mJohn Doe wrote:

Craig Fink wrote:

I'm sure the passengers on the middeck would have had plenty of
information about their situation, starting with the loss of tire
pressured discussion.

From what I read, it wasn't until loss of APU that thy started to
realise something wrong other than faulty sensors was happening.




The Commander and Pilot most likely would have noticed the diverging
control surface trim as the aerodynamics slowly changed,

The report mentions the opposite. Same with the RCS firing continually.
There is small light on a button, but apparently, this is not something
they focus on.

And they would have been focusing on alarms, initially the tire pressure
one which was seen as a glitch, then something to worry about because it
was more than one faulty sensor, and then the APU failure.

In terms of CRM, I a not sure how the PLT/CDR split the tasks under such
circumstances. But the report did reveal that they did try to fix the
APU problem at a time after loss of communication.


Prior to loss of control, the Commander may have asked someone to take a
look behind to see if they could see anything in the plasma trail.

Is that something they are trained to do ?

I would think that what was more likely was that *IF* any of the aft
deck crewmembers had had previous experiece and *IF* they noticed
unusual plasma over the top windows, that they would then volunteer that
information to CDR/PLT. But doubt that the CDR/PLT would distract
themseves by asking such a question.

between the left and right side. Burning aluminum and disturbed flow,
possibly even super bright white flashes as globs of liquid aluminum get
instantly dispersed and burn in the slipstream.

It is not clear that the "burning aluminium" would have been begun
before they lost consciousness. Looks to me that the tiles would have
continued to protect the crew module until first breach.

This report seems to have pinpointed the location of the first pressure
vessel breach, under the E locker below middeck.

Until this point, the report mentioned many times that the crew cabin
was still very normal and intact.

floor. There was quite a bit of time between the first indications of
something amiss and loss of control.

Not that much time. Initially, they were focused on a glitch (loss of
sensors on landing gear). This was something way in the back of the
shuttle, not the crew cabin. Losing a tire would have made a bad
landing, but woudln't have caused crew cabin depressurisation.

By the time they lost radio contact, it really wasn't long until power
was lost. And remember that initially, loss of radio was not abnormal
since it happens during normal re-entry.


Shuttle Surfing during a normal entry, walking around the cabin would be
like walking around an airline's cabin, except the gee force would be
very small initially, then slowly build.

I am not sure NASA would take too kindly if astronauts started to have
such a non-chalant attitude during re-entry. And remember that while
during this phase, the G forces may be mild, the question is whether the
crew member will have time to get properly strapped in before serious G
forces are felt.

planets, especially the ones on the middeck who normally have nothing to
do, and lots of space to do it in. An interesting environment.

Middeck of Colubia didn't have lots of space. Remember that Columbia
still had the internal airlock. And once you put the seats up, I am not
sure there is much floor space left.

Much of what I wrote was just pure conjecture. What they knew or didn't,
will never be known. If you don't like it, don't believe it, that's fine,
because it's conjecture. No one knows if they saw, or heard the yaw jets
firing. But, it's something they could have heard or seen before loss of
control. No one knows if they noticed the control surfaces (trim) slowly
diverging towards there limit. But again, it's something that was there. I
somewhat doubt the crew took the tire pressure loss as a sensor error,
because they *did* know about the wing impact on ascent. But again, nobody
will ever know what they thought of the loss of pressure. Loss of
communications occurred quite a bit before loss of control when the APUs
went down. I don't think they can see out the top windows when seated????
Maybe they can, or at least turn the camera around...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK1RxQKCmCE
....or use a mirror...notice the debris flying off the crew cabin past the
window.

Prior to loss of control, the burning aluminum would have been coming from
the wing. One camera on the ground was saturated by a bright flash. Such a
bright flash might have been a much brighter closer up. Although one or two
bright flashes among all the APU flashes might not have been noticed. Prior
to loss of control any debris falling off the wing would have create it's
own plasma trail visible in the Orbiters plasma trail. Visible out the top
windows looking back. As to if anyone *actually* saw any of them, no one
will ever know. One astronaut may have been out of his seat, highly unusual
as I've only heard of one astronaut Shuttle Surfing. And then again maybe
he wasn't, no one will ever know.

You know, quite a bit of this report is just conjecture or educated guesses,
including some of the simulations, analysis and conclusions. Much of it is
reporting of the known fact, but it also continues past the facts into the
realm of conjecture. Take it with a grain of salt. What I wrote about was
what I thought was available prior to loss of control that might have been
observed. I'm sure there may have been other thing that prior to loss of
control that might have gotten their attention. But, no one will ever know
what they knew.

Feel free to write your own fiction posting, if you don't like mine.
--
Craig Fink
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