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Space Shuttle Columbia destroyed on re-entry

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01-02-2003 6:40pm

#1

DMT

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From http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0201/nasa.html

Seven astronauts are feared dead after the space shuttle Columbia is feared to have disintegrated in the Earth's atmosphere, minutes before it was due to land at Florida's Kennedy Space Center this afternoon.

The US space agency NASA lost contact with the shuttle at around 2pm.

NASA reported that debris from the shuttle has been sighted in Texas.

Television images showed several white trails in the sky, thought to be debris from the shuttle. Officials have warned that the debris might be toxic.

US space agency, NASA, has declared an emergency after losing contact with the Space Shuttle Columbia.

The Columbia was transporting the first Israeli astronaut and six other crew members back to Earth after a 16-day mission.

Search and rescue teams have been put on alert.

Columbia is NASA's oldest shuttle and first flew in 1981.

Today's emergency is the most serious incident involving a shuttle since the 1986 crash of the space shuttle Challenger, which carried seven astronauts.

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#2 01-02-2003 6:44pm
Drunk pirate

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Scary. How could it be toxic?

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#3 01-02-2003 6:52pm
oeNeo

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Heard on the news that it's toxic because of the fuel and all the debris and stuff they were collecting in orbit

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#4 01-02-2003 6:53pm
DMT

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Originally posted by Drunk pirate
Scary. How could it be toxic?

They're probably just saying that to stop people from tampering with the evidence.
Or selling it on eBay.

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#5 01-02-2003 7:04pm
Shinji

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I'm not sure "tampering with the evidence" is the right phrase, but yes, they don't want people nicking bits of the shuttle and selling them on eBay basically.

Of course, this will now be followed by hand-wringing in the States and a major backscaling of shuttle operations, and probably of all of NASA's operations. The Americans, stupidly, approach space exploration as having to be perfectly safe; they cannot accept that there will INEVITABLY be casualties in any field as dangerous as this one.

All astronauts understand the risks of their profession. And it doesn't matter how dangerous it is - there would still be queues of young men and women willing to explore this dangerous frontier, just as in the past there were people willing to sail to distant lands or explore the polar ice caps. Of course, CNN and hence the Yank public will never understand this...

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#6 01-02-2003 7:17pm
Sangre

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Completely agree with you Shinji,
Because its space travel everyone (media) will immediately assume that space travel should be halted because its so dangerous. But noone even blinks if a plane crashs. Fs I was only 1 when Challenger exploded but still 'everyone' will want halt this perilous career.
There will always be men and women willing to risk their lives to further our understanding of our universe

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#7 01-02-2003 7:43pm
DMT

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Originally posted by Sangre
Completely agree with you Shinji,
Because its space travel everyone (media) will immediately assume that space travel should be halted because its so dangerous.

The problem is that there's only one type of space shuttle - when that Concorde crashed on take-off they were all taken out of service, so they have to put them out of service until they can find the problem and prevent it from happening again.

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#8 01-02-2003 8:13pm
aidan_dunne

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As it stands at the moment though, space travel can't actually be stopped. Why? Well, after Challenger in 1986 the shuttle fleet was grounded for two years. They can't ground the remaining shuttle fleet now because there is a crew currently aboard the International Space Station who will need supplies sent up to them. Also, the building of the ISS still has to keep going ahead so, unlike in '86 when the fleet was grounded, they can't do that now. As it stands, whether the shuttle fleet is safe or unsafe, they are going to have to continue to risk using it because of the whole ISS situation and the fact they have no alternative to the shuttle at the moment.

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#9 01-02-2003 8:22pm
irishgeo

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The russians can service the ISS.

So is any of the spy or weather satalites any good in trying to figure out what happened. Dont they find any big pieces.

So any ideas what happened?

I think it could be the heat tiles.

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#10 01-02-2003 8:36pm
aidan_dunne

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Here's an image from a NOAA satellite showing the infra-red "streak" of heat from the pieces breaking off (in red). What's particularly worrying from this image is the potential size of the debris field. Given such a large amount of debris spread out over such a large area, there is bound to be some damage from all that debris hitting things so let's hope nobody on the ground is killed.

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#11 01-02-2003 8:40pm
irishgeo

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where you get that and whats the green blob

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#12 01-02-2003 8:40pm
mike65

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This is being discussed over here too-
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=734909#post734909

Maybe a thread merger would be appropriate?

Mike.

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#13 01-02-2003 8:42pm
aidan_dunne

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I got it off Yahoo! news' picture section. I think the green blob (though I can't be sure) represents heat from a large population area, probably Fort Worth.

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#14 01-02-2003 8:46pm
DMT

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Originally posted by DMT
The problem is that there's only one type of space shuttle

Actually that's wrong - I completely forgot about the Russian Buran space shuttle.

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#15 01-02-2003 8:53pm
aidan_dunne

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True, but isn't the Buran rusting away somewhere in Russia at the moment? Last I heard it was, anyway (though I'm bound to be corrected on this).

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#16 01-02-2003 10:28pm
Tellox

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http://www.jgumby.com/columbia-ebay/

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#17 01-02-2003 10:35pm
aidan_dunne

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Christ, it's started already. :eek:

I reckon it's bound to be a fake but, if it is real, so much for all the warnings about not to go near the debris for fear of it being toxic. :rolleyes:

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#18 01-02-2003 10:40pm
frood4t2

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His ebay location is in Germany, not East Texas. Whoever wins that is an idiot.

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#19 01-02-2003 10:51pm
Sangre

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Its no longer for sale, the current bid was $99,000,100

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#20 01-02-2003 11:10pm
The Gopher

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I remember reading a feature about the Israeli guy going into space a few weeks back-he was bringing a painting painted by a kid who died in the holocaust.This may seem strange to you but I remember a thought rushed through my head"That painting might not return intact".
Weird that my mind was thinking more of a painting seeing as Im the worlds most useless artist but still.............

As for the cause some part of the craft fell off during lift off but at the time NASA claimed it would pose no major problems.
Id rule out terrorism-it was 250,000 ft up in the sky when it ran into problems.And the craft was most probably so well guarded while it was awaiting launch(particularly as there were terror fears seeing as there was an Israeli on board)so I would think it wasnt the cause.

As for the toxic materials the fuels used in a space shuttle can be highly toxic so the warning is legitimate.IIRC some craft even use radioactive fuel.

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#21 01-02-2003 11:27pm
yellum

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Time lapse of the radar image:

http://www.dondrake.com/archives/shuttleradar.html

And a Mirror of the Washington Post trying to be first with the news, what a **** up:

http://craphound.com/misc/A9943-2003Feb1.html

The last piece of the article is scary:

"The next time Columbia flies will be in November, when it carries into orbit educator-astronaut Barbara Morgan, who was the backup for Challenger crew member Christa McAuliffe in 1986. "

Oh man this comment is sad:

Do we really have to come back?" astronaut David Brown jokingly asked Mission Control before the ride home.

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#22 01-02-2003 11:46pm
irishgeo

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i think the damage to the tiles was far worse than they thought and perhapsa damaged the actual shell of the shuttle.
I quote from the end of the movie apollo 13

They are still shallowing flight. shall we tell them. Flight: Is there anything we can do about it . No Then they dont need to know.

could it be that is what happened.Could it be that NASA thought that it only minor and that they will make it back ok.

The consiparcy theories start here.

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#23 02-02-2003 12:07am
Barry Aldwell

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Originally posted by Tizlox
http://www.jgumby.com/columbia-ebay/

That's part of a garden hose nozzle.

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#24 02-02-2003 12:26am
Michael Collins

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Originally posted by Barry Aldwell
That's part of a garden hose nozzle.

LOL! It is 'n all! Who in their right mind would pay THAT much for something that's so obviously not geniune, I don't know...

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#25 02-02-2003 12:31am
Shinji

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i think the damage to the tiles was far worse than they thought and perhapsa damaged the actual shell of the shuttle.

Believe me, you wouldn't need to damage the shell. If you lose part of the heat shield during re-entry, you're dead. You won't even know it hit you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Atmospheric re-entry is a hugely dangrous process. We'll never know how many Russian cosmonauts died before they worked out the secret of successful re-entry, and Yuri Gagarin made it back home...

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#26 02-02-2003 12:36am
Barry Aldwell

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Originally posted by Michael Collins
LOL! It is 'n all! Who in their right mind would pay THAT much for something that's so obviously not geniune, I don't know...

It's not on the ebay site, it's an edited page on someone's website.

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#27 02-02-2003 12:43am
Lennoxschips

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We'll never know how many Russian cosmonauts died before they worked out the secret of successful re-entry, and Yuri Gagarin made it back home...

Quite a few Siberian Huskies died in the space race.

Dogs, the first animals in space. What haven't they done for us...

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#28 02-02-2003 1:04am
Calibos

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Someone mentioned the Russian Buran Space Shuttle. AFAIK it only ever made a computer controlled orbital flight but was never crewed. The Soviet Union collapsed soon after and it was left to rust. I think it was bought by an American or German entreprenuer a couple of years ago who shipped it to their own country and turned it into a theme restautant!!
This is exactly what I said when discussing this with my family earlier.

i think the damage to the tiles was far worse than they thought and perhapsa damaged the actual shell of the shuttle.
I quote from the end of the movie apollo 13
They are still shallowing flight. shall we tell them. Flight: Is there anything we can do about it . No Then they dont need to know.
could it be that is what happened.Could it be that NASA thought that it only minor and that they will make it back ok.
The consiparcy theories start here.

My father started saying if this was the case then they would have docked with the ISS or they could send up another shuttle to pick them up. He wouldn't believe me when I tried to explain to him that unless Columbia was reasonably close to the orbit of the ISS in the first place then there probably wouldn't be enough manouvering propellent to boost them to the correct orbit in order to dock. As for a shuttle rescue mission, it would take at least 3 or 4 weeks to prepare the mission. The crew would have run out of oxygen by then. Even if the Russians had a Soyuz capsule ready to launch and capable of physically docking with the shuttle then there would still be the agonising decision of which 3 astronauts got to ride the capsule back to Earth and which 4 would remain to die of lack of air.

I think either Nasa really didn't think there was a major problem or they did but as Irishgeo said they knew there was nothing they could do so chose not to tell the crew in the hopes that everything would be alright. I'm sure we'll eventually find out which was the case. Maybe one of the astronauts families will reveal that they were encouraged to exchange farewell messages with their loved ones on the shuttle.??

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#29 02-02-2003 1:31am
aidan_dunne

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Originally posted by yellum
And a Mirror of the Washington Post trying to be first with the news, what a **** up:

http://craphound.com/misc/A9943-2003Feb1.html

I'm surprised it's still up on the net. Surely somebody would have had the common sense to think, "Whoops! Better get that down of the web pretty quick!"

Trying to be first with the news is one thing but trying to predict it before it even happens? Jesus, what a cock-up! :rolleyes:

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#30 02-02-2003 1:52am
yellum

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Thats the mirror of it Aidan.

The orig article was removed:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9943-2003Feb1.html

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#31 02-02-2003 11:38am
daveirl

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This post has been deleted.

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