Air Force mini-shuttle hits one year mark....

[David E. Powell]

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-air-force-space-drone-20120307,0,5772969.story

<http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-air-force-space-
drone-20120307,0,5772969.story>

[Daryl]

Could it be that it's still up because they want it to be or is it that
they can't quite figure it out how to bring it down 0:)

[Brian Thorn]

Well, they brought down the first one okay. But I'm starting to wonder
whether this is an endurance test, or if something has gone wrong and
it can't be recovered.

Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Does make you wonder quite what the point is.
Brian

--
Brian Gaff - bri...@blueyonder.co.uk
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Brian Thorn" <btho...@suddenlink.net> wrote in message
news:4f838bcf$0$19751$bbae...@news.suddenlink.net...

[David E. Powell]

On Apr 9, 8:13 pm, Daryl <dh...@tvnospammoviesforfree.com> wrote:
> On 4/9/2012 9:48 AM, David E. Powell wrote:
>

> >http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-air-force-space-drone-...

>
> > <http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-air-force-space-
> > drone-20120307,0,5772969.story>
>
> Could it be that it's still up because they want it to be or is it that
> they can't quite figure it out how to bring it down 0:)

LOL! It would be a great PR move if they couldn't. "Yeah... we're
doing a high endurance mission! That's it! That's the ticket!"

[Daryl]

Reminds me of the Johnson Routine. (let's see who gets that one)

I sense a movie in here some place. Make it manned where they keep
delivering supplies to the crew seekritly. Star a young Clint Eastwood,
aging until today.

[Alan Erskine]

I was thinking along the lines of The Forgotten Astronaut.

[Daryl]

With only a few days supplies, it would make too short a movie. But
with it being resupplied by robot crafts, it could be a really neat
twist. Maybe Universal would be interested.

Or, it could be any number of early manned Soviet missions ]:}

[bob urz]

My theory is with the Military budget cuts, they defunded the ground
stations and its just cruising around in space with no one to talk to
on the ground. There putting a bunch of new drones in storage.
sillier things have happened....

This thing was suppose to fit in the shuttle bay? well if it had an
issue, there is NO shuttle to bring it back.

bob

[JF Mezei]

bob urz wrote:

> This thing was suppose to fit in the shuttle bay? well if it had an
> issue, there is NO shuttle to bring it back.

But we all know the military have their own secret shuttle. Some say it
is like the others, while others say it is a titanium skinned one with
winglets (do winglets make sense on a delta wing ?)

:-) :-) :-)

[Me]

On Apr 11, 7:38 pm, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:

> But we all know the military have their own secret shuttle.

There is no such thing.

[Me]

On Apr 11, 12:04 pm, bob urz <so...@inetnebr.com> wrote:

> My theory is with the Military budget cuts, they defunded the ground
> stations

They haven't shut down the AFSCN or TDRSS.

[Snidely]

Me formulated the question :

> On Apr 11, 7:38 pm, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
>
>> But we all know the military have their own secret shuttle.
>
>
> There is no such thing.

Does the Air Force have their own smiley faces?

/dps

--
Who, me? And what lacuna?

[Oldmilret]

On Sat, 14 Apr 2012 22:21:54 -0700, Snidely <snide...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Me formulated the question :
>> On Apr 11, 7:38 pm, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> But we all know the military have their own secret shuttle.
>>
>>
>> There is no such thing.
>
>Does the Air Force have their own smiley faces?
>
>/dps

http://www.qsl.net/wb0ydi/jokes.html

[Brian Gaff]

as everyone now knows it exists, it seems a strange thing to do, to leave it
up there with no explanation. Was not the idea eventually to man one of
these drones?

One could have great fun with one of those.
grin.
Brian

--
From the Bed of Brian Gaff.
The email is valid as bri...@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user.
"Me" <charlie...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1c8a86bd-8f5f-4c60...@m16g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...

[bob haller]

On Apr 15, 7:02 am, "Brian Gaff" <bria...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> as everyone now knows it exists, it seems a strange thing to do, to leave it
> up there with no explanation. Was not the idea eventually to man one of
> these drones?

not this version its too small. a later larger version perhaps

[Chuck]

Interestingly the cargo bay of the X-37 is about the same size as the
payload bay of the X-20, and they considered the option of placing a
second man there.

[bob haller]

its one thing to ad a man for a half day flight, but far harder to add
space & consumablles for a manned flight of at least a month

[Daryl]

> space& consumablles for a manned flight of at least a month

One month is doable. Try it for a year. Even if the consumables
were to be provided, imagine the basket case (that's going to be
the mode of transportation for the Astronaut) that you will be
getting back.


--
http://tvmoviesforfree.com
for free movies and Nostalgic TV. Tons of Military shows and
programs.

[bob haller]

> --http://tvmoviesforfree.com

> for free movies and Nostalgic TV.  Tons of Military shows and
> programs.

far better to send a robot.....a intelligent one

[Daryl]

That's like trying to send an intelligent Human. If you were all
that fired smart, would you be going there in the first place?

Robots or IA isn't very intelligent.

--

[bob haller]

because the robot can go places the human cant, costs a fractin of the
cost of a human, cuts dramatically the costs of a entire mission. when
the robot fails no one mourns the loss of life.

science return is less but the program can contiinue operating near
forever.

beyond which the robot can be sterilized to prevent contamination....

[Vaughn]

On 4/19/2012 5:15 AM, bob haller wrote:
>
> because the robot can go places the human cant, costs a fractin of the
> cost of a human, cuts dramatically the costs of a entire mission. when
> the robot fails no one mourns the loss of life.
>
> science return is less but the program can contiinue operating near
> forever.

Which can greatly increase the science gain over the human mission which
will be weeks at most.

>
> beyond which the robot can be sterilized to prevent contamination....

Part of the reason the robot mission is so cheap is that there is no
need to return the robot to earth. (One-way human missions are
physically possible, but culturally impossible.) This also neatly
solves any (albeit remote) concern of bringing some plague back to earth.

[Daryl]

You looked around you lately? We could use a good plague or two.

--

[Jeff Findley]

In article <3dea1a50-fc1b-4542-a146-568e6955a778
@fo16g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, hal...@aol.com says...

Too bad there is no such thing an an *intelligent* robot.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. ;) "
- tinker

[Jeff Findley]

In article <jmov38$ja0$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, vaugh...@gmail.com
says...

>
> On 4/19/2012 5:15 AM, bob haller wrote:
> >
> > because the robot can go places the human cant, costs a fractin of the
> > cost of a human, cuts dramatically the costs of a entire mission. when
> > the robot fails no one mourns the loss of life.
> >
> > science return is less but the program can contiinue operating near
> > forever.
>
> Which can greatly increase the science gain over the human mission which
> will be weeks at most.

Only in some ways. Note that manned lunar missions returned *far* more
lunar samples to earth bound labs than unmanned lunar missions ever did
(i.e. the Soviet Union did an unmanned sample return from the moon).
Also note that when the US manned lunar program stopped, pretty much all
unmanned missions stopped as well. It wasn't until decades later that
new lunar orbiting missions were funded.

> > beyond which the robot can be sterilized to prevent contamination....
>
> Part of the reason the robot mission is so cheap is that there is no
> need to return the robot to earth. (One-way human missions are
> physically possible, but culturally impossible.) This also neatly
> solves any (albeit remote) concern of bringing some plague back to earth.

But not returning to earth means no samples for earth bound labs. Note
that earth bound labs will *always* be far better equipped than the
pitiful subset of instruments that will fit on an unmanned (or even
manned) probe.

Also note that a manned mission is necessarily a sample return mission,
unless the crew is expandable, which isn't going to happen. It's
politically unacceptable to plan on having an expendable crew.

[Paul F Austin]

On 4/19/2012 8:53 AM, Daryl wrote:
> On 4/19/2012 6:05 AM, Vaughn wrote:
>> On 4/19/2012 5:15 AM, bob haller wrote:
>>>
>>
>>>
>>> beyond which the robot can be sterilized to prevent
>>> contamination....
>>
>> Part of the reason the robot mission is so cheap is that there is
>> no need to return the robot to earth. (One-way human missions are
>> physically possible, but culturally impossible.) This also neatly
>> solves any (albeit remote) concern of bringing some plague back
>> to earth.
>>
>
> You looked around you lately? We could use a good plague or two.
>

Are you volunteering?

Paul

[Daryl]

I have been called many things but a Plague, never.

