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Stormbringer wrote:Endeavour is quite 10 years younger than that others if I recall right. The rest are from the same batch.

And how long they're grounded will depend on what happened.

Endeavour is a lot younger than the others, though I can't remember how much. But yeah, the time they're grounded depends on what kind of failure it was...

Oh men..

Just switched to CNN..

Reading the boards:

But then again, how could such an event take place??? The ship was getting ready to land. No engines or fuel on board.

1/2 mv^2. Take v=18,000 m.p.h., square it, multiply by the mass, and half it. That's a heck of a lot of kinetic energy. Don't need combustibles.

What a desperately sad event. May they rest in peace..

Crayz9000 wrote:

Stormbringer wrote:Endeavour is quite 10 years younger than that others if I recall right. The rest are from the same batch.

And how long they're grounded will depend on what happened.

Endeavour is a lot younger than the others, though I can't remember how much. But yeah, the time they're grounded depends on what kind of failure it was...

Endeavour made it's first flight in 1991 or 92 if I remember right. I know I was old enough to watch it's debut mission.

hmmm what was the shuttles frame made out of?

spongyblue wrote:

Jadeite wrote:It was also carrying an Israeli astronaut, im sure there are going to be a lot of sabotage theories.

Nasa nixing that one already

They've nixed an external terrorist attack IE someone shooting it down. No anti aircraft weapon can reach past about 75,000 feet. And its a bit unlikely terrorists bought an ABM system on the black market and set it up in Florida, the Russian system is rather large.

A bomb or some form of internal sabotage is just said to very unlikely.

Sea Skimmer wrote: They've nixed an external terrorist attack IE someone shooting it down. No anti aircraft weapon can reach past about 75,000 feet. And its a bit unlikely terrorists bought an ABM system on the black market and set it up in Florida, the Russian system is rather large.

A bomb or some form of internal sabotage is just said to very unlikely.

The only seriously realistic forms of sabotage would be to the computer programming or to the up/down link, either physical (violation of a remote site), or jamming, on talking with an old EW officer.

The greatest and most likely chance for the causation, however, would simply be the age of the Columbia, nothing more, nothing less, I must emphasize that.

Still, the coincidence is ugly: a large part of the debris field is apparently falling near Palestine, TX.

The Duchess of Zeon wrote: Still, the coincidence is ugly: a large part of the debris field is apparently falling near Palestine, TX.

The first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, was aboard.

the israeli was one of the fighter pilots that hit the nuke plant in Iraq in '81,
the same year Columbia Made her first flight

I read that during launch, a piece of the black tiles fell off and damaged a part of the wings, but Mission Control said that that should pose no problem and they were going to go along with standard procedure.

Shit!

*Bows head*
*Sheds tears*

*plays pink floyd*

Got some more external opionons and thoughts

Reasons aginst ABM even from the US itself
1. Missle Plum to reach that high and go that fast would be nearly as big as for the Space shuttle take of itself, IE Highly Visable for over 40 Miles from the Missle Launcer
2. Would have been easily tracked on radear
3. Nessary support equipment and launching materials would take up a foot-ball sized area, Good luck hidiing that


As for faiuler, I'm predicting Structral Fauliure in the wings

there was some technical defect before the start in one of the wings. some part was loose. i just read that they think that exactly this part may have come loose and slammed into the hull which then caused the explosion.

salm wrote:there was some technical defect before the start in one of the wings. some part was loose. i just read that they think that exactly this part may have come loose and slammed into the hull which then caused the explosion.

A part fell off the hydrogen fuel tank, I think, and hit the wing during liftoff, damaging it. But they have no idea yet.

Damn, I was dreaming the shuttle was lost, and watching it re-enter the atmosphere. I was sad to wake up and realize it was for real, and I was listening to the radio reports on my clock radio. Damn, this is the second loss of a shuttle flight in my life time.

Well, the Mars by 2010 was never gonna happen unless lots of Americans volunteered for a tax hike. With the age of the fleet, the second loss, and a deficit, we are probably looking at the end of the Shuttle program altogether or at least a grounding for a couple of years.

Stormbringer wrote:

HemlockGrey wrote:What are the reprecussions on NASA and any continued space program? Will this put an end to the 'man on Mars by 2010'?

The guy on FOX news is saying the crew might have been able to bail out, but I don't buy it...

