51-L Surface Search (Forward Fuselage Recovery)

[John Maxson]

In 1986, the February 10 issue of Aviation Week contained
two excellent photographs (in color) of large sections of the
51-L forward fuselage, brought to shore on the evening of
January 30 (see the NY Times).

Both internal and external surfaces are shown. The pieces
were recovered floating.

If anyone has the opportunity and means to scan these and
place them on a web page (with captions and credits), that
might help the younger generations. It would be good for
them to try to understand why NASA identified only these
particular pieces, which were allegedly stripped from the
crew module at water impact (rather than at altitude).

--
John Thomas Maxson, Retired Engineer (Aerospace)
Author, The Betrayal of Mission 51-L (www.mission51l.com)

[Charleston]

"John Maxson" > wrote in message
...

> In 1986, the February 10 issue of Aviation Week contained
> two excellent photographs (in color) of large sections of the
> 51-L forward fuselage, brought to shore on the evening of
> January 30 (see the NY Times).
>
> Both internal and external surfaces are shown. The pieces
> were recovered floating.

> If anyone has the opportunity and means to scan these and
> place them on a web page (with captions and credits), that
> might help the younger generations. It would be good for
> them to try to understand why NASA identified only these
> particular pieces, which were allegedly stripped from the
> crew module at water impact (rather than at altitude).

Captions and credits?

Yes it would be good and I will include one of them in my upcoming website,
NASA will deservedly get the photo credit and I will use their official
caption, not the NYT, they have a habit of copying others work and claiming
it as their own.

In the meantime please allow me to steer anyone interested, young or old, to
the National Transportation Safety Board report on Mission STS 51-L, and in
particular to the part involving the crew module and outer forward fuselage.

See the "Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle
Challenger Accident".

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v3appoe8.htm#399

From Volume III, pages 0-394 and O-401 we have:

1.2.4. Crew Module (See Figure 16 for Structure)....
...."The fact that pieces of forward fuselage upper shell were recovered with
the crew module indicates that the upper shell remained attached to the crew
module until water impact. Pieces of upper forward fuselage shell recovered
or found with the crew module included cockpit window frames, the
ingress/egress hatch, structure around the hatch frame, and pieces of the
left and right sides. The window glass from all of the windows, including
the hatch window, was fractured with only fragments of glass remaining in
the frames.

The lower outer shell structure of the forward fuselage was recovered as
floating debris on the ocean surface and was found within the first few days
after the accident. Much of the outer shell (see Photograph 12) was
recovered in just four major pieces. The lower outer shell separated at or
just below the manufacturing interface with the upper shell. There was no
evidence of burning or of significant heat damage on any of the lower shell
structure. The lower shell appeared to have broken from frame 582 in one
large section. The fractures along frame 582 were in tension overload with
negative (- z) bending which indicates that the shell separated from the
Orbiter mid fuselage in a nose down direction. The left side of the forward
fuselage lower shell was crushed and deformed inward (+ y) with the greatest
deformation just below the side hatch frame structure. Adjacent pieces of
outer shell structure from around the hatch frame were recovered with the
submerged crew module. These pieces had similar crush deformation damage
toward the right (+ y) direction. The crush damage appeared typical of water
impact damage. The apparent consistency of crush damage on the left side of
the forward fuselage lower shell and the crew module would indicate that
these two items were attached until impact with the water."

Please note that the report refers to the fuselage frame 582 being found
with the crew module. In fact, part of the 582 frame is included in
photograph 11 below and is include in the caption. The photograph shows
that indeed the outer forward fuselage remained attached to the crew module
until water impact.

These are black and white photographs from pages O-400 and O-402 but that's
better than nothing.

Photograph 11: http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v3o400.htm

Photograph 12: http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v3o402a.htm


If there is significant and sincere interest from this group, I am
considering placing some of the actual interviews conducted by Presidential
Commission investigators on the web.

--

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC