"John Maxson" wrote in message
...

"Shuttle Photos: Issue of Crew's Fate"

The excerpts below are from the above article in the NY times,
dated April 25, 1986, by David E. Sanger:

============================================
The photographs released Wednesday showing the space shuttle
Challenger plunging toward the ocean suggest that within days of
the disaster officials of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration suspected the crew cabin remained largely intact
until it hit the water, sources familiar with the investigation say.

Nevertheless, in public hearings and news conferences, officials
of the space agency said nothing to contradict the widely held
view that an explosion instantly disintegrated the craft and killed
its crew.

Sanger is correct in his article. NASA did withhold critical information
regarding the Challenger crew from the public and that is rotten. What is
worse however, is that they withheld all of that same information from the
families of the lost crew members, allowing all of them to suffer in silence
believing their family members had been blown to smitherines and consumed by
marine life as you believe, IIRC. Now ask yourself this question. How is
the Challenger scenario much differrent than what is going on right now? Do
you really believe there is any doubt that NASA fully understands the
approximate time and manner of death of the Columbia crew? It would be most
embarrasing now if it comes out that the sturdy crew compartment, along with
its various helmets, little digital 8 videotapes, OEX recorder, etc.,
survived intact long enough for the crew to escape with a proper ejection
system. However unlikely that may seem, there is a small body of evidence
that in fact that may be exactly what happened with break-up occuring due to
structural overload not aeroheating. If you reread the NYT article that
came out the other day, there are new shards of information that are
important to crew survivability issues.

snip

While it is unclear what was done to enhance the photographic
images, NASA says that each of the prints was blown up from
only a tiny section of the original negatives.

Sounds like the Kirtland photograph does it not. If you read page 5-49, of
the CAIB working scenario, it reads in pertinent part:

...."the Kirtland photo could indicate a flow disturbance on the leading edge
of the left wing and/or flow leaving the leading edge of the left wing (see
Figure 5-48).... It also appears to show a disturbed flow leaving the
trailing edge of the left wing. Other images, not shown here, also show
disturbed flow on the upper side of the left wing, indicating that the
damage and venting through the upper RCC vent was deflecting the flow
upward.

The Kirtland photo is a digital still image taken by off-duty employees of
the Starfire Optical Range at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, during
the STS-107 entry using a 3.5 inch telescope through a computer controlled 1
meter rotating mirror."

I'd sure like to see the *other* "images" which unlike the Kirtland Starfire
photos, without any qualification, "show disturbed flow on the upper side of
the left wing, indicating that the damage and venting through the upper RCC
vent was deflecting the flow upward."

Must be good pics. I missed their release.

Veterans of the space program said that this is not the first time
the space agency has been accused of withholding information
about accident investigations. The day after the Apollo 1 flash
fire that killed three astronauts on the launching pad, NASA
officials suggested at a news conference that all three had died
instantly. Several days later, however, word leaked out that a
tape recording showed more than a minute of frantic efforts by
the astronauts to escape from the capsule.
===========================================

Since NASA has never conclusively proved that the 51-L crew
died at water impact, I have referred to it as NASA's illusion.

I guess the fact that some crewmembers turned on their PEAPs is not enough
for you?

Okay read this from Volume IV of the PC report. Please note that this
testimony is from a closed hearing. It proves that the Commission was told
about the crew cabin and they elected to withhold the information they
learned that day, even from the families. In fact some of the early
timelines included references to the crew cabin itself. None of them were
ever made public.

"[409] 753

PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON THE SPACE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT - THURSDAY,
FEBRUARY 13,1986...


....MR. STEVENSON: Yes. And what we have found, what we are doing in all of
these, we are going back and making 8 x 10s of these, and we are putting the
exact time reference on each frame so we can giggle them where they should
be, and that way we will get the three-dimensional analysis.

(Pause.)

We can slow this down for you when we go to the TV tapes, and we will show
you this in more detail than we can show you on this machine. This was the
loss of the LOX tank, and we can see on film that it actually lifted right
up and we can see sky completely under the




865

forward top of the LOX tank. It blew the top right out.

DR. COVERT: Is that a vaporization pressurized, a heat boiloff, heat boiled
off oxygen?

MR. SMITH: Yes, from the engine.

(Pause.)

MR. STEVENSON: Again, we're really not dwelling on these type objects here,
but this is the orbiter. And once again, the righthand rocket that you can
see here, the extra plume that we have that we normally would not have.

MR. HOTZ: What is that on the lower left?

MR. STEVENSON: That's part of the orbiter. We have passed the part where you
can see the cabin and the lower portion, but there is some question about
the RCSV. We think it is an explosion following behind. Again, you can see
the chute and the obvious two plumes here.

(Pause.)

[472] This is the wing, by the way. The wing just came across here.

DR. COVERT: Are these all manually aimed?

MR. STEVENSON: Some go with radar. They are remotely tracked, and they are
corrected as we need them during flight. (Pause.)

866"

The reference to the "cabin" clearly demonstrates that NASA knew that it
survived the break-up. They argued about whether it was an explosion, but
the recovered hardware from the forward fuselage (brought in to port on
January 30, 1986) clearly proved that there was no explosion and NASA
managers were told this in detail by the NTSB early in the investigation.

--

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC