Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

Josh Cryer · 2003-02-01 08:41:52

Oh my god! I cannot believe this!! Oh my god!

Josh Cryer · 2003-02-01 08:44:51

Man, it must have been poor reentry tiling or something, so it burnt up during the no com period. Oh my god!

Palomar · 2003-02-01 08:44:53

It's 7:44 a.m. as I type this...so far they're saying no communication, and there's video feed of what looks like a huge meteor (debris??) streaking through the sky. Rescue teams are out...

Damn, Damn damn I hope it isn't true!!!

Josh Cryer · 2003-02-01 08:51:35

It's true, they're gone. As far as I can tell, it occured during the whole, no communiction period during reentry. But I could be wrong, I'm not totally sure.

Josh Cryer · 2003-02-01 08:53:08

Apparently it was the oldest shuttle in the fleet. First one to go up in '81.

Nirgal82 · 2003-02-01 08:55:06

Its 7:49, and I'm sobbing like a baby...

I am so angered by NASA
They shouldve retired those quater-century year old space craft 10 years ago
And now, thanks to that, and a president who can give a flying F*&*K about the space program, 7 decent folks are DEAD, and we who have been hoping against hope that the manned space program would soon pick up momentum, have had our hopes dashed in a FU***NG instant
Forgive my language, but its over for us, at most we can hope is that the MERs still fly
-Matt

Palomar · 2003-02-01 08:55:53

The shuttle missions were grounded for at least 2 years after the Challenger tragedy. I can't recall the exact length of time, but I suppose we won't see another shuttle mission until 2005.

Columbia had taken the first Israeli astronaut into space; he had taken a drawing of a lunar landscape with the Earth in the background which a Holocaust victim (teenage boy) had drawn while in a concentration camp. The crew also managed to capture images of "elves and dwarves," electrical phenomenon at the tops of thunderclouds, during this mission -- which are extremely short in duration and thus very difficult to capture on film/instruments. I posted about the Columbia mission previously, I think in "New Discoveries" folder.

What a horrible thing to happen. People are saying they saw "spirals" in the sky, and there's flaming debris on video. Damn!!

Josh Cryer · 2003-02-01 09:03:21

Aren't there people on the ISS? Can the Russian pods bring back people? This is the end of the Shuttle and the ISS, for sure. Sad times indeed.

I'm disgusted with the media. Pinpointing the exact time of an explosion, freeze framing it, pointing out the streaks and so on, as if such an observation is remotely relevant. We can fucking see you goddamn reporter. We can fucking see.

Since they were going about 20 times the speed of sound, the chance of survival, is, well, completely and utterly nonexistant. Completely. All that survives that is dust.

This is the first reentry crash, as far as I know, though. At least for the US. We've been expecting one of these forever. Guess our luck ran out.

Palomar · 2003-02-01 09:05:01

Forgive my language, but its over for us, at most we can hope is that the MERs still fly
-Matt

No, it's not over...NASA continued after the near tragedy of Apollo 13 (I remember it, was 5 years old) and after the Challenger blew up in 1986. I realize this is the first such catastrophy some folks here have ever witnessed; some of you were very little when the Challenger tragedy happened and I presume don't remember it.

::sigh:: The Mayor of San Diego will probably be barraged with questions, i.e. "How the hell can you support a mission to Mars when we've had two shuttle tragedies?" etc., etc. The nay-sayers will be out in force now.

I feel like a veteran of all this; I'M NOT GIVING UP!!

Palomar · 2003-02-01 09:10:21

This is the first reentry crash, as far as I know, though.

Yup.

Actually it's a miracle this is the 1st re-entry burn-up ever. Considering the re-entry "margin" is the equivalent of a piece of paper held edge-wise to a basketball (pretty frickin narrow!!), it's amazing this hasn't happened sooner, and thank god it hasn't of course.

I'm in shock, honestly. I'm working, must stay at the computer -- it'll sink in later. Damn it damn it DAMN IT!!!

Josh Cryer · 2003-02-01 09:12:25

No, the US perseveres. If there is anything the US is good at, it's getting over tragedy. This can be argued to be good for the US, since it means the end of the Shuttle fleet, and the beginning of an alternative. Bush can now exploit this situation to really push a nuclear initiative taking advantage of more American support.

If the nuclear space people really nuclear launchers, they would, as distasteful as it may seem, push for it now than ever.

Palomar · 2003-02-01 09:20:15

No, the US perseveres. If there is anything the US is good at, it's getting over tragedy.

Indeed. When the going gets tough, the U.S. gets going. We're good at kick-ass determination!

