad day...

[island911]

Originally posted by atlporsche
Indeed McDaniel...they were at 200+k feet. No possibility of terrorist activity.

there was a malfuction when she was trying to slow down. IMO

NASA's gotta get it in gear for these high profile flights...this is strike two IMO.

sjd

200+k feet. . .at Mach 18!

malfuction: From the amateur video, I'll speculate that a structural wing failure, leading immediately to the second wing (and vertical stabilizer) to come off.
. . .In light of possible wing hit on launch, it would make sense that some of the thermal protection was comprimised.

It could be that, with so many successful trips up and back, that a level of over-confidence in the Columbia led to an oversight about the wing hit.

Very sad.

[911nut]

I think that what NASA will find was that there was a loss of vehicle attitide which either overheated the shuttle or cause it to be ripped apart from the large aerodynamic forces.
An X-15 and some SR-71's were lost this way.
May God bless and comfort the astronauts famlies.

[pwd72s]

I hope they find the cause, to prevent it happening again. But no matter the cause, tragic...

[Early_S_Man]

A very sad day ... and one that has been expected since 1961 ... an operational loss during re-entry. My prayers go out for the crew and their families, and for the NASA community.

Very likely a loss of control scenario due to hydraulic system failure, possibly related to a problem noted during launch ... when something hit the left wing, and a subsequent temperature differential was reported.

The Blackbird loss at high altitude and Mach 3+ during the '60's was actually an A-12, caused by the D-21 drone crashing into the A-12 after launching ... and resulted in the termination of the reconnisance drone program.

The X-15 loss in 1967 was caused by pilot error due to vertigo, and over-correction at Mach 4+.

[911nut]

Warren, there have been other SR-71 losses due to high-speed loss of attitude. The specifics of these accidents are secret.

New information has emerged that the shuttle was observed to be losing pieces as it passed over California. There exists now that the loss may have been caused by the loss of tiles on a wing in a "zipper" effect. First the leading edge tile is lost, then the one behind it and the one behind it and so on. This would increase the drag on that wing, causing the shuttle to yaw out of attitude and consequently breaking up due to the aerodynamic forces.

[osidak]

Wow, I just saw this on Pelican. Hadn't had the TV or radio on all day. Went out to Fox News to read the news.

This is very tragic. I was in the 7th grade when we lost the Challenger. It hit me very hard, this is no less of a loss.

My thoughts go out the the famlies and friends of the crew.

[nostatic]

For those interested in the Challenger disaster and some of the lessons that can be learned, check out this book:

http://www.edwardtufte.com/1974028360/tufte/books_textb

No politics or axe to grind, but rather insightful analysis into how the graphical representation of data influenced decisions. The first story is about the Cholera epidemic in London in 1854, and the second about the Challenger commision (with Richard Feynman).

Condolences to those involved, and hope that all tragedies can be used as learning experiences.

[Tim Walsh]

My condolences to all those involved.

I have no data for any of this and details are vauge but what about space derbis punching a hole in the shuttle? There's a ton of junk up there floating around at 12,000 miles/hour just a pinhead at that speed could punk a hole in the thermal barrier of the shuttle. just another amatuer speculation without any sort of real basis