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Space Shuttle Columbia Breaks Up Over Texas
An anonymous reader writes "NASA lost communication with space shuttle Columbia shortly before its scheduled landing on Saturday. It was unclear whether there were any other problems." Various news programs have been showing debris falling from the sky, and NASA has declared an emergency.Update: 02/01 15:29 GMT by H : Confirmation has come - the shuttle has broken up over Texas while coming in for landing Florida.
Here's the yet not-updated NASA site for mission STS-107.
I have my photos on my website:
www.pdrap.org, link from the front page.
The actual photo page is here
I didn't actually see the space shuttle until it had exploded, so all my photos are of the shuttle as it burns and breaks up. The instant that the shuttle exploded was dramatic. One second I'm looking for it, the next, it was a bright burning ball of fire.
Very sad. Columbia was my favorite shuttle.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
BBC news live (needs Real/Helix player)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/live/now2.ram
Story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/2716369.stm
NASA TV Live (Real/Helix Player)
http://quest.nasa.gov/ltc/ram/nasalive-v.ram
Apparently it happened around 12,000 mph or thereabouts, at something like 200,000 feet. If something could be done, I pray that it was done.
This is terrible news; it feels like the Challenger all over. Just as senseless, just as disturbing. These people risked their lives to better mankind, and it's terrible that this could happen to such noble people.
I keep switching stations, and I'm tired of hearing about "6 Americans and 1 Israeli". 7 people were in that shuttle. It's frustrating that the media can't let go of war sensationalism even now, at a time like this.
1. No Surface to Air missile can reach above 100k feet.
2. There is almost no fuel on the space shuttle during reentry.
3. Most likely cause of destruction was damage to heat shield.
4. Survival is possible... space shuttle was relatively slow, already mostly throught the atmosphere the crew may have been able to bail out, and they do have parachutes.
5. This does not bode well for manned space exploration
Here's a timestamped update of the final minutes of the mission on the Spaceflight Now site.
To be perfectly honest, I think solving the problem scientifically so it won't happen again will save more lives than praying.
God Dammit! We don't yet have a singe reason to think that there was anything but a technical failure. I was getting pissed with all the news stations immediatly jumping around speculationg about security and terrorism, making worse a terrible tragedy and playing into the current propaganda machine. I'm disgusted to see this same sort of non-rational fearmongering here on slashdot.
Wait. Watch. Pay attention. We don't need more noise in the signal.
I don't know about anybody else, but if even one post about this gets modded Funny, I will walk away from SlashDot for good.
If the posts so far are any indication of the number of Genuine Assholes who frequent this site, it's a lost cause anyway.
This is not funny in any way.
at an altitude of 200,000 feet (61km) and velocity of 12,000 miles per hour (19,000 km/h)
That makes terrorism highly unlikely. That's too high and too fast for much of anything to hit it. It's more like a ballistic missile than an airplane at that point, and we all know how well the Star Wars project is faring.
I know a lot of you on Slashdot aren't old enough to remember when Challanger exploded at takeoff, and don't remember the uphoria and excitement that we all used to have when the Space Shuttle was new, or the excitement that a honest to God civilian was getting to go into space. In this era of any rich playboy with $20mil can get into space with enough effort, its hard to imagine what that was like for us, especially those of us who were young at the time.
You also may not remember the emptiness when it became clear that NASA with public and short-sighted government pressure was shying away from manned space flight, and there was so much fear that it may never recover. This was a tragedy of epic proportions -- the possibility that we in the US (and as one of the major players in manned space flight) might shy away from exploration and adventure because it was dangerous.
Things truely never recovered. The idiocy that is the Interational Space Station is a direct descendant of those events 17 years ago (almost to the day). The loss of our looking outward at greater feats, better manned spacecraft and the like are all descendant from that instant.
Now we stand at the cusp of it happening again. This depresses me. People today just don't understand that taking risks is important to advancement, and death is part of taking risks... something explorers have understood for centuries, and a lot of people have seemed to have forgotten today.
While part of me thinks NASA getting out of the manned space business, and dumping this massive waste of energy going into the ISS would be a good thing, because it may open up that exploration and adventure to those goverments or business who still have that sense of longing. I'm scared, though, that no one else will step up and take the reigns.
I hope we as a nation can recognize this for what it was -- an unfortunate event, but an outcome that can be expected when pushing the boundaries. We should feel pride in the people who lost their lives here, and rise up, and continue to do what they gave their lives for. I hope we as Americans don't shrink away even more in fear.
As potentially unpatriotic as it is to say, it makes me glad to know that the hope, energy and imagination of the billion people in China are there to step up, if we turn our backs on this important step in Humanity's future. It matters far more to me that we do this as a species then we do it as a nation. I hate the thought of what losing this would be a sign of for us as a country, though.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
'High Flight' by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
I wept in 1986 as a child, now I do it again as a man. Goodbye and Godspeed...
