Something's Up With The Space Shuttle (Missing)

[Electric Amish]

This sucks for NASA.

Pretty crappy time for this to happen.

amish

 

[NakaNaka]

Originally posted by: DaveSohmer
Let's try to keep our eye on the ball here folks.

Seven people just died a tragic death while in service to their country and the world.

Let's save the supposition and conspiracy theories for later.

<--- Salutes seven brave men and women and sends heartfelt condolences to their friends and families.

I agree and I apologize to them and their families, but with something of this nature and magnitude, we of course want to know what went wrong. Believe me, my mind is not just on the cause. I am terribly depressed because of this tradgedy.

 

[Nohr]

Woah, so that's what that rumbling was a couple hours ago. I live in Nacogdoches, TX and was lying in bed at the time. I heard and felt a low rumble. At first I thought it was thunder, but then it kept going for something like 20 seconds. I then assumed it was a loud truck idling and kinda shrugged it off.

Apparently there's debris from the explosion here in town.

 

[Cuda1447]

Originally posted by: Pastfinder
We don't know if they are dead yet, let's not give up hope so quickly. And yes, I know the facts of reentry, so don't bother posting about it...

We may never know... for sure. Bodies may not be found. But I agree, lets not lose hope.

 

[MeanMeosh]

Originally posted by: Nohr
Woah, so that's what that rumbling was a couple hours ago. I live in Nacogdoches, TX and was lying in bed at the time. I heard and felt a low rumble. At first I thought it was thunder, but then it kept going for something like 20 seconds. I then assumed it was a loud truck idling and kinda shrugged it off.

Apparently there's debris from the explosion here in town.

nohr, lots of debris in nac.

 

[ManSnake]

Originally posted by: NakaNaka

Originally posted by: ManSnake
Tragic, it's even sadder to see that the space program will be scaled back once again

No, it is not sadder than seven people being dead.

Kepp your opinion to yourself. Those 7 gave up their lives for science, it would be a slap on the face for them if the space program funding is cut because of this tragic accident!

 

[Wag]

Nasa isn't even sending out the military for a "Search and Rescue" operation. They said that they assume "all hands are lost".
What a sad loss.

I hope this isn't the end of the US program. I fear it will be for a long time.

 

[SirChadwick]

I find this a little scary...

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: MeanMeosh

Originally posted by: NakaNaka

Originally posted by: MeanMeosh
check out the base reflectivity over dallas flare up for a moment here: reflectivity

=(

What does that show?

i believe that line that went from bottom to center is the shuttle path and the flare was the moments after the explosion, with debris streaming down.

Nope, shuttle came in from W. North West
I may not be seeing the same clip you did, but the ime on mine is about 1600 UTC = 1100 EST, shuttle loss was at 0900 EST

 

[StinkyPinky]

Originally posted by: ManSnake
Tragic, it's even sadder to see that the space program will be scaled back once again

Space travel is so expensive but I believe it is worth it. I just wish more countries would contribute to space travel. Currently it seems to be a US/Russia club. I know Europe has the European Space Agency or whatever it's called, but that seems pretty useless. They should all merge into one giant space agency and pool their funding.

 

[JetBlack69]

CNN is showing some pictures of debress (sp?).

 

[StattlichPassat]

***REPORT FROM CENTRAL TEXAS***

I am located in Stephenville, TX... about 60 miles south of Ft. Worth, TX, and about 80 miles SW of Dallas, TX. I viewed the Shuttle Columbia flying over this morning at just past 8:00a CST. As it crested 70% of the sky from West to East, I saw a slight breakup as a small piece started its own ion trail. After that, it disappeared behind a building here on the campus of my University. The Shuttle Columbia was easily visible, as shown on TV, and looked in normal fashion until it cleared 70% of its field of view from my vantage point. I wrote off what I saw as nothing, as I had just woken up and thought it was 'sleepies' in my eyes or something. To make matters worse, I took my digital camera outside to get a great shot of it, but accidentally left the CompactFlash memory card in my room and was not able to capture the image. What a chance that would have been... probably the most important photo of my life thus far that I missed an opportunity of taking.

I went back in to watch NASA TV to watch the Shuttle land, and just before it's scheduled landing at about 8:10a, I heard a definite 'boom' that I figured was a sonic boom. I have my window open a crack, and the closed blinds in front of it pulsed once very quickly as if they had been hit by an inflatable ball from across the room or something... The sound was not as loud as what I'm hearing out of towns 200 mi. west of here like in Palestine and Nacadoches- pretty muffled- but there nevertheless. There is no debris, no signs of anything wrong here. For the most part, I saw a good Shuttle fly-by, but as it left my field of view, something was definitely amiss. Godspeed to all the astronauts.

Follow the FOX News Channel and THE DRUDGE REPORT for continuing coverage.

 

[Grey]

Dont forget China is going to be putting a man in orbit sometime this year.

 

[NakaNaka]

Originally posted by: ManSnake

Originally posted by: NakaNaka

Originally posted by: ManSnake
Tragic, it's even sadder to see that the space program will be scaled back once again

No, it is not sadder than seven people being dead.

Kepp your opinion to yourself. Those 7 gave up their lives for science, it would be a slap on the face for them if the space program funding is cut because of this tragic accident!

Let's just drop it alright. I don't want to get into an argument. Not today, not after this.