[Vaughn]

On 4/19/2012 9:15 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:

>
> Only in some ways. Note that manned lunar missions returned *far* more
> lunar samples to earth bound labs than unmanned lunar missions ever did
> (i.e. the Soviet Union did an unmanned sample return from the moon).

True.

> Also note that when the US manned lunar program stopped, pretty much all
> unmanned missions stopped as well. It wasn't until decades later that
> new lunar orbiting missions were funded.

Your point?

>
> But not returning to earth means no samples for earth bound labs.

True, but returning a capsule of samples to earth, (difficult as it may
be) is far simpler that returning an entire spaceship complete with
human life support back to earth. With rovers, samples could be
intelligently collected over a long period of time, and from a wide
area. Our Mars rovers found many wonders over their years of operation
that scientists would love to lay hands on.

> Note
> that earth bound labs will *always* be far better equipped than the
> pitiful subset of instruments that will fit on an unmanned (or even
> manned) probe.

No doubt.

>
> Also note that a manned mission is necessarily a sample return mission,

Agreed.

> unless the crew is expandable, which isn't going to happen. It's
> politically unacceptable to plan on having an expendable crew.

I already made that point, only my words were "culturally impossible".

Vaughn

[JF Mezei]

bob haller wrote:
> when
> the robot fails no one mourns the loss of life.

But when there are humans, they can often fix problems or get around
them to continue the mission.

[Dan]

True, but sometimes it is cheaper to accept the loss than it would be
to provide life support for a human. This would be especially true for
interplanetary missions.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

[Jeff Findley]

In article <jmpb97$kb5$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, vaugh...@gmail.com
says...

>
> On 4/19/2012 9:15 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
> >
> > Also note that when the US manned lunar program stopped, pretty much
all
> > unmanned missions stopped as well. It wasn't until decades later that
> > new lunar orbiting missions were funded.
>
> Your point?

Preparation for manned lunar landings was the primary driver for US
unmanned lunar missions. Once the manned missions stopped, the unmanned
missions did as well.

No Buck Rogers, no bucks.

[Dean]

On Apr 20, 9:55 am, Jeff Findley <jeff.find...@nospam.ugs.com> wrote:
> In article <jmpb97$kb...@speranza.aioe.org>, vaughnsi...@gmail.com

I don't necessarily think unmanned moon missions stopped because
manned ones did. They stopped because NASA was diverting resources to
the shuttle outer planets exploration programs. Only so much money
was available and at the time NASA seemed to think they had worn out
moon exploration.

[Greg (Strider) Moore]

"Dean" wrote in message
news:14c06069-5e60-4829...@d20g2000vbh.googlegroups.com...

The unmanned lunar missions pretty much had one purpose, "survey the moon so
we can safely land".

Note that in fact all the US ones stopped prior to the first manned landing,
since they had collected the necessary data.

And even then, cuts in the manned program impact the outer planets missions.

Consider the original Grand Tour missions and others were planning on using
Saturn Vs from the second batch that was never ordered. What we got was a
scaled down mission.

No Bucks Rogers, No bucks.


>

--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

[Dan]

I tend to think the U.S. public had become bored with lunar missions
and the funding dried up. I believe that's why the last few Apollo
capsules were used for Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz instead of going to the
moon as planned.

Skylab also led to many controllers leaving NASA. It seems spending
long hours watching Skylab astronauts just wasn't as exciting as the
moon shots.

As exciting as shuttle initially was it just wasn't as mission
specific as Apollo nor as exciting. It didn't have an end goal on the
scale of the moon landings.

[Greg (Strider) Moore]

>"Dan" wrote in message
>news:QpudnQNUiYgjXQzS...@giganews.com...

>
> I tend to think the U.S. public had become bored with lunar missions and
> the funding dried up. I believe that's why the last few Apollo capsules
> were used for Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz instead of going to the moon as
> planned.

Well funding was already drying up BEFORE Apollo 11 landed.
Funding peaked in 1966. By 1969 it was already about 2/3rds of the peak.

Note that Skylab was already in the works in 1969, and in 1970 Apollo 20 was
cancelled to free up the Saturn V needed for the launch.

Also there were spare Saturn IBs and Apollo CSMs. Even if Apollos 18-20
(technically 15, 19, 20 I believe) had flown there was extra hardware.

>
> Skylab also led to many controllers leaving NASA. It seems spending long
> hours watching Skylab astronauts just wasn't as exciting as the moon
> shots.
>

Well there was also a lot less work involved.