Nirgal82 · 2003-02-01 09:21:45

Oh I remember challenger, its one of my earliest memories, I remember it because I was the only one who cried (most of my family is non-passionate to the space program)
But times were different then. Apollo 13, was the third mission of a program that didn't have a definate "final mission" yet; Challenger was also towards the beginning of the program (at the worst part of all, when it just started getting routine) and there was also a lot of support in Washington for a reusable orbiter at that time.
Now, Congress is likely eager to pull the plug on ISS and the shuttle fleet, i've heard the shuttle is roughly 100 mill per launch, and the ISS never stopped increasing in final cost estimate (last i heard, not sure its reliable, admittedly, $400 billion dollars, sound familiar, it should, its the cost that was cooked up when Bush Sr said lets go to Mars) You can't tell me the current pres and congress wouldn't rather use that money for the war, or even worse, a roughly 50 billion per, you could have quite a few new weapons R & D programs with that, (and of course use a few shavings to feed some publically popular govt programs to keep everyone off their back)
I sincerely hope I am being pessimistic, and not realistic...

-Matt

Nirgal82 · 2003-02-01 09:27:22

Yeah, and we sure got hard-core determined when we tragically lost polar lander and climate orbiter.
Forgive the sarcasm
True no humans died, but I'm afraid that when it comes to the space program, its all the same to them. IMHO
Remember, something like 99% of americans are probably apathetic to space, and because of that, they care only for the human life lost or the cost (sounds bad for us, but you got to admit that the human loss wasn't the only major loss here)
Those americans would probably see the risk of catastrophic failure as a reason to stop the space program (manned one anyway)

-Matt

Josh Cryer · 2003-02-01 09:39:36

Man oh man, I shouldn't have had those three chili peppers for breakfast this morning. My stomach is really acting up badly. I'm literally sick here.

Josh Cryer · 2003-02-01 09:46:37

Oops, didn't see your last post, Nirgal82. I can understand your pessimism, and personally, I don't feel like getting into a discussion about it. But yeah, I feel ya.

Today is a really sad day in any case.

soph · 2003-02-01 09:55:38

i hope bush uses this to step up OSP development, and the nuclear initiative-we need to push to the future, not kill it. if anything, this shows our need to advance, not recede.

Nirgal82 · 2003-02-01 09:59:57

I'm not saying they should kill the space program, I"m just saying we have to accept that as a very real possibility...
Am I sounding better?
Despite that mission control and kennedy space center just lowered their flags to half mast..
-Matt

Josh Cryer · 2003-02-01 10:16:28

In any case, there will probably be no more manned launches (with perhaps the exception of a last Shuttle launch to get the rest of the ISS crew) in the short term. I would be very surprised if the fleet continued operating as if nothing happened.

And don't worry, soph, nuclear initiatives will be pushed.

Nirgal82 could actually have a point, with the economy slumping, and scientific at a major all time low, even the desire to recover from this horrible disastor may not be strong enough to change American interest in space.

soph · 2003-02-01 10:21:15

i truly hope this leads to a new RLV, so our astronauts havent died for nothing.

how much of the science was lost?

Nirgal82 · 2003-02-01 10:23:45

Ummm...what are these exotic fuels that would be toxic?
-Matt

Palomar · 2003-02-01 10:25:13

Heard about 20 minutes ago (jumped up to turn on TV for a few minutes) that a piece of debris (of what exactly wasn't stated) hit the left wing of Columbia as it launched, and also a notation was made about the insulation of it...full details weren't given.

If this doesn't take all shuttles out of commission completely and forever, then it'll probably be a few years before another mission is launched (same as after Challenger).

--Cindy

Preston · 2003-02-01 10:28:23

A pundit said that the shuttle program might not be grounded, at least, not as long as 2 years like what happened after Challenger, since this disaster happened not because of engineering flaws but probably because of the dangerous nature of reentry. Seems sort of reasonable to me.

So I don't predict a shakeup, especially since Prometheus is a technology program and Jupiter Tour isn't manned.

Sitting on my desk is a scientific research tile I made at Lockheed Martin in '01. The upgrade was being specifically designed to increase the impact strength of the tiles for things like ice and insulation hitting the tiles during liftoff. Funding stopped sometime after Sept. 11 2001 when the company switched to more military projects. Who knows.

soph · 2003-02-01 10:28:27

Hopefully this leads to new capabilities, and a greater appreciation of the space shuttle program.

i hope this also leads to cutting the space shuttle budget and channeling it into RLV R&D. $1 billion per launch is ridiculous.

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#1 2003-02-01 08:41:52

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#2 2003-02-01 08:44:51

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#3 2003-02-01 08:44:53

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#4 2003-02-01 08:51:35

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#5 2003-02-01 08:53:08

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#6 2003-02-01 08:55:06

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#7 2003-02-01 08:55:53

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#8 2003-02-01 09:03:21

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#9 2003-02-01 09:05:01

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#10 2003-02-01 09:10:21

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#11 2003-02-01 09:12:25

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#12 2003-02-01 09:20:15

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#13 2003-02-01 09:21:45

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#14 2003-02-01 09:27:22

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#15 2003-02-01 09:39:36

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#16 2003-02-01 09:46:37

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#17 2003-02-01 09:55:38

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#18 2003-02-01 09:59:57

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#19 2003-02-01 10:16:28

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#20 2003-02-01 10:21:15

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#21 2003-02-01 10:23:45

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#22 2003-02-01 10:25:13

Re: Shuttle Crash!!! - NASA TV.

#23 2003-02-01 10:28:23

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#24 2003-02-01 10:28:27

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