http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/02/01/shuttle.columbia/index.html

Mission status is here. There are suggestions of wing tile damage during launch in the 14:40 GMT log entry.

<silence>

Oh jeez, this is absolutely horrible. I vividly remember January 28, 1986, sitting in high school civics class when the Challenger was lost and the teacher came in and told us, and now the Columbia... Total disbelief both times...

sigh.

I was in the school library with 50 other childern watching the shuttle take off in 86.

To stay in context however, more americans die every year in us military training accidents than have ever been killed in the space program.

I hope they dont find this as a reason to cut funding. In Fact who's to say this wasn't caused by lack of funding.

I went to bed lastnight with my tv on, and woke up this morning to the breaking news of this terrible accident. Very Sad indeed!

I woke up to this today. I am nowhere near as numb as I was with Challenger - maybe because I knew that there would someday be another accident? Perhaps because I didn't watch the breakup live on TV?

May the seven souls onboard have a smooth flight upwards to their final home.

Tailwinds and blue skies...
-Greg

From the Shreveport LA radar site, the red is the debris trail.

A chilling image.

And before anyone else asks, the green specks are not a radar image of anything, they're just the random noise floor of the radar system (its gain was cranked up when this image was taken).

Supposedly there's going to be a news conference around 10am pacific time, it's after 10 and it hasn't started yet, I'm gonna go turn on the TV...

Yes, just ground clutter. It is (was) a beautiful morning, no clouds at all over the region. I was out putting mud flaps on the new truck but heard nothing. The lake below the trail is Sam Rayburn, and the trail goes over Toledo Bend on the TX/LA line. Austin is way off to the right the screen.

Oh Christ, not again

I had (a month before in 1986) quit my first job after 3 years of bullying and boredom. I was packing my stuff in my trunk to move out of the house I was in and my friend Bernie came round absolutely breathless from the house he and a few other ex-colleagues shared on the other side of the alley behind me.

"The shuttle's blown up!!!" I laughed and told him to piss off, you wanker, stop winding me up. I've left the job, the jokes are over. "No, no, I'm not joking, it's on the TV now, come on!!!" I was instantly sober: we sprinted 200 metres round the block to the house: Neil, Martin, myself and Bernie stood there open mouthed and dry eyed, without a single word exchanged, for nearly an hour, simply trying to absorb the one fact that the shuttle had been destroyed. Neil was in tears for most of the night and the planned send off at the pub later on was a damp squib: all of us engineers, all of us not really believing what had just happened.

I have just read this report and started looking at the news, and I have had a sickening flashback to nearly two decades ago: the same lurch in the gut, the same feeling of panic, the same feeling of real depression at the death of those people. No bones about it: they are dead, no chances.

This is a truly sad day and it makes my troubles seem trivial by comparison.

"Rest Easy, brave comrades".

apollo 1, jan 27 '67
challenger, jan 28 '86
columbia, feb 1 '03

chilling

I was watching newsround (kids news program non uk folk) after just getting home from school in my parnets house and was shocked and stunned never though it would happen again

What I think is the biggest shame is that launches don't receive as much media attention as they once did. When I was going through grade school, the teachers would still stop class, turn on the TV, and we'd all watch the local news broadcasting the launch in the middle of the day, and it would be in the newspapers and on TV for several days. These days I think it's much smaller news, and that's unfortunate.

other than odd clips ive yet to see an actual shuttle launch. other than the movie apollo 13.

Thats because its old news. Concorde's 1st couple of flights were all over the media, but then nobody cared... until there was a crash.

Sadly, its the same with the space program.

I think that the collective pyschological effect on millions of kids worldwide may be a factor - I doubt that many (if *any*) of the teachers were prepared to deal with 30+ kids who had just witnessed *live* the death of seven people.

albeit a very disconnected view of death. not much impact watching the images of a shuttle fall with little white tendrils trailing.
i was more horrified by watching the scenes of death in final destination 2 last night. whats more disconcerting is the fact that the whole of the audience (including myself) proceeded to laugh after each one.

What I think is the biggest shame is that launches don't receive as much media attention as they once did.

Isn't that because viewers just don't find it as newsworthy any more? Or is that what you're complaining about? A shuttle launch is an amazing thing, but an amazing thing happening for the 107th time isn't news. (If it was, CNN would still be covering butterflies -- a caterpillar turns into a chrysalis-ful of caterpillar soup, then turns into a butterfly. What's with that?)

IMO it's one of the greatest achievements of the shuttle programme if people nowadays are starting to think that space travel is routine. One day space travel must become routine. Today's sad news just shows that we actually aren't quite there yet.

Peter

i was more horrified by watching the scenes of death in final destination 2 last night

I'm more horrified that they made a second "Final" destination

lol
it was a pretty good shocker, as they go.

I can't believe the news either. Terrible, tragic loss.
The knock-on effect is really dramatic too. My sympathies go to all the families affected by this event. There's a school in Australia who were conducting an expeiriment which was on the shuttle. The students had spent four years developing an expiriment to find out what shape spiders would weave webs in zero-G. Now, I'm not placing the spiders lives above those of the crew. But these kids had worked for so long to develop this experiment and had travelled over to the US for the launch and were probably eagerly awaiting the return of thier arachnids.

What I think is the biggest shame is that launches don't receive as much media attention as they once did.

Ironicially, this was probably the only live suttle launch I have seen in the past few years. I believe it was shown on CNN, while they talked about the mission and such.

I just hope this incident dosen't cause us to run back under our rocks and stop looking upward. The Challenger incident had devistating results on our path into space. Risk is part of the job for those who work at NASA, and unfortunatly today we have to deal with the consequences of progress.

some maggots live off anything

auction 3400178632

How sick some people really are and how sad this world is for it.

One second the listing was there and the next it's gone - good, thanks eBay.

The sick and twisted fucks who registered & listed those domains should be taken outside and given a good beating.

enlighten me, i missed it.

What was the link that was being pointed to?

Just read the mission log as linked above, rather chilling stuff.

The eBay listing was for four Columbia disaster related domains like columbiacleanup.com, columbiadisaster.com and so on.

I had my empeg on, just happened to turn on the radio on a trip to hear what a station was playing, and it was a CNN feed. Sigh.

They lost it right as I was getting on the PA Turnpike, apparently.

It was supposed to fly over us in Louisiana at 8:03 am central. They said you may or may not be able to see it and you might hear a sonic boom. So I went out a couple minutes before, looking at the west and waited. When it didn't come, I thought to myself, and almost said to someone jokingly, "oh well it probably crashed." Then I turned on the news 2 hours later and HOLY [censored] [censored] IN A [censored] AND [censored] WITH [censored] [censored] [censored], [censored], [censored] KANGAROO [censored] ON A [censored] [censored]-[censored] [censored] IT DID [censored] CRASH.

In reply to:

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The eBay listing was for four Columbia disaster related domains like columbiacleanup.com, columbiadisaster.com and so on.

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Sick fsckers...

That's tame. I'm sure we'll get some sick people out there trying to auction off bits of debris.

- Trevor

sorry, but im not really sickened by either prospect. i would even entertain purchasing such debris.

And any auction or offer for selling debris will probably have the Feds knocking on their door real quick...

The asking price was $17,000. That's what got to me.

I hadn't really turned on the TV or anything today (I still haven't), when I drove by the local Boy Scouts building and saw their flags at half-mast. I just figured that Joe ``Fag-hater'' Scoutleader had died or something and scoffed at it. Of course, now I feel like shit. It's sad to see anyone go, but it's even worse when they're highly intelligent and skilled people making shit for money in highly dangerous jobs, and doing it all for selfless reasons, whether they be astronauts or firemen or whatever.

Godspeed.

I just hope this incident dosen't cause us to run back under our rocks and stop looking upward. The Challenger incident had devistating results on our path into space.

This time we can't sit on our thumbs and contemplate. We've got astronauts in the ISS, and they can't live up there forever. I'm sure that the Russians could bring them back down, but I don't think anyone in our current government is likely to let that happen. Maybe it should, though, to show that we can deal with the rest of the international community on a rational and compassionate (even to our benefit) level.

The ISS has a Russian Soyuz capsule up there already incase of emergency so they're safe.
You still need to have to sit down and try to work out what happened to Columbia before doing anything else though. It's too much of a risk that the rest of the shuttle fleet could have the same problem.

- Trevor

We've got astronauts in the ISS, and they can't live up there forever. I'm sure that the Russians could bring them back down, but I don't think anyone in our current government is likely to let that happen.

The Russian's don't actually need to send a ship up to get them (though they are launching an unmanned supply ship today anyway) as they always keep a Soyuz capsule docked with the ISS. That way it is always ready to be used as a lifeboat to get the crew home in an emergency.

I think the US will need to pump some more cash into the Russian space industry over the next year or so though, so that they can plug the gaps left by the lack of Shuttle missions to the ISS.

Will the ISS even continue?

They haven't decided on that yet. They have the option to mothball it for extended periods, as long as occasional maintenance visits are made. Apparently (according to CNN) they were considering doing this for part of this year anyway. CNN didn't explain why they were considering this though, perhaps they are waiting from another module from the Russians or something ?

I'm pretty sure that techically they could keep it running without the Shuttle (by paying the Russians extra), but adding new modules would be next to impossible I suspect.

I thought there were other shuttles 'lying around'. It seems odd that there would only be one shuttle built at a time.

There were initially seven built: one structural test rig (never left the ground nd was destroyed), one flight test airframe (Enterprise) and then the five service orbiters. Challenger was destroyed, and a replacement spaceframe was ordered to replace it.

Who knows if there can be a replacement this time. There should be: if Bush has any sense of proportion, then maybe he should think about not rushing into a war which no-one supports and re-direct his attention to the space program to ensure the livelihoods of engineers all over the US. This would ensure our future, not a bloody oil war!!!

Is that right? I thought that Discovery and Atlantis would just be in hangers or something. I think Andy means that NASA won't even consider another mission until the problem is investigated.

First off, what does the space program have to do with going to war? Why must it be one or the other? Yes it was a national tragedy, but it does not preclude defending ourselves from a tyrant.

Second, as should be obvious from above, Not everyone shares your views on going to war. I feel it is neessary. Furthermore I do not feel that it is about oil, either.

Lastly, there is not much a president can do to "help" the space program other than allocate funding, and support it publicly. Both of these are being done.

Discovery is currently out of service for overhaul, but Atlantis and Endeavour are doing something to the effect of sitting around a hangar.

(couldn't decide where exactly to post, so picked Lectric's post to respond to -- as I do have one thought on that....)

Friday evening I nominated "Peter Nevsky and the True Story of the Russian Moon Landing" by John Calvin Batchelor to my book club and it is now on the 2003 schedule. I have to say that when the clock radio turned on Saturday AM, I seriously thought I was dreaming.

After an overdose of CNN, I went out to work on the car (rewiring a few things) then I got an itch for a burger. I still had 15 pages left of "Nevsky" so took it with me. Hmmmm, when reading in a restaurant, I always thought it was a signal for other folks to leave you alone. No such luck.... three fishermen come in. Fisherman 1: "Hey, what're you reading?" (I show 'em) "Hey, what's it about?" (I say the supposed tragic Russian landing on the Moon). Boss fisherman: "Hey, I saw this documentary that we never landed on the Moon" (Me; "Uh-huh. Was it believable?" -- thinking that a gajillion tax dollars just went to refute this "documentary"). Boss Man "Well, do you always believe everything the governbment tells you??"

I told him "Yeah, I always believe what the government tells me" and went back to my book.

So these are my choices: Either believe "alien autopsy" stuff I see on Fox or believe everything the government says. I got the depressing feeling that the same three guys will be sitting there in 10 years (having just watched some supernatural expose documentary on Fox or "History" Channel) talking about the 7 people who disintegrated over Texas and how they never really existed -- just a big scheme by the government.

Lectric First off, what does the space program have to do with going to war? .