 

[StattlichPassat]

Originally posted by: Nohr
Woah, so that's what that rumbling was a couple hours ago. I live in Nacogdoches, TX and was lying in bed at the time. I heard and felt a low rumble. At first I thought it was thunder, but then it kept going for something like 20 seconds. I then assumed it was a loud truck idling and kinda shrugged it off.

Apparently there's debris from the explosion here in town.

Dude, go check it out- don't touch it. There will be crowds out there for sure. TAKE PHOTOS AND POST THEM! If I lived just 100 mi. closer, I'd be out there.

 

[rickn]

Originally posted by: StinkyPinky

Originally posted by: ManSnake
Tragic, it's even sadder to see that the space program will be scaled back once again

Space travel is so expensive but I believe it is worth it. I just wish more countries would contribute to space travel. Currently it seems to be a US/Russia club. I know Europe has the European Space Agency or whatever it's called, but that seems pretty useless. They should all merge into one giant space agency and pool their funding.

china will be doing it's first manned space flight later this year.

 

[Nohr]

Originally posted by: StattlichPassat

Originally posted by: Nohr
Woah, so that's what that rumbling was a couple hours ago. I live in Nacogdoches, TX and was lying in bed at the time. I heard and felt a low rumble. At first I thought it was thunder, but then it kept going for something like 20 seconds. I then assumed it was a loud truck idling and kinda shrugged it off.

Apparently there's debris from the explosion here in town.

Dude, go check it out- don't touch it. There will be crowds out there for sure. TAKE PHOTOS AND POST THEM! If I lived just 100 mi. closer, I'd be out there.

Would be happy to if I had a vehicle. I imagine the local news will be on it anyway.

 

[NakaNaka]

Since I don't have a flagpole, this is what I will be doing this weekend.

Auto response from NakaCarolinaBlue: My prayers go out to the seven astronauts that died today trying to explore our universe, doing a service to their country and all mankind. My thoughts are with their loved ones, who were waiting for them as the shuttle was about to land. I will be leaving this away message on all weekend, and hope you do the same, so that we can remember and put life in perspective.

 

[shiner]

Originally posted by: Wag
Nasa isn't even sending out the military for a "Search and Rescue" operation. They said that they assume "all hands are lost".
What a sad loss.

I hope this isn't the end of the US program. I fear it will be for a long time.

This isn't the time or place to really bring up my opinion of the space program but I will anyway. NASA and the space program is one of the few government programs I don't mind paying taxes for. In fact if my taxes had to be raised a bit to guarantee that more money would go to the space program I would gladly give it. That being said, I think it's time to move away from the shuttle. It is a technological marvel but is far too expensive to operate and will never be the "space truck" NASA envisioned it would be. It just isn't economical to use it to launch payloads. Yes it's sexier than anything else flying into space, it just isn't practical. We need to go back to using heavy lift rockets for satellite launches, and develop something more simple for trips to and from the ISS. Yes we need some sort of "space truck" to carry things too large for rockets, but that shouldn't be something that is used for every launch. I'll shut up now.....

The loss of the shuttle is tremendous and horribly sad. We should all take a moment to just sit and reflect on the loss of life the crew has suffered and the pain their loved ones must be feeling right now. God bless them all.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Phocas

<--- Salutes seven brave men and women and sends heartfelt condolences to their friends and families.

^

 

[MeanMeosh]

omfg, my friends who lived in east texas (rusk, tx), about 120+ miles from dallas, are reporting that their houses were shaking.

 

[0roo0roo]

its the oldest shuttle, so i guess if one had to break from failure it would be the one. i wonder what changes they did to design later on, or if they are the same.

 

[alm4rr]

Here are a few givens:
-It's not the result of ground based aggression
-This was the oldest STS that NASA has
-Foam fell off the shuttle on liftoff and hit the wing
-NASA declared the loss of foam and possible damage within 'acceptable margins'
-The Columbia is non-operative and the crew is (will be) dead

When we look to the Challenger and the organizational decisions which led up to its destruction, we see a persistant pattern of increasing the amount of acceptable risk (oh, it didn't blow up THIS time, so this is ok) which increased the probability of a total loss of shuttles. NASA and Morton Thiokol worked outside of acceptable limits, outside the data which had been collected for temperature and O-ring failure (by a large margin, too!) and said that there was no data to prohibit them from launching, vs. the data does not support a launch b/c we have no quantifiable data on its affect on STS launches.

Upon liftoff, after seeing the foam hit the wing, NASA administrators decided not to abort the already in progress liftoff and land at the preplanned emergency areas in Europe and to proceed normally, within 'acceptable margins.'

NASA was not helped in the recent satellite mission that ended of destruction in the satellite, simply b/c the outsourcing was done in standard measurements and NASA was working in metric. No one caught this, and a satellite to Mars plummeted to the ground. There's also been the number of satellites lately that have exploded on their rockets on the launch pad.

One can blame the shuttles, but surely, it will be held that it was NASA organizational culture that has once again doomed another STS mission. Yes, I understant the complexity of sts launches, let alone their missions, but it cannot be denied that when insulating foam falls of a thruster and hits a wing of an aircraft, it's a big deal and warrants an abort and inspection.

 

[Nohr]

Originally posted by: MeanMeosh
omfg, my friends who lived in east texas (rusk, tx), about 120+ miles from dallas, are reporting that their houses were shaking.

That was pretty much the effect I had here in my apartment. Window was rattling a bit, walls rumbled lowly, pretty crazy stuff.

 

[Bulk Beef]

Ironically, Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut on board, took part in the 1981 attack on the nuclear reactor at Osirak, Iraq.