Space shuttle Columbia crashes

Let's just duct tape sb to the outside of the next shuttle with a pencil and a piece of paper. He can inspect and write down his findings.
 
The UN should just pass a resolution condemning the laws of physics regarding reentry friction heat as a WMD and give it 6 weeks to comply with a cease and desist order.
 
Enough sb bashing (well, go ahead) but this came into the news today & it appears we're finding more questions than answers...

USA Today said:
Columbia was spattered by molten metal
By Alan Levin
USA TODAY


HOUSTON -- A hole in Columbia's left wing allowed so much heat to enter the shuttle, a cloud of molten metal enveloped it as it broke apart, the board investigating the accident said Tuesday.

Numerous heat-resistant tiles recovered across Texas and Louisiana are coated with aluminum residue, apparently the remnant of the shuttle's left wing frame. Pieces of hard carbon that made up the front of the left wing were spattered with molten stainless steel.

The latest report from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board provided more detail on the violence of the shuttle's sudden end Feb. 1. But the board said the growing pile of evidence still does not explain why hot gases penetrated the shuttle's left wing.

''The wing was being eaten from the inside out,'' board member Roger Tetrault said.

The two left landing gear tires, for example, are severely torn and burned, Tetrault said. By comparison, the tires from the right side suffered more moderate damage similar to that expected in a plane crash.

The black, soot-like coating on the tiles is more prevalent on tiles from the left side. But the final moments were so severe that the overheated aluminum also hit tiles on the opposite side of the shuttle.

''You had molten aluminum being sprayed or depositing onto those tiles on the right side where the event does not occur. That's a very hot re-entry,'' Tetrault said. The aluminum coating has never been seen before, he said.

So far, the investigation has raised far more questions than it has answered, board members said. Analysts have so far been unable to pinpoint the origin of the hole in Columbia's left wing. The half-dozen separate investigative efforts are making progress, but ''right now, they don't fit together,'' accident board chairman Harold Gehman said.

Tetrault said he is particularly puzzled by why pieces of the inside of the wing's leading edge were sprayed with melted stainless steel. The stainless steel used to hold that part of the wing together melts at about 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Similarly, investigators cannot explain why a piece of the left wing that adjoined the wheel well shows signs that a stream of hot gas had spewed out of the wing.

Very little of the left wing's basic structure has been recovered, offering further evidence that it may have been vaporized by the superheated gases of re-entry. No wreckage from the left wheel well door has been identified.

Gehman also said he will call NASA's shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore along with other officials to testify at an accident board hearing Thursday. Dittemore and another NASA official will describe the history of the shuttle program but will not discuss the investigation. Another witness will describe the foam applied to the shuttle's external fuel tank. A piece of the foam may have struck the underside of Columbia's left wing shortly after launch.
 
No real surprise. 3000 F will cause shit to happen that we've never seen before. Remember, this is the first time we've had one burn up on re-entry.

My personal theory is that the insulation that came unglued on launch did indeed do some damamge at the left wheel well door. Whether it dislodged a single tile or something more extensive may never be known. However, once that weakness exposes the interior to that type of heat, and the interior cranks up to 3000 degrees, yeah, the frame melts.
 
it was a bumpy ride

HOUSTON - An attempt may have been made to override Columbia's autopilot in the final few seconds of its doomed flight, according to information received Sunday by the space shuttle's accident investigation board.

But, as an official close to the investigation stressed: "The data are really suspect. They can't ensure the integrity of any of the data, and some of the stuff that they're saying may be inaccurate or misinterpreted.

Full Story
 
Drudge said:
FLASH: NASA Finds Columbia Shuttle’s Flight Recorder... Captures information from dozens of sensor locations, raising hope that investigators will soon have new trove of data...

No story yet
 
He's usually right

add this to his list of correct


here's the story

Yahoo said:
By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

HOUSTON - In what could be one of the most significant debris discoveries yet from the shattered Columbia, searchers found a data recorder that may hold valuable clues as to what destroyed the space shuttle, the accident investigation board said Wednesday night.



A spokeswoman for the board, Laura Brown, said the ship's recorder was intact but sustained some heat damage. Officials are hopeful that temperature and aerodynamic pressure data can be retrieved from its magnetic tape, she said.


Brown compared the recorder to an airplane's black box.


"We have no way of knowing whether the data can be recovered," she said. But she added that if it can, "it will give us, hopefully, a lot of information about what was going on with the orbiter."


The recorder was discovered near Hemphill, Texas, and was being sent to Johnson Space Center for analysis. Officials said they believed it was found Wednesday.


The discovery was all the more thrilling for NASA (news - web sites) and the investigation board because it had been days since any major pieces of the shuttle had been found.


Brown said these recorders — called the orbiter experiment support systems — normally are turned on right before a space shuttle begins its descent through the atmosphere and run for one or two hours.


Columbia disintegrated over Texas on Feb. 1 during its atmospheric re-entry, just 16 minutes short of a planned Florida touchdown.
 
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