That's going to kill that for sure. Depending on what this it'll put things on hold for a long time.

And it's damn near impossible for them to bail out at Mach 6.

Not damn near, its totally impossible. Super sonic bailouts can only be done with ejection seats, and even the best only work up to about mach 3. The shuttle fleet however had its ejection seats removed, they where only for the pilot and copilot anyway, removed because they had little chance of working.

Tiring to get out of something at 12,000 MPH would be fatal, even if you could force you way out. Something that in it is impossible. And even then, at 200,000 feet parachutes don't work. You'd have to fall till something like 120,000 before they could even begin to function.

It's impossible for them to get out and even if by magic they did they'd die from the whole 12,900 MPH part.

Where are all the pieces falling ,Where would the larger pieces strike? near Baton rouge, Louisianna or somewhere above Palastine ,Texas?

Sea Skimmer wrote:

Stormbringer wrote:

HemlockGrey wrote:What are the reprecussions on NASA and any continued space program? Will this put an end to the 'man on Mars by 2010'?

The guy on FOX news is saying the crew might have been able to bail out, but I don't buy it...

That's going to kill that for sure. Depending on what this it'll put things on hold for a long time.

And it's damn near impossible for them to bail out at Mach 6.

Not damn near, its totally impossible. Super sonic bailouts can only be done with ejection seats, and even the best only work up to about mach 3. The shuttle fleet however had its ejection seats removed, they where only for the pilot and copilot anyway, removed because they had little chance of working.

Tiring to get out of something at 12,000 MPH would be fatal, even if you could force you way out. Something that in it is impossible. And even then, at 200,000 feet parachutes don't work. You'd have to fall till something like 120,000 before they could even begin to function.

It's impossible for them to get out and even if by magic they did they'd die from the whole 12,900 MPH part.

only if they had some type of enclosed ejection pod would it not be fatal...but the don't

Mr Bean wrote:Got some more external opionons and thoughts

Reasons aginst ABM even from the US itself
1. Missle Plum to reach that high and go that fast would be nearly as big as for the Space shuttle take of itself, IE Highly Visable for over 40 Miles from the Missle Launcer
2. Would have been easily tracked on radear
3. Nessary support equipment and launching materials would take up a foot-ball sized area, Good luck hidiing that


As for faiuler, I'm predicting Structral Fauliure in the wings

The shuttle follows such a different and predictable path when landing compared to an inbound warhead there's really no way a screw up could happen. And intentionaly hitting it in orbit would be very hard.

What if it hit a meteoirite inbound?

Typhonis 1 wrote:What if it hit a meteoirite inbound?

It wouldn't at that altitude.

What if it hit a meteoirite inbound?

Increably unlikley, Heck probably just as likley that some hick aimed hit shotgun up and manage to tag the shuttle with Buckshot to give the idea of the odds on that


And Sea-Skimmer my last post was trying to demosrate the fact that
Even if the US, WANTED to shoot down the Space-Shuttle, with existing Tecnology we would have an increably hard time doing it and it would have been increably apprent we were trying to shoot it down

A part fell off the hydrogen fuel tank, I think, and hit the wing during liftoff, damaging it. But they have no idea yet.

That cracked the ceramics on the wing then?

Col. Crackpot wrote:

Sea Skimmer wrote:

Stormbringer wrote: That's going to kill that for sure. Depending on what this it'll put things on hold for a long time.

And it's damn near impossible for them to bail out at Mach 6.

Not damn near, its totally impossible. Super sonic bailouts can only be done with ejection seats, and even the best only work up to about mach 3. The shuttle fleet however had its ejection seats removed, they where only for the pilot and copilot anyway, removed because they had little chance of working.

Tiring to get out of something at 12,000 MPH would be fatal, even if you could force you way out. Something that in it is impossible. And even then, at 200,000 feet parachutes don't work. You'd have to fall till something like 120,000 before they could even begin to function.

It's impossible for them to get out and even if by magic they did they'd die from the whole 12,900 MPH part.

only if they had some type of enclosed ejection pod would it not be fatal...but the don't

Ejection pods haven't worked that well for subsonic aircraft, the pilot in the first F-111 pod test broke his back on landing and they never could make it work much better. Building one that could take such an ejection might be possibul, and technology has come along quite a bit. But you'd also create huge weaknesses in the airframe. I don't think it would be viable from a space prospective either.