- Necron69
Following the Challenger disaster 17 years ago, Richard Feynmann came to the conclusion that catastrophic shuttle disaster had odds off approximately 1 in 100 (See RISKS Digest 18.09) based on the fact that 4% of unmanned space shots go bad - and presumably manned flight gets that 'extra' attention that would reduce their rate a bit.
Challenger was flight STS-51L - this was flight STS-107. I'd say even Feynmann may have been somewhat optimistic (although 2 failures is a thin data set - anyone want to figure a chi-square on it?).
Say a small prayer.
Why is it always a small prayer? What is the proper ratio of prayer time to disaster magnitude?
If prayer works, and only a small prayer is required, then why didn't you pray before this happened, you insensitive clod?
What exactly will you pray for? Is the ship supposed to reintegrate now?
Do me a favor and say a long prayer. Quietly. That should keep you busy for a while. The rest of us have work to do.
Of course, the reason they want to kill you has nothing to do with their "tan colored skin" (and everything to do with their f*cked-up religion)
Oh, now I get it! We're supposed to be discriminating against Muslims, not just middle-eastern people! Do you even stop to consider the fact that not every Muslim is a terrorist? It's like saying that every Catholic has 47 kids and will kill a Protestant on sight (a few of them do it in Northern Ireland, that must make it true). Same for Protestants, right? Or what about the undeniable fact that every Hindu either works in a convenience store or lives on the top of a mountain? Les't not even mention the Jews. We all know what THEY're like.
Sir, you are a moron. The odds that terrorism is a factor in this tragedy are sitting at about 0.00000001% right now. They claim that some insulation fell from the shuttle when they launched. Well if my brief experience with thermodynamics is any lesson, it's that things (like space shuttles) get really hot when they have a lot of friction trying to stop their rapid movement (like when they're landing). If something did fall, then I'd be highly suspect that there was some sort of external problem with the shuttle which overheated and caused an explosion. Or maybe not. It's still a lot more likely than your "terrorism".
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
NOAA weather radar / short range reflectivity for Mid-Texas shows a line of high return paralleling and just south of a line between Dallas and Tyler. It's time lapse. Quite a remarkable radar image.
Their is a good description of what happens during the shuttles landing at:
... however I have flown a shuttle on X-plane for what its worth.
http://www.x-plane.com/orbiter.html
x-plane is an amazing flight simulator that uses an amazingly realistic flight model - great "physics" in video game software speak - and can simulate shuttle landings. The shuttle is a glider. I'm a glider pilot, but certainly not anything like a shuttle pilot
The shuttle changes its bank during the phase of the landing it was in to reduce speed. It's not banking to try change its course, it banks to increase drag and reduce speed. The shuttle just rotates over oneo its left or right side a bit.
The shuttle switches back and forth from banking right to banking left to stay on course while performing these drag increasing maneuvers.
FYI, these maneuvers are also done with the shuttle at a very steep angle of attack - as high as 70 degrees. This angle is also used to increase drag to slow the shuttle down.
The last confirmed communication happened shortly after the shuttle made its first switch from being banked right to being banked left.
It is very possible that the switch to being banked left introduced a change in force which led to a structural failure of the wings or control surfaces which are used during the landing. Given the high drag, high angle of attack, banked flight angle the orbiter would be in at the time, the shuttle would almost immediately start spinning end over end at 12,000 mph, disintegrating almost instantly.
Nasa also reported that one of the last data events they received from the shuttle was a "loss in tire pressure". It's alternatively possible that this could happen after an internal explosion in the shuttle, with part of the explosion debris puncturing the tire.
Below is a chronology from spaceflightnow.com - Notice the change in bank angle time.
1401 GMT (9:01 a.m. EST)
Columbia is out of communications with flight controllers in Houston. Now 15 minutes from landing time.
1359 GMT (8:59 a.m. EST)
At an altitude of 40 miles, shuttle Columbia has entered Texas.
1357 GMT (8:57 a.m. EST)
The shuttle is now 43 miles over New Mexico. Columbia is now reversing its bank to the left to further reduce speed.
I hope,
That five years from now, the wife of one of the astornauts will one day look up and see the bright stars, and smile.
That ten years from now, one of the children of the astronauts will pick up one of the dusty flight-manuals out of a dusty box, and read one.
That fifteen years from now, one of the husbands will look across the breakfast table at his daughter be proud, knowing that his daughter is entering flight school - just like her mom.
That 20 years from now, there will be a small memoral, to the fallen. Placed on the soil of Mars.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
[Taken from here. Emphasis mine... --LP]
President Reagan's Speech on The Challenger Disaster
Oval Office of the White House
January 28, 1986
Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.
Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But, we've never lost an astronaut in flight; we've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle; but they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together.
For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, 'Give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy.' They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us.
We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.
And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them...
I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program, and what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute. We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them: "Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it."
There's a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, 'He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.' Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete.
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honoured us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'
What would have happened if exploration had been written off as "too risky" after that? I guess those of us here in the New World (at least, those of us of European descent) are lucky that our ancestors were greedy enough to continue onwards despite those risks.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
There is a Soyuz space cupsule on the ISS that can be used to return the astronauts currently there (2 Americans, 1 Russian). This is, in fact, why the ISS has been limited to 3 astronauts; it is all they had the room for on the escape capsule.
