Reagan Attorney Claims He Saw "Puff" on Unreleased Video

http://tinyurl.com/8d8m9

[begin quoted material]

Because the members were presidential appointees, they had to meet the
same rigorous background checks any other appointee faces. Rusthoven --
familiar with those procedures, the White House and legal issues that
might arise -- was asked to be general counsel as the commission began
its work.

In the month he worked with the commission, Rusthoven was among the few
who saw video before it was released to the public, and heard initial
reports and testimony from NASA employees who had not wanted to proceed
with that day's launch because of cold weather.

"I vividly remember seeing some of that dramatic video footage, a puff
of smoke coming out of the side" of the shuttle, the first indication
that something was wrong, he said.

[end quoted material]

Peter Rusthoven, "after serving from 1981 to 1985 as an associate
counsel to President Ronald Reagan," apparently did not work for Rogers
long enough (only a critical "one month") to qualify as a member of the
Commission's staff:

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1comm.htm#staff

The Rogers Commission held its first hearing on February 6, 1986. News
of "puffs" at lift-off did not reach the media until a week later.
Photos from film cameras appeared at that time.

I don't recall *ever* seeing "dramatic video footage" of a puff,
although after the Rogers Report was released, I did see barely
discernible smoke at the location claimed for a "puff," on FOIA video
footage from camera TV-3. Since I'm not a lawyer, if anyone here saw
"dramatic" video (such as Rusthoven described) in an earlier release, I
would very much appreciate knowing where and when.

Challenger's Ghost

wrote:

The Rogers Commission held its first hearing on February 6, 1986. News
of "puffs" at lift-off did not reach the media until a week later.
Photos from film cameras appeared at that time.

I don't recall *ever* seeing "dramatic video footage" of a puff,
although after the Rogers Report was released, I did see barely
discernible smoke at the location claimed for a "puff," on FOIA video
footage from camera TV-3.

The viewing angle of camera TV-3 was such that it saw mostly the front
of the shuttle at lift-off. Color photos in the Rogers Report show
either directly east views or mostly rear views of lift-off smoke.

Upon Senate intervention, NASA finally released better-quality TV-3
FOIA video from Mission 51-L. That was shortly before Discovery's
return-to-flight launch from Pad B on September 29, 1988.

Ironically, I did find this later and greater video "dramatic" at
lift-off, but not in the Rusthoven sense. Although I did find fleeting
smoke from a location right-aft outboard of the right SRB, I found that
it was swept rapidly downward and that it provided only the *backdrop*
for what I consider the real drama.

You see, the lift-off smoke visible on good TV-3 video is what I
consider *transition* smoke. It occurs later than the smoke seen in
Rogers' color photos, but not as late as some of the smoke seen in
metric video (and probably even in color film).

What I found "dramatic" is that after right-aft smoke appeared, TV-3
plainly recorded smoke streaming downward from a location *left-aft*
(outboard *or* inboard) of the right SRB. This occurred *after* the SRB
nozzles had well cleared the top of the Tail Sevice Masts.

The latter smoke is just as black as the right-aft smoke. In addition,
its volume and duration equals that of the right-aft smoke. It remained
only for me to ascertain whether black smoke originated from at least
*two* separate locations, both on or near the hydrogen tank's aft dome.

Challenger's Ghost
Copyright 2005
All rights reserved.

Using these photos from NASA film camera E63 as a guide,

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1p25.htm

would it be correct to assume that one should normally expect to see
nothing but clear sky in the locations where the yellow and red arrows
point here?

www.mission51l.com/art/UPIsmoke.jpg

The TSM definition appears good enough to be helpful, as well as the
tip of the ET relative to the top of the FSS.

Challenger's Ghost
Copyright 2005
All rights reserved.

wrote:
Using these photos from NASA film camera E63 as a guide,

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1p25.htm

would it be correct to assume that one should normally expect to see
nothing but clear sky in the locations where the yellow and red arrows
point here?

www.mission51l.com/art/UPIsmoke.jpg

I had included the following, orignally; but it got lost in the
shuffle, when Google's server kept giving me a 501 error.

The above UPI photo was published February 14, 1986, by the San
Francisco Chronicle. It appeared on the front page, with an article
which reads, in part:

"In the [NASA] photographs made public yesterday, the cloud appears
1.4 seconds after lift-off, but mysteriously does not show up in
pictures by the same camera about one second later."

It seems badly negligent to me that Rogers' Executive Summary makes no
effort to time-correlate or to caption by camera number its color
photos of lift-off smoke (several pictures from two cameras). One set
of photos was obviously cropped, so that the top of the FSS and other
helpful frames of reference are not available for correlation purposes.

If it is eventually shown that black lift-off smoke originated both
inboard and outboard of the right-aft ET/SRB attachment, that will be
consistent with flames both above and below said aft attachment, just
seconds before the explosion (as seen in near-horizontal flight).

Challenger's Ghost

wrote:
Using these photos from NASA film camera E63 as a guide,

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1p25.htm

would it be correct to assume that one should normally expect to see
nothing but clear sky in the locations where the yellow and red arrows
point here?

www.mission51l.com/art/UPIsmoke.jpg

The answer is a simple 'no,' of course. One should see the base of the
hydrogen tank, all the way down to the level of the faint horizontal
line which is directly to the left at approximately the middle of the
red arrowhead. At the same horizontal level, but to the right of the
red arrowhead, is an aft stiffener ring.

Thus what you have on the inboard side of the tank (in those arrowed
locations) are evidently patches of black in a lightly colored or
nearly luminous fire.

Chech the viewing angle out for yourself, along with my conclusions,
preferably using a good Challenger model.

Challenger's Ghost
Copyright 2005
All rights reserved.