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.

boringguy wrote:
It could of been from one of the film cameras that saw the smoke (E60,
E63, E20, E41, E31, E71, E52, or E217 (co-located with TV-3)). People
often call video, "film." It could of been, they were calling film,
"video" as the film was transferred to video?

In the case of E60 and E63, that may be one of the first things which
comes to mind, since Rusthoven referred to a "puff" of smoke. I
rejected that possibility for the following reasons:

1) Knowing there would surely be intense scrutiny of his initial 51-L
actions on behalf of Reagan, surely a high-level *attorney* with
Rusthoven's reputation would be aware of (and be careful to make) a
clear distinction between recording-media and camera-type.

2) He said he saw only "some" of the video referred to, before it was
*released to the public*. I vaguely recall seeing at least one frame
from TV-3 on a mid-February 1986 broadcast. It had a magnifying-glass
highlight showing a wisp of right-aft outboard smoke.

3) The same wavy TV-3 video was released via FOIA in the summer of
1986, with the same frame highlighted in an identical manner. By
*then*, some might have thought of it as a "puff."

3) It seems more likely that Rusthoven had initially seen *selected*
film photos. (According to the Rogers Report, all were admittedly
*enhanced* to show "puffs," and many had no camera number or Mission
Elapsed Time.) From those, Rusthoven may have subjectively *projected
to video* the concept of "puff" (especially after nearly twenty years).

Having said all that, I'm still willing to digest any new information
which comes my way, even if ultimately it's from Rusthoven himself. (I
haven't seen anything resembling "puffs" from any of the other cameras
you mention, but I'm certainly willing to look at any you can provide.)

Challenger's Ghost

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.

boringguy wrote:
It could of been, they were calling film,
"video" as the film was transferred to video?

Why transfer it to video at all? That wasn't done for the Rogers
Report, and the major broadcasters had no problem belatedly televising
film photos of alleged "puffs" at lift-off.

From a government attorney's perspective, doesn't reference to a "puff"
seen on "dramatic video footage" deflect public attention from
government-impounded *film* exposed by press cameras which recorded the
lift-off?

As I recall, only negatives were returned to the press, not the film.
One must admit that this procedure allowed time for "enhancing" and/or
retouching of the press photos, whether or not such was actually done.

I have some bitterly adverse experience with the NY Times, concerning a
broken promise that paper made to photographically support a story
about my prelaunch warnings and my reporting of launch events. As I
understand it, that firm was the only one to attempt to recover its
original film.

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

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

In article .com,
" wrote:

As I recall, only negatives were returned to the press, not the film.
One must admit that this procedure allowed time for "enhancing" and/or
retouching of the press photos, whether or not such was actually done.

lolol

There apears to be a slight .. uh ... gap in your photographic
knowledge, which renders your whole point ridiculous and invalid.

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------

Bruce Hoult wrote:
In article .com,
" wrote:

As I recall, only negatives were returned to the press, not the film.
One must admit that this procedure allowed time for "enhancing" and/or
retouching of the press photos, whether or not such was actually done.

lolol

There apears to be a slight .. uh ... gap in your photographic
knowledge, which renders your whole point ridiculous and invalid.

I've never thought of myself as an omni, far from it. I'll admit to not
knowing as much as I should about film writers in general. In
particular, I have not researched the film writer in use at the Lunar
Planetary Institute in 1986. Any insight you can provide in that area
would be helpful. See:

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v3n17b.htm

For the next link, scroll down to page [N18] 4. Enhancement Systems:

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v3appn.htm#n5

Even if the film writer in use by NASA (shown/discussed as part of the
VAST system) had no film-output capability, it's my understanding that
Technicolor was able to reproduce for NASA both "enhanced" positives
and "enhanced" negatives (from original film and from masters). I
believe I was sent at least one of those from KSC (in response to a
FOIA request for a copy where I specified *no* enhancements). Fill me
in though; I'm never too old to learn.

The bottom line is that I have put one of the press photos under the
magnifying glass, in more ways than one. I consider what I have found
from that analysis to be of exceptional value to my understanding of
the origin of the 51-L lift-off smoke under discussion here.

Challenger's Ghost

Bruce Hoult :

In article .com,
" wrote:

As I recall, only negatives were returned to the press, not the film.
One must admit that this procedure allowed time for "enhancing" and/or
retouching of the press photos, whether or not such was actually done.

lolol

There apears to be a slight .. uh ... gap in your photographic
knowledge, which renders your whole point ridiculous and invalid.

Did really write the above? If so now I know why I have him
filtered out. That is as bad as the guy who claimed he could not show the
pictures he had take with his camera of the shutttle because NASA had taken
the the film to develop themselves.

Only problem, the model of camera he claimed to use for the photos was a
digital model - if you assumed the numbers were mis-report and tried the
logical variations you found binoculars but no other model numbers matched
cameras I knew ghost was dumb, but I did not realize how dumb.

Earl Colby Pottinger
--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp

On 21 Jul 2005 17:53:38 -0700, "
wrote:

Bruce Hoult wrote:
In article .com,
" wrote:

As I recall, only negatives were returned to the press, not the film.
One must admit that this procedure allowed time for "enhancing" and/or
retouching of the press photos, whether or not such was actually done.

lolol

There apears to be a slight .. uh ... gap in your photographic
knowledge, which renders your whole point ridiculous and invalid.

I've never thought of myself as an omni, far from it. I'll admit to not
knowing as much as I should about film writers in general.

[snip]

The enhancement issue aside, you can't look at the images on the film
without developing the film. This chemical process turns the film into
negatives. The exposed, but not developed, film doesn't exist anymore.

When you have your pictures developed at the local photo shop, the
negatives you get back with your pictures are the same physical film
you gave them, but it's been through a chemical process.

Photographic paper is kind of like film. They take the negative film,
shine a light through it and focus the image onto the photographic
paper. When the photographic paper is developed, what you get is a
negative image of the film negative, which is a positive image that
you see as a photograph.

For slide film, I don't know if it develops directly into positives or
if there's another step involved where they basically make a negative
of the negative and stick it into a slide case. I never developed
slides at home when I was playing with developing my own film back in
the 70's.

Whether NASA returned the original film as negatives or kept the
original negatives and returned copies or something that had been
produced by manipulating the originals is a separate issue and one
that I know nothing about, not being involved in the aerospace
industry.

-- David