OMG! Space Shuttle Columbia breaks up on re-entry.

[Admiral Lebron]

The Colombia went up... first Israeli onboard. :(

:cry :cry :cry


This is tragic... bad luck I hope.:(

[ReaperFett]

They havent confirmed what happened yet. All they know is that it broke up. If it indeed did, they were two high to eject, and it wouldnt be able to land (The glide on reentry).


Tis sad :(

[ReaperFett]

On launch day, a piece of insulating foam on the external fuel tank came off during liftoff and was believed to have struck the left wing of the shuttle.


Leroy Cain, the lead flight director in Mission Control, had assured reporters Friday that engineers had concluded that any damage to the wing was considered minor and posed no safety hazard.

Could be that

[Zasz Grimm]

I saw it... Parents woke me up telling me to come outside to look. I thought it was space Junk or an asteroid or whatever, then the news came on and we knew.

It's very sad.

[Tempist the Uncaring]

I found out when the interupted a Led Zepplin marathon on my radio station. It's a very sad event, but it dosn't make sense to me. There is very little fuel left on the shuttle when it starts re-entry.

[Morgan Evanar]

It seems that something impacted the shuttle during re-entry. The velocity did the work from there...

[TheHolo.Net]

Fuel is not needed for a catastrophe of this nature. The speed and friction caused by said speed in the upper layers of the atmosphere creates such tremendous heat that this had to be some type of failure of the heat shield system, be it foreign object collision (semi-unlikely at the altitude they were travelling at) or heat shield failure by some other means.

Here is an example of the tremendous velocity and heat involved, in this image:

<img src=http://thesithempire.clanpages.com/Columbia.gif>

Note: This image is after the accident and shows residual heat, not the actual event.

[Daiquiri Van-Derveld]

Over the phone, my Mother just said that she had heard the shuttle was (supposedly) coming in faster on re-entry than normal. Has anyone else heard this?

[TheHolo.Net]

All I am hearing and reading say that everything was normal until communications were lost.

[ReaperFett]

THey reckon it may be that the one of the protective shields against heat might have broken off, which would mean it would start peeling away all over.

[TheHolo.Net]

Fox News just reported that radar indicates that some debris may have gone all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, which this radar image seems to verify:

<img src=http://thesithempire.clanpages.com/columbia2.gif>

Note: Again this is a residual (afterwards) image not a live one from when the event occured.

[Ryla Relvinian]

News >>> here. (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=514&ncid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20030201/ap_on_sc/space_shuttle)

Wow. What a sad, sad event. I guess it's always a gamble, to some degree, to go up in one of those things, but yeesh, you don't here about this everyday.

[Sameer Aryan]

One of things that made me feel really bad is what the Israeli astronaut said: "I don't see any borders from over here..."

But then again, we knew something like this would happen sooner or later no?

[CMJ]

Yes you're correct. Even NASA has stated with all the things that HAVE to go right(it's really amazing it usually lands safely) a tragic event is likely an average of every 75 flights(heard that on CNN).

This was the 113th Shuttle mission.

[Figrin D'an]

The space program, by it's very nature, is full of risk. Pushing the envelope and venturing into 'unknown territory' is what they do. Astronauts, mission controllers, design engineers... each accepts that notion when he/she takes the job. Accidents have happened, and will continue to happen. One can only hope that they continue to be few and far between.

Sorry if this seems harsh, but I have a rather pragmatic point of view about these things. My thoughts are with the families of the shuttle crew, just as they were with the families of the Challenger crew 17 years ago. But accidents do occur, and they should not deter the evolution of the space program.

[Lion El' Jonson]

I've been hearing some really stupid stuff on CNN.

Such as, there's a bunch of morons running around screaming "Terrorism!!!".

Now, this whole event has made me pretty sad. I've always loved the space shuttle. But really...who came up with terrorism.

Figrin, I completely agree. There's a bunch of bimbos saying that the space program is too dangerous. Well, the first submarines were dangeorus. So were the first airplanes. You don't achieve progress without some risk.

[ReaperFett]

So are CURRENT airplanes, and current cars. You cant make a 100% safe and foolproof vehicle of any type.

[Sanis Prent]

Agreed. I think for the space program to have such a low accident percentage is truly amazing. Yes, people are going to get hurt. Yes, people are going to die. When you become an astronaut, you understand this...and even if you don't, you have plenty of disclaimers to sign to make sure you do. These people are heroes. They know their butts are on the line, but they're willing to do it, because the benefits are greater than the chance of tragedy happening.