> As exciting as shuttle initially was it just wasn't as mission specific
> as Apollo nor as exciting. It didn't have an end goal on the scale of the
> moon landings.
>
>Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired
>
>

[bob haller]

after apollo 13 nasa got nervous and wanted to end the program on a
positive note. that killed the moon program.....

there were at least 2 and possiby 3 saturn 5s left over that coukd of
been used for the grand tour mission rather than being left to rot
sitting outdoors with birds nesting in them. why werent they used?

the shuttle was underfunded and over promised from the beginging. cost
cuttlg like dropping the liquid fly back booster , dropping the
jetisonable crew compartment, talk of 50 flights per year,

[Greg (Strider) Moore]

"bob haller" wrote in message
news:f59d8e53-a9dd-41e1...@r13g2000vbg.googlegroups.com...
>
>

As usual like a stopped clock Bob gets a few things right, but most things
wrong.

>after apollo 13 nasa got nervous and wanted to end the program on a
>positive note. that killed the moon program.....

Yes, this basically correct (even before Apollo 13 some folks in NASA were
apparently saying, "Ok, we fulfilled Kennedy's dream let's stop for a bit.")

>
>there were at least 2 and possiby 3 saturn 5s left over that coukd of
>been used for the grand tour mission rather than being left to rot
>sitting outdoors with birds nesting in them. why werent they used?
>

There were only 2, not possibly 3. There were 15 production Saturn Vs
built.

Apollo 4,6,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17, Skylab were all Saturn V flights.

There are some test article pieces left over, hence why some folks count 3.

>the shuttle was underfunded and over promised from the beginging. cost
>cuttlg like dropping the liquid fly back booster , dropping the
>jetisonable crew compartment, talk of 50 flights per year,
>

As has been pointed out to you, the "jetisonable" crew compartment was never
really in the plans other than in your imagination.

And the 50 flights a year was a lie from day one.

[bob haller]

On Apr 20, 9:00 pm, "Greg \(Strider\) Moore"

at the time of challeger the crew compartment remained mostly intact
thru vehicle break up, fall to ocean impact. news reports at the time
stated it was a leftover of the jettisonable crew compartment plan. as
a matter of fact news said by the time the jettisonable plan was
dropped the crew compartment was already designed and built, and it
wasnt practical to go back and lighten it.

someday I will dig around and find a link to the ariticle.

the solids were a bad choice, not aving a jettisonable crew
compartment was also a poor choice.

the combo of both should of never been approved for flight.

[Jeff Findley]

In article <14c06069-5e60-4829-8577-73840e8849e4
@d20g2000vbh.googlegroups.com>, dama...@gmail.com says...

>
> On Apr 20, 9:55 am, Jeff Findley <jeff.find...@nospam.ugs.com> wrote:
> > In article <jmpb97$kb...@speranza.aioe.org>, vaughnsi...@gmail.com
> > says...
> > > On 4/19/2012 9:15 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
> > Preparation for manned lunar landings was the primary driver for US
> > unmanned lunar missions.  Once the manned missions stopped, the unmanned
> > missions did as well.
> >
> > No Buck Rogers, no bucks.
>

> I don't necessarily think unmanned moon missions stopped because
> manned ones did. They stopped because NASA was diverting resources to
> the shuttle outer planets exploration programs. Only so much money
> was available and at the time NASA seemed to think they had worn out
> moon exploration.

Primarily the lion's share of the diversion was to the Space Shuttle
program, which wasn't going back to the moon anytime soon. Also, quite
a bit of money was spent on unmanned payloads both for deployment by the
shuttle (e.g. LDEF) and in service of the shuttle (e.g. TDRS).

[Jeff Findley]

In article <f59d8e53-a9dd-41e1-aa8a-
cd2ed3...@r13g2000vbg.googlegroups.com>, hal...@aol.com says...

B.S. The program was ended due to funding cuts. The US beat the
"godless commies" to the moon, plus Vietnam, plus other budget
constraints meant less funding for NASA.

> there were at least 2 and possiby 3 saturn 5s left over that coukd of
> been used for the grand tour mission rather than being left to rot
> sitting outdoors with birds nesting in them. why werent they used?

Funding cuts, pure and simple.