I think this will actually help Russia's space program; unless we want to close up the ISS and come home, Nasa is going to throw some big bucks Russia's way... They now have the only vehicle that can get to and from the ISS, at least as long as the shuttle is grounded.
Three now. Four including the original Enterprise. I wonder if they'll retrofit her now, to replace Columbia?
Unlikely. The Enterprise was never meant to go into space and is only for training inside the atmosphere. Retrofitting it would probably be more work and money than building a whole new shuttle. Enterprise is also very old, and it is likely that Columbia's age played an indirect part in this accident. If I were an astronaut, I would not want to fly on a retrofitted Enterprise.
How about the whole ISS project anyway? Is this going to toast that for good, too?
I expect rocky times ahead for the ISS. The United States is the primary financial backer and provides basically all of the manned missions. Without our support, the ISS is toast. I expect not only NASA to investigate and put things on hold, but also Congress. They are the ones that apropriate funding to NASA. Expect a lot of Congressional debate about our space program in the near future. I would not be surprised if this accelerates plans to privative NASA, an idea that our government has been kicking around for a while. We already contract out a lot of work at NASA.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
BTW, I hope they launch an *extensive* investigation into NASA's current MO, and upgrade the whole shebang for more safety and efficiency. They need some kind of failsafe to preserve these people's lives if disaster strikes.
You know what, I'll just go ahead and say what I've been wanting to say for AGES about manned space flight. It's fucking dangerous. It's one of the most dangerous operations that any human can be involved with. No amount of investigation, upgrading, efficiency, or what not is going to change that basic nature of the equation. The energy involved at certain critical points (launch, reentry) is of such a high order that it simply isn't feasibly to introduce life-saving components. When something occurs at such critical points (which of course, is when it is most likely that something WILL go wrong), everyone is going to die. Period.
The Russian and US space programs have known this for ages, but the US public just doesn't want to accept the fact that their are serious risks involved with putting human beings in orbit and getting them home safely. The complexity of the systems required to do such is of such an order of magnitude that it's just impossible to create any orbital delivery system that is completely failsafe.
This isn't, by any account, to say that NASA shouldn't attempt to figure out what happened and prevent it from happening in the future. Of course they should, that's their job. But to expect that accidents will never occur is naive beyond reason.
We need to either accept the inherent risks or quit putting people in orbit.
I just had a thought that runs counter to pretty much everything I've read on here today. As horrible as it might be to say, this catastrophe might be actually end up being a good thing for the future of the space program. The general populus has forgotten about the space program for years now. This disaster puts them back in the news, along with the portrayal of astronauts as the brave adventurous scientists that seek to bring new advances to the people of their country and of the world. The folks who lost their lives today will be shown as heroes to Joe Sixpack once again, and might serve to rekindle a sense of adventure and pride in them. Also, it shows that this program has been forced to use old technology and scrape by on minimal budgets for far too long; and that with proper funding, this tragedy could have been avoided. Perhaps this will serve as a wake up call to Congress that we need to properly support this vital piece of the scientific advances that this country and this world needs. I just don't see us abandoning manned space flight, and more funding is the only viable alternative.
Fly
I live in Nacogdoches, Texas, which is near where some of the debris fell. At around 8 this morning, I heard a low rumble, almost like an earthquake or something. Then the house starting shaking off and on for about 20-30 seconds. My first thought was to check the major appliances in the house (heat pump, hot water heater, etc.) simply because we don't get earthquakes in this neck of the woods. My wife also got up and said the house was shaking and it woke her up (and it is no small feat to wake her up early on a Saturday morning).
I ruled out any problems with the house and went online hoping maybe to find seismic information or news about an explosion or something. Within a few minutes, I saw the alert on CNN.com suggesting they'd lost contact with Columbia. I instantly knew that's what the rumbling was and I started to fear the worst.
It's not terribly uncommon to hear sonic booms when the shuttle goes over (we seem to be in the path when the shuttles land at Cape Canaveral) but it also isn't uncommon to have low flying B-52s and B-2s. Needless to say, this is a horrible tragedy. Personally though, it's one thing to see it on TV. It's quite another to have it take place in your back yard.
"If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."
- Gus Grissom, responding to a reporter, at a press conference for the first manned Apollo mission.
I'm not a space expert, but the most sensible thing for my country (I'm Russian) would be to fully support ISS operation with its Progress and Soyuz spacecrafts, until the things are sorted out with the Shuttles. Perhaps cough up some extra cash on the Russian side, yes. That would also be a politically correct thing to do.
This would mean the construction activity is halted (Shuttles were to deliver most/all new modules), but at least the station can be operated in its current configurations for the time being.
I view the dual delivery systems (STS + Russian crafts) as a partial redundancy built into the ISS program. Don't we now have the exact case when this redundancy should be used?
Any knowledgeable person to comment?
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.