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Updated Information On Columbia Shuttle Tragedy
Thanks to all the readers who have sent links related to today's shuttle disaster. An Associated Press story carried on Salon says that an independent board (with members from the Air Force, Navy, Transportation Department and other federal agencies) has been appointed to investigate the disaster. CNN is carrying official statement from President Bush. Rediff.com has an article on the life of Indian astronaut Kalpana Chawla. borisonanovitch points to "more info on the science aboard Columbia and links to other NASA research." fabel reminds us "Most of the media is focusing on the slight damage that ocurred at takeoff (that NASA discounted at the time) but STS-107 was *delayed* for 6 months (original launch date 19 Jul 2003) Update: 02/01 23:51 GMT by T : [Note, should read "2002."] because of
cracks in the propellant feed lines to the 3 main engines. A defect that could have caused catastrophic failure. Did the fix work or not?"
Oh, sorry about the 13 rats that died (they were supposed to be beheaded on arrival anwyays).
7 dead people. No change there.
who were sadly on board the shuttle. Peace, dueds. FP! FP! FP! frost pist!?!??!??!?!?!
... is that it's the week of the 17th anniversary of the horrific Challenger disaster.
Coincidence?
*nix.org
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
Now this makes me wonder.. It is 2003 and we could not make the shuttle land successfully.
Was the whole moon landing thing (it was decades ago and much more difficult than this) a made up story of cold war era....
What are your thoughts ? Was moon landing a hoax or we were more sophisticated and had better insulation materials decades ago than what we have now ?
Oh yeah, I forgot, the fucking Krauts put a man on the moon. /sarcasm
Unfortunately, the article references discounted stories about the U.S. attempt to militarize space. Why is the spin in the Arab world so demonizing of the U.S.? Oh, let me guess...the Israeli astronaut.
Geez, I thought we would have gotten all this kind of crap out of the way in the first story. Is there really a need for the story update to also include this useless junk?
I just went to watch the Star Wars movie I recorded on my TiVo today. Looks like WGN Superstation think Star Wars: A New Hope had to be canceled because of the shuttle disaster. Seems like showing space movies is insensitive.
He is Isralie military, he was once known to have bombed a children's hospital during the war, killing over 40 babies and children under 16. I dont feel remose for this. Why do you think he kept apologizing the whole time he was up there?
Don't live in places that are not capable of sustaining human life. Simple.
Not only did the Great Satan loose one of it's mighty spacecraft, the Lesser Satan lost it's first, and only Astroguy.
I think you mean Americans invented those technologies. They fled your fucking stinky country's persecution.
Yes! We all fuck dead bodies! And we eat babies, too!
Especially when 'god's vengeance' is so damn pathetic, when it comes down to it.
Damn straight. Estimates are as high as 1.5 million dead as the direct result of U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq after the first Gulf War. And these estimates are by now a year old, and the sanctions continue.
God's vengence would be more along the lines of wiping out one of our major cities I would think.
Although, the Israeli on the Shuttle was the one who participated in the unprovoked attack on the Iraqi nuclear facility in 1981, well before Iraq demonstrated extra-territorial ambitions in the region. Picking on the other six astronauts would be foul work, but Ramon probably deserved what he got.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
OK, time to burn karma. I don't care.
Take a look at these assholes in iraq celebrating this tragedy at Reuters
What f'ing assholes. Of course, next week if there is footage of celebrations from iraqis there no doubt will be a mass-email campaign trying to deny these celebrations as racist CNN coverage of "Celebration of some soccer victory from 1987" even though they will be wearing brittney spears t-shirts, having contemporary movie/music posters in the background, dancing atop vehicles from 2000+, etc.
I am referring of course to the footage from Sept. 11th, 2001 that showed Palestinians celbrating our tragedy. They later tried to deny this as a "fake" - that CNN used old footage of "a 1987 soccer victory celebration" until it was seen that a) no one in 1987 would be referring to Osama Bin Laden by name b) one boy was wearing a Brazilian soccer star's jersey (Ronaldo, who was maybe 6 in 1987) and c) there were modern cars appearing not available in 1987.
"3,000 people getting killed in the WTC and the Pentagon getting attacked probably has greater relevance for the average American than even 3,000,000 people dieing to famine"
And you wonder why the rest of the world can't stand Americans.
Don't listen to these fools going on about how the shuttle was too high to be shot down, or other such nonsense.
The shuttle could have easily been sabotaged. And last I checked, sabotage on this scale readily qualifies as an act of terrorism (then again, what doesn't these days?)
Israel is a very controversial topic in America these days, the propaganda we get in the media notwithstanding. Is it possible that one individual out of the hundreds if not thousands of people who had access to Columbia or her many systems and components had an opportunity to inflict a fatal blow to the craft? Of course it is.
Everybody is pointing at the piece of insulation that fell off during ascent as the cause, and I agree it looks likely, but that doesn't rule out terrorism. The booster could easily have been tampered with in some way designed to cause exactly the sort of failure we've witnessed.
I don't believe it was terrorism, and I will chafe at any such suggestion from the Bush Administration that it was in fact terrorism if and when they offer it, but it can hardly be ruled out, let alone dismissed or even mocked as we've seen so many here do.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Editor, remove this story. Unless it's Linux related, I don't want to read it. Remove this gossipy shit right now.
I'd hate for reporting on this to interfere with our regularly scheduled programming. Can we get some quick regulation to limit coverage of this to some minor cable channel, or something?
This, like the rail disaster in Sydney, it to divert attention, temporarily, from war in Iraq. Under 10 people killed both times yet all headlines no longer debate the need for war but lament on dead compatriots.
Trains do not magically accelerate before going into deadly turns.
Space shuttle wings do not just fall off.
Well done powers that be.
how, exactly, did this get modded as "insightful?"
how, exactly, do slashdot "moderators" think that a comment saying that bush caused this crash shows any insight into anything but a warped, frustrated person's bizarre ramblings?
(not to mention the fact that NO PRESIDENT OPERATES IN A VACUUM -- THERE IS A CONGRESS THAT HAS TO AGREE WITH ALL OF THIS, AND LAST TIME I CHECKED, THE BUDGETS NASA HAS BEEN WORKING UNDER UP TO NOW HAVE BEEN OK'D BY A DEMOCRATICALLY CONTROLLED SENATE. not to say it's their fault too, just pointing out the absurd logic)
jrbd sickens me. and those of you who modded this up are on the same list.
Mindy: "Well...desserts aren't always right." Homer: "But they're so sweet!"
Yeah, right. Nobody cares about the hundreds of people shot every day in the USA, but then 7 people die, and everybody cares and "god bless blabla".
So, those who do care about those 7 astronauts are in fact the heartless people, they only care about 7 people when they should care about hundreds of people. People who care about neither of them are only used to the cruelty of reality.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
...laughed when our Ariane 5+ exploded a couple of months ago. So, do you see me laughing now?
Not quiet, but don't expect me to shed tears. The fact that this was a science mission is an exception from the rule. Most of the time, shuttles drop off new military satellites into space. Of the 7 crew members, 6 were members of armed forces. One even of special fame: the israeli on board dropped his bombs in every major war Israel has fought in the last decades. Even when Israel bombed down that iraqi nuclear reactor in 1982 that allegedly could be used for the production of plutonium for weapons. It couldn't. And while we're at it: everyone's crying out loud over 7 people, when in just 6 weeks, tens of thousands will die in Iraq, and nobody will give a damn. Don't you think there's something wrong here?
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-983033.html?tag=fd_
good to see you yankee bastards are enjoying the fireworks
Enjoy now cos Saddam and Bin Laden will have their day soon