> the shuttle was underfunded and over promised from the beginging. cost
> cuttlg like dropping the liquid fly back booster , dropping the
> jetisonable crew compartment, talk of 50 flights per year,

Yes, development costs were slashed at the expense of increased
operational costs. The talk of 50 flights per year was pure marketing.
There was never going to be enough demand for those 50 flights, even
when you included "commercial" and DOD flights.

The "jetisonable crew compartment" was never a hard requirement, as far
as I can tell. NASA was somewhat flexible when it came to crew escape
(note that Gemini had e-seats, but neither Apollo nor the "operational"
space shuttle had them).

And yes, Spacelab was even a stop-gap measure due to lack of a space
station. Spending a week or two on a Spacelab flight was a crutch
compared to a six month tour on ISS.

[Jeff Findley]

In article <4fc53522-5ee9-42a6-acf2-
8823ee...@d4g2000vbn.googlegroups.com>, hal...@aol.com says...

This has nothing to do with crew escape and everything to do with the
fact that the crew compartment was designed to be a pressure vessel
built to handle 14.7 psi of internal pressure. For thermal reasons, it
was separate from the outer shell (which included the thermal protection
system).

In other words, the crew compartment was a pretty strong bit that broke
free when Challenger broke up. It was never seriously envisioned as an
escape system. The increased complexity and increased mass budget to
make that happen meant that the suggestion was D.O.A. from the very
beginning.

> fall to ocean impact. news reports at the time
> stated it was a leftover of the jettisonable crew compartment plan. as
> a matter of fact news said by the time the jettisonable plan was
> dropped the crew compartment was already designed and built, and it
> wasnt practical to go back and lighten it.
>
> someday I will dig around and find a link to the ariticle.

Post Challenger journalism digging up a "proposal" along these lines
does *not* mean that it would have worked, nor that it was ever
*seriously* considered once the "back of the envelope" calculations were
done to show how much extra mass it would add.

> the solids were a bad choice, not aving a jettisonable crew
> compartment was also a poor choice.
>
> the combo of both should of never been approved for flight.

Engineering contains compromises made when building an operational
vehicle. Certainly one can argue that in hindsight that solids weren't
a good idea or that crew escape wasn't taken seriously due to overly
optimistic safety analyses. But that's *in hindsight*.

The best we can do is learn from the past and move forward. But you
were the one in this group who was constantly calling for an end to
shuttle flights based on one flimsy "scenario" after another. If you
were in charge, the shuttle would have been grounded after Challenger
and never flown again.

[Dan]

There were many news reports that were incorrect which is true of any
event.

Note that the solid boosters worked several times before Challenger
and since then, albeit modified, without failure. If you add up all the
successful flights and ground runs a single failure isn't all that bad.
Granted, there were human casualties that one time, but using controlled
explosions to heave people into space can't be made risk free.

As for an escape capsule, would it really have saved the Challenger
crew? Maybe, we will never know, but the added weight would certainly
have reduced cargo capacity. Shuttle was never more than a truck to
orbit. It was never economical nor cheap.


I remember in the 1960s selling points for shuttle were weekly
launches and payload costs would be reduced to less than 10% of such
costs pre-shuttle. Perhaps there still is a way to achieve this, but
shuttle could never have done it.

Avoidance of risks in space shots would mean nothing would have been
accomplished. No moon landings, no ISS, no communications satellites, no
weather satellites, no GPS etc.

[Brian Thorn]

On Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:53:43 -0700 (PDT), Dean <dama...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>I don't necessarily think unmanned moon missions stopped because
>manned ones did. They stopped because NASA was diverting resources to
>the shuttle outer planets exploration programs. Only so much money
>was available and at the time NASA seemed to think they had worn out
>moon exploration.

Well, the budget is of course the reason, but your description is a
little off. Shuttle didn't really get going until Apollo was already
at death's door, so Apollo funding wasn't really diverted to Shuttle
(instead, it mostly vanished in the bottomless pits labeled "Vietnam"
and "Great Society".) Similarly, the outer planets missions didn't
really feed at the Apollo trough, either. The original Voyager
mission, remember, was to be a behemoth launched on Saturn V. That
died with Apollo.

Brian

[JF Mezei]

bob haller wrote:

> at the time of challeger the crew compartment remained mostly intact
> thru vehicle break up, fall to ocean impact. news reports at the time
> stated it was a leftover of the jettisonable crew compartment plan.

