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Off Topic :-(

To those on the Columbia and their families, our thoughts are with you.

Sadly,

L

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Lee Ladisky

Space Shuttle Columbia

A moment of silence in memory of the seven astronauts involved in this morning's tragic events...







...but for the grace of God go I.

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God bless America, my home sweet home...

Since the Apollo days, I've wanted to go into space. Pushing 40 now, I'd still give anything to go. I suspect Columbia's final crew had the same attitude.


May God comfort their families and friends.

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"Yeah, he can talk. It's gettin' him to shut up that's the trick!"
-Shrek

Thoughts

My thoughts and prayers are with the astronauts families, both of the Columbia and the Challenger. It must bring back all the pain for those families of the Challenger astronauts.

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"When I am Empress...Heads will roll!"
Queen of Parts

*sigh* What another sad day for America... If budget spending was never to be cut, wouldn't we be using the x33 by now? (horrid grammer there.. sorry)

I was told of it happening at 9 AM CST, when i was in the audtiroium before a huge chior thing i was doing.. Within a minute i had the rueters report up with mroe info than we were told sharing with my friends. MY monthly service bill just paid for itself there.

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-miradu

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Originally posted by miradu
*sigh* What another sad day for America... If budget spending was never to be cut, wouldn't we be using the x33 by now?

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<IMG WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="50" SRC=http://www.visorcentral.com/images/visorcentral.gif> VisorCentral Discussion Moderator
Do files get embarrassed when they get unzipped?

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Originally posted by ToolkiT
The most sad thing I found that unlike the chalanger these guys were allmost home.. just a few minutes away... very tragic...

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-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

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Originally posted by dick-richardson

I find that to be the most comforting. They were able to enjoy one of the most sought after experiences known to man. The Challenger crew died in anticipation.

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<IMG WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="50" SRC=http://www.visorcentral.com/images/visorcentral.gif> VisorCentral Discussion Moderator
Do files get embarrassed when they get unzipped?

Let the sweet fresh breezes heal me
As they rove around the girth
Of our lovely mother planet
Of the cool, green hills of Earth.

We rot in the molds of Venus,
We retch at her tainted breath.
Foul are her flooded jungles,
Crawling with unclean death.

[ --- the harsh bright soil of Luna ---
--- Saturn's rainbow rings ---
--- the frozen night of Titan --- ]

We've tried each spinning space mote
And reckoned its true worth:
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth.

The arching sky is calling
Spacemen back to their trade.
ALL HANDS! STAND BY! FREE FALLING!
And the lights below us fade.

Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps a race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet ---

We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.

-- Robert A. Heinlein

Gus, Roger, Ed...

Dick, Mike, El, Judy, Ron, Greg, Christa...

Vladimir, Georgi, Viktor, Vladislav...

Take care of your new brothers and sisters for us, willya?

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Originally posted by ToolkiT
That is also true... either way it is very sad this happened..

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-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

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Originally posted by miradu
*sigh* What another sad day for America... If budget spending was never to be cut, wouldn't we be using the x33 by now? (horrid grammer there.. sorry)

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Is there really a *need* for humans to go to space? Its not that we are venturing very far out of the earth's atmosphere anyhow.

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My life is in my Treo... Where is yours?

It's all baby steps. You can't just build one vehicle and launch and travel everywhere. From each success and each failure they learn something. Remember the Space program is not just for travelling, it is also for performing scientific experiments in a weightless environment, communications etc.

And humans may not be physically venturing outside the atmosphere, but there are many "robots" or "probes" that are. This time next year, there will be two new Rovers scooting around Mars. It's all so fascinating.

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Originally posted by yardie
Is there really a *need* for humans to go to space? Its not that we are venturing very far out of the earth's atmosphere anyhow.

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"Yeah, he can talk. It's gettin' him to shut up that's the trick!"
-Shrek

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Originally posted by Tom LaPrise


And we didn't have to explore other continents or the oceans, and we didn't have to develop air travel. But we're human, and we seem programmed to test our boundaries and to see "what's out there" and actually GET out there eventually.

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<a href="http://www.kurtramsauer.com">KurtRamsauer.com</a>

I know NASA's people are looking at better pictures than the one released (taken by the Air Force telescope), but my own amateur observation is that the picture makes a whole lot more sense if you invert the colors so you're seeing a brightly-glowing shuttle against a dark sky. (I know it was daylight when the picture was taken, but the shuttle's glow would overpower that and the sky would appear dark by comparison.) Seen this way, the "jagged leading edge" everyone seems to be referring to on the left wing looks more like a brightening of the glow where the wing transitions into the "wing glove," indicating greater frictional heating (or maybe incandescence of material exposed by missing tiles) at that area--which is just ahead of and outboard of the wheel well door.

Early failures of brake line temperature sensors and later failure of landing-gear strut temperature sensor data makes sense--the landing gear "retracts" forward, putting the wheels ahead of the strut. Heat would get to the brakes before getting to the strut.

I wish they would publish more pictures from that telescope soon...

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"Yeah, he can talk. It's gettin' him to shut up that's the trick!"
-Shrek

Where can I see these hi-res images?

I've been on holiday on Jan 31st so I didn't know about the shuttle crash until 4 days later.

I had been following the developments aboard the Columbia on Space.com just the day before I left and the crew were happily talking about the homecoming trip. They never made it. It's just sad. The Columbia is also my favorite shuttle, partly it's the first space shuttle, and because I grew up watching it launch into space over and over again until this day with the word Columbia etched into my mind.

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Originally posted by Tom LaPrise
I know NASA's people are looking at better pictures than the one released (taken by the Air Force telescope), but my own amateur observation is that the picture makes a whole lot more sense if you invert the colors so you're seeing a brightly-glowing shuttle against a dark sky. (I know it was daylight when the picture was taken, but the shuttle's glow would overpower that and the sky would appear dark by comparison.) Seen this way, the "jagged leading edge" everyone seems to be referring to on the left wing looks more like a brightening of the glow where the wing transitions into the "wing glove," indicating greater frictional heating (or maybe incandescence of material exposed by missing tiles) at that area--which is just ahead of and outboard of the wheel well door.

Early failures of brake line temperature sensors and later failure of landing-gear strut temperature sensor data makes sense--the landing gear "retracts" forward, putting the wheels ahead of the strut. Heat would get to the brakes before getting to the strut.

I wish they would publish more pictures from that telescope soon...

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I'm just a dreamer..

So far, only the one image has been released to the public. I found it on yahoo.com's front page; by now, you might have to do a little looking.

I'm still in shock about it. I remember watching Columbia's first launch in a college dorm room (with one of the guys who went on to help design the patch the final crew wore). Hard to believe it's gone...

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"Yeah, he can talk. It's gettin' him to shut up that's the trick!"
-Shrek

alternatively

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Originally posted by KRamsauer
It's like the squabbles you have with your family. Sure, they can be a pain, but as soon as an external force threatens your family, all those differences seem to melt away.

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