[Xazor Elessar]

:cry

[Darren Caerdeth]

I got to thinking about it. If heat shielding was gone, wouldnt they disintegrate in re-entry? Im not totally sure, and im no expert by any means. Maybe the heat shielding was somewhat faulty. The ships exterior got extremely , extremely hot on re-entry. Then the ship got cooled to quickly as it hit cold air, and the metal warped and tore the ship apart.

I guess im just kinda theorizin right now, but i think this would explain the result looking like an impact in the air...rather than an impact on the ground...

[ReaperFett]

Darren, there was someone on our news theorising that. If one part of the shield went, the rest would start going too.

[Dark Lord Dyzm]

Very Sad... Two of the crew hailed from Washington.

[Ryla Relvinian]

And again (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/space/1761217). Oh my sweet lord.... :(

[Xazor Elessar]

:cry

This is one of the saddest things I've ever experienced......

:cry That is such an aweful report, Ryla -- I can't believe it. :(

[Kirreessaa Midarruu]

didnt hear about any of this until about four hours ago...

at first i had thought it was an unmanned rocket or something, but then i twigged that it had people on board.

its relly terrible.

but one thing, since it broke up in the air, it meant that there werent any pieces big enough to kill anyone at ground level, so maybe its a small miracle that more people werent killed.

:cry that doesnt help the families of the crew though

[Jamel Croko'yn]

Why people believe it is a Terrosim situation is the fact that they haven't seen mistakes in their shuttle motioning, and hiting that it was a safe program since a backstreet boy is going to space. As well as the terrosim spectulation comes from Iraq population is laughing at the actions that accure and sine their has been talk ever since the investigation began about them attacking us through terrosim and some sorce of travel it is an easy way to see why.

I dont know what is up, but I find this sad.

R.I.P

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Jamel, your post makes no sense. Can you reword?

My heart goes out to the families of the astronauts, and I do not think that terrorism has anything to do with this. It was simply an accident. From what I've read/heard/seen if the shuttle does not come in at a precise angle, then the outside will heat up too much, and it will have more turbulence, and that could result in a very bad accident.

I heard that a heat sensor on the outside of the shuttle was not functioning, or possibly was not working, and so they were having faulty heat readings.

But....it is a horrible tragedy, no more or less than the Challenger explosion. That was another 'first' astronaut. First civillian astronaut, and now the first Israeli astronaut. :cry

[Destiny Stormrider]

I don't know if it was terrorist or not, but it could have been. I mean they announced it wasn't terrorist related a bit too soon, I find that suspicious o_O.

And about that heat sensor thing, I heard they had probs with the left one.

[ReaperFett]

Destiny, it was 200k up, and going six times the speed of sound. I cant see how anything could hit that considering location etc.

[TheHolo.Net]

Originally posted by ReaperFett
Destiny, it was 200k up, and going six times the speed of sound. I cant see how anything could hit that considering location etc. Correction: It was travelling at mach 18. 18 times the speed of sound.

From what was said at yesterday's NASA press conference, it sounds like it may have lost control of its entry angle, causing it to burn/break up.

[Taylor Millard]

The latest from ABC News.

NASA Detected Rise in Temperature (http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20030203_222.html)

[Gouyen Chee]

What I've read seems to indiacate a chain reaction, most probably initiated by damaged insulation tile on the left wing.

This kind of hits home on a personal level, as my mother was working for Rockwell when the shuttle project was preparing for its first flight. We have all sorts of stickers and patches from the early shuttle missions, as well as flags and medallions that were flown aboard them.

In a way I'm not surprised by the accident -- Columbia was 22 years old and no doubt suffering from the rigors of many launches and re-entries.

One thing my mom and I were discussing was the fact that there is no backup for the insulation tiles. Being a child of the space/defense industry, I'm well aware of the need for redundancy in critical systems. So I wonder at the lack of backup for one of the most critical systems of all.

[Admiral Lebron]

My grand father was an inspector on the Apollo missions.

[Figrin D'an]

The problem with redundancy in the ceramic tiles is weight... multiple layers of tiles would make the shuttle that much heavier, meaning the need for more powerful engines on the shuttle itself to control re-entry, and more gas displacement from the booster rockets at launch to get the thing moving.

The angle of decent is the critical factor, regardless of the presence of the heat shielding titles. Too shallow an angle, and the shuttle skims the outer edges of the atmosphere and turbulence tosses it around like a dog with a chew toy. Too steep, and it ends up in a nose dive, exceeding even it's high velocity tolerences, and it rips apart from sheer stresses. Altough I don't know the error margin off hand, it's not very much. The fact that this is first time that this has happened on re-entry is, quite frankly, amazing.