I just finished doing my taxes and verified that something between 25-35% of my income for 2002 went to the Feds. I think of myself of a federalist, so I don't generally gripe about that or kill myself to find ways to cheat or minimize my taxes. I just pay. I have to say that it is tough, though, in the times of the Reagans and Shrubs to pay that money with a smile on my face. They make like the pie is very elastic -- that we can have 600-ship navies, wars on Iraq and NASAs without going into massive debt. I'm no economist, but I know that is not true. Right now, I'd rather see more money tilted to things like NASA than our Iraq sequel. So maybe that's what NASA has to do with it....for me anyway.

All of the weekend's events made me thing of a book I read a few years back and enjoyed -- "Off the Planet" by Jerry Leninger (astronaut who took the length-of-stay record for American men on Mir). When thinking about the Russian space program's capabilities and relationship with ours post-Columbia, I think this book is interesting.

CNN and the networks seem hard at work digging up the personal angles on the disaster. It's hard to have positive feelings about all this right now -- about "the good that will come out" of this. If their is one "human angle" story that seems to sincerely hit the "touchie-feelie" side of this in a way that doesn't rankle, I think it has to be the story of Kalpana Chawla JMO.

I fear, though, that investigations are going to find organizational iimperfections, compromises, short-cuts. I'm concerned about whether we are willing to look again at NASA's situation with a dispassionate eye. Who is the Richard Feynmann for this set of hearings?

>>it was a pretty good shocker, as they go.

Excellent - I'm really looking forward to this. Just went to the cinema with the wife for the first time since our daughter was born (8 months ago) - thank goodness for babysitters - and saw Ghost Ship. Excellent gore and bodycount. Mostly predictable but a couple of nice twists.

Of course we never landed on the moon. We've also been covering up the aliens at Roswell for years now. That was after we purposely let the Japanese attack Pearl Harbour, but quite a few years before the CIA blew up the World Trade Center so that we could go to war with Afghanistan. Now, we are pretending like Iraq has chemical warheads so that we can go to war with Iraq, because W is pissed that Saddam tried to assassinate his dad and he's a Christian crusader intent on going to war with the Muslims. I mean, the US just has a proven track record with these things; after all, it took some balls to invent the whole holocaust thing. I'll tell you more when I finish watching Fox television. I think Joe Millionaire comes on right after John Edwards.

Oh, by the way, when am I going to get my next handout? I need my food stamps, welfare, and reparations payment now please. Oh yeah, and that time you liberating Europe after World War II instead of behaving like the Russians, that was entirely for your own self-interest.

-Fox-Watching Public

because W is pissed that

Off-topic aside... I love how most presidents get a three-initial nickname ("LBJ" for example), but our current one is down to just "W". Even better if you slur it: "Dubyah".

Of course we never landed on the moon.....

At least you didn't talk about the Kennedy assassination and the grasy knoll. I hate when people do that, because I don't have an alibi for that day...

tanstaafl.

I don't have an alibi for that day...

In general, I find that the fact that I wasn't born until 1976 seems to get me past most scrutiny in this regard.

In general, I find that the fact that I wasn't born until 1976 seems to get me past most scrutiny in this regard.

Where were you on the night that John Lennon was shot, sir?

Peter

Where were you on the night that John Lennon was shot, sir?

Surely, even if I was only four years old, I would have chosen to shoot the correct Beatle (Paul, of course.)

I contend that Chapman simply missed and hit something a foot or two to the side of what he was really aiming at: Yoko Ono. Had he been a better shot, he might have been hailed as a hero to this day.

I contend that Chapman simply missed and hit something a foot or two to the side of what he was really aiming at: Yoko Ono. Had he been a better shot, he might have been hailed as a hero to this day.

Thanks Bitt. I really needed that coffee to come out of my nose. ouch.

I find that the fact that I wasn't born until 1976 seems to get me past most scrutiny in this regard

Isn't that actually the year that they cloned you?

Okay, Ynot_ and Bitt get the funny award for the day.

<wipes off monitor... twice...>