Space Shuttle Columbia lost?

[Henry]

DM_Matt, Umbran, Gez, et. al. - I'm glad to see you come to an understanding. We don't need expressions of sympathy undone by philosophical argument, though I understand the importance of the point being made.

A note to all, however - I would love to see this remain civil and sincere. This is sad news, indeed, despite the inherent risks, and despite the current political climate. My prayers and thoughts to the families, and to all those who suffered a loss in this disaster.

 

[Sagan Darkside]

Sagan Darkside: Really mature that you can put someone on an ignore list for asking a philosophical question that might be very relevant to him.

There is a time and place for such things. The day of the death is not such a time. I will let it go at that since I would be quite uncivil if I go on about the matter.

On the subject at hand- I was listening to talk radio when they announced they lost contact with the shuttle. I found it odd- since I knew they lost contact for a small amount of time during reentry, but it would have to be serious for them to announce it.

I sat in my car as I listened to John Gambling and Richard Bey be in total shock over what was going on. It was the same sort of quiet shock that was on the radio's during 9/11.

It did not strike me emotionally until when I was driving across the bridge and someone had changed the electronic sign that usually tells cars to merge left into "God Bless Our Astronauts".

The other moving moment was to listen to the families of those who died paying tribute through their sorrow to people who died doing what they loved.

SD

 

[DSC-Niffer]

This made me remember when I was younger too and seeing the other shuttle blow up in class......

Let's all pray that nothing like this happens again....

 

[der_kluge]

Not sure if it was mentioned in this thread or not, but how many shuttles are left? Is Atlantis the only one?

And what of the space station, someone said that there were people in the space station. Is that true?

 

[Sagan Darkside]

And what of the space station, someone said that there were people in the space station. Is that true?

I was just reading an article about them:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-564687,00.html

SD

 

[Umbran]

Not sure if it was mentioned in this thread or not, but how many shuttles are left? Is Atlantis the only one?

There's Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavor.

And what of the space station, someone said that there were people in the space station. Is that true?

Yep, the International Space Station is still manned. Just Yesterday, they had a Progress launch to deliver supplies. The ISS has consumables enough to last it's crew until June, I think. In the Press conference yesterday, NASA said that there's no reason to take the people off, and they have no intention of unmanning and mothballing it.

 

[Kilmore]

Not sure if it was mentioned in this thread or not, but how many shuttles are left? Is Atlantis the only one?

And what of the space station, someone said that there were people in the space station. Is that true?

There's three shuttles left: Discovery, Endeavor, and Atlantis.

There's two Americans and a Russian on the Space Station. The shuttle disaster has disrupted the timetable for their crew rotation, but the International Space Station has a Russian Soyuz capsule docked on standby at all times should evacuation be necessary. A shuttle, the Endeavor I believe, was scheduled to deliver more pieces and a crew rotation for the station, but I believe that since the shuttles are grounded indefinitely after the tragedy, NASA and Rosaviacosmos will rotate the crews with a Soyuz launch and put off further station construction until the shuttles are clear to launch again.

The space station is not up to it's full potential yet, but it is certainly liveable and workable now, and the Russians have just launched a freighter that will keep them supplied until summer.

The station mission is not really jeapordized by the loss of Columbia. The Columbia wasn't even able to operate with the station and was only used for science and satellite missions. The other three shuttles do the work on the station.

I see the shuttles being grounded for a year at most. The loss of the Challenger was due to internal problems that were not able to be discovered until months of investigation. The Columbia seems to have been lost to more obvious causes.

 

[Storminator]

The speed and height of the shuttle during its destruction rules out any sort of missile or aircraft attack, so I think we can just rule out terrorism, but the conspiracy people are still coming out of the woodwork all over the net. (I'm not saying that about the above quote.)

There are missiles that could reach the shuttle at those speeds and altitudes. They are under development by the USA, and obviously no terrorist has any of them.

But they do exist.

PS

 

[Eridanis]

...NASA and Rosaviacosmos will rotate the crews with a Soyuz launch and put off further station construction until the shuttles are clear to launch again...

I was under the impression that the Russians only had one or two (non-reusable) Soyuz pods left, and they would need a good two year (and a bunch of money from us) to build more. Perhaps I misread something (and unfortunatly, there seem to be a lot of journalists writing things that contradicting other reports).