I clearly remember NASA initially stating categorically that there was
no chance that the crew compartment would have survived the explosion.
It was only much later that they admitted that the compartment had
survived and the crew probably killed at impact with water. (And NASA
quickly buried the orbiter remains to stop any debate/speculation on
crew survivability of this accident)


Just because the cabin crew separated fairly cleanly from the paylod bay
does not mean that it was designed specifically to do that. The ship
*broke* apart. It just so happens that the area between the wing
leading edge and crew compartment was probably a weak point.

All this is water under the bridge now because it will be decades before
a similar type of advanced ship is developped again.

[Brian Thorn]

On Sun, 22 Apr 2012 02:35:45 -0400, JF Mezei
<jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> wrote:

>bob haller wrote:
>
>> at the time of challeger the crew compartment remained mostly intact
>> thru vehicle break up, fall to ocean impact. news reports at the time
>> stated it was a leftover of the jettisonable crew compartment plan.
>
>
>
>I clearly remember NASA initially stating categorically that there was
>no chance that the crew compartment would have survived the explosion.

You must inhabit a different universe than the one I'm living in,
because I don't remember that at all. I do remember them saying there
was no chance the *crew* survived, which was of course correct. I
don't remember any technical details being discussed by NASA at all in
the first days and week after the disaster. In fact, they went into
full lockdown mode and said almost nothing after the official "the
crew is dead" announcement a few hours after the disaster. Their
response was always "we'll have no comment" or "we won't speculate
until all data is available and analyzed." NASA was nearly drawn and
quartered by the press and public alike for not saying anything in
those days immediately after the disaster. That left the press and the
aerospace community to fend for itself. The "crew compartment didn't
survive the explosion" hypothesis was almost certainly from some
reporter or talking head, in the absense of anything official coming
out of NASA. (NASA's openness after Columbia was widely praised as
learning from their missteps after Challenger.)

>It was only much later that they admitted that the compartment had
>survived and the crew probably killed at impact with water.

NASA said nothing once the Rogers Commission was appointed, and
deferred all questions to them, saying "they are cooperating fully"
and "we won't discuss this while the investigation is still underway"
etc. The Rogers Commission Report was published in June, and the main
volume includes clear photographs of the Crew Compartment falling free
and apparently intact.

>(And NASA
>quickly buried the orbiter remains to stop any debate/speculation on
>crew survivability of this accident)

Yeah, they buried it alright. They really should have published that
info in one of the appendices of the Rogers Commission Report.
What? They did? Oh, never mind. It has been known to anyone interested
since mid-1986 that the crew on the Flight Deck survived the breakup.
There is no way to tell about the Mid Deck crew, because it was too
badly smashed on impact, but it seems likely they survived too.

NASA didn't really bury anything by the time the Rogers Commission
report was published in June, 1986, it is just that the public was
tired of hearing about Challenger by then, and it wasn't widely
reported by the media.

Brian

[Brian Thorn]

On Sat, 21 Apr 2012 04:08:30 -0700 (PDT), bob haller <hal...@aol.com>
wrote:

>at the time of challeger the crew compartment remained mostly intact
>thru vehicle break up, fall to ocean impact. news reports at the time
>stated it was a leftover of the jettisonable crew compartment plan.

Challenger's left wing came off cleanly and can be seen falling
intact, too. Does that mean the left wing was meant to separate?

Brian

[bob haller]

On Apr 22, 11:52 am, Brian Thorn <bthor...@suddenlink.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Apr 2012 04:08:30 -0700 (PDT), bob haller <hall...@aol.com>

> wrote:
>
> >at the time of challeger the crew compartment remained mostly intact
> >thru vehicle break up, fall to ocean impact. news reports at the time
> >stated it was a leftover of the jettisonable crew compartment plan.
>
> Challenger's left wing came off cleanly and can be seen falling
> intact, too. Does that mean the left wing was meant to separate?
>
> Brian

no the crew compartment was originally designed to be jettisonable in
a accident.....

to save money and weight this safety feature was deleted, but the
heavy structure was already built, without the ordinaces to seperate
it, or extra oxygen....

thats why the compartment survived.

one day i will try to find this on the net

[Brian Thorn]

On Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:55:16 -0700 (PDT), bob haller <hal...@aol.com>
wrote:

>> Challenger's left wing came off cleanly and can be seen falling
>> intact, too. Does that mean the left wing was meant to separate?

>no the crew compartment was originally designed to be jettisonable in
>a accident.....

No, it wasn't designed that way. There were thoughts early on of
making Shuttle's cabin jettisonable, but they were dropped years
before the final design was settled upon, primarily because it was
clear from the very beginning that such a jettisonable crew
compartment was hopelessly impractical.

>to save money and weight this safety feature was deleted, but the
>heavy structure was already built, without the ordinaces to seperate
>it, or extra oxygen....

No, it was deleted *long* before the final airframe was designed.
Like, five years earlier.

>thats why the compartment survived.

False.

>one day i will try to find this on the net

I won't hold my breath waiting for you to produce this evidence.

Have you tried actually looking in books instead of citing some dimly
remembered internet reference?

http://www.amazon.com/Space-Shuttle-National-Transportation-Missions/dp/0963397451/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335122302&sr=8-1

Brian

[JF Mezei]

Brian Thorn wrote:

> You must inhabit a different universe than the one I'm living in,
> because I don't remember that at all. I do remember them saying there
> was no chance the *crew* survived, which was of course correct.

What I remember is that NASA and/or media stating that there was no need
for a search and rescue because there was no chance they survived the
explosion.

Then, NASA went into "secret mode" leading people to speculate that the
crew might have survived the explosion because NASA refused to discuss
this. Turns out the folks with tin foil hats were right, the crew did
survive the explosion.

However, on the day of the accident, NASA acted as if the crew perished
in the explosion. And when the crew cabin was recovered, it was done in
a hidden fashion to prevent speculation that the crew had survived the
explosion.

NASA's silence caused a PR backlash and politicians reacted by creating
that Commission.


In the minutes after the explosion, had NASA said that it would start a
search and rescue just in case someone had survived, the PR aspect of
this accident would have been quite different because NASA would not
have to cover its error of assuming the crew had died instantly.

[Dan]

Actually, NASA always had helicopters on SAR alert. We sent some from
55th ARRS for some launches. The helicopters would be airborne at the
time of the launch. I don't recall who provided alert helicopters for
Challenger that day, but we sent some down immediately after.

[Brian Thorn]

On Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:44:55 -0400, JF Mezei
<jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> wrote:


>> You must inhabit a different universe than the one I'm living in,
>> because I don't remember that at all. I do remember them saying there
>> was no chance the *crew* survived, which was of course correct.
>
>What I remember is that NASA and/or media stating that there was no need
>for a search and rescue because there was no chance they survived the
>explosion.

This is the extent of what NASA said officially that day. You might
remember hearing other things, but they weren't from NASA and
therefore have no bearing on what NASA did or didn't do that day.

"It is with deep, heartfelt sorrow that I address you here this
afternoon. At 11:40 a.m. this morning, the space program experienced a
national tragedy with the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger
approximately a minute and a half after launch from here at the
Kennedy Space Center. I regret that I have to report, that based on
very preliminary searches of the ocean where the Challenger impacted
this morning… these searches have not revealed any evidence that the
crew of Challenger survived.

The dedicated crew members of Challenger are Commander Francis Dick
Scobee, Pilot Michael J. Smith, Mission Specialists Dr. Judy Resnik,
Ellison Onizuka and Dr. Ronald McNair. And Payload Specialists onboard
were Christa McAuliffe and Greg Jarvis.

All early indications at the Launch Control Center at the Kennedy
Space Center had indicated that the launch was normal up to
approximately 11:40 a.m. this morning, about a minute or so into the
flight. Flight controllers in the launch Control Center here, and in
the Mission Control Center in Houston, were polled immediately after
the explosion and reported that they did not see anything unusual up
to that point.

The Solid Rocket Booster recovery ships were immediately dispatched to
the area, approximately 18 or so miles downrange from Kennedy, along
with various Coast Guard and military ships, helicopters and planes.

I have taken an immediate action to form an Interim Investigating
Board to implement early activities in this tragedy. Data from all of
the shuttle instrumentation, photographs, launch pad systems,
hardware, cargo, ground support systems, and even notes made by any
member of the launch team and flight ops team are being impounded for
study. A formal board will be established by the acting administrator
very, very shortly. Subsequent reports on this tragedy will be made by
this formal review board.

I am aware of and have seen the media is showing footage of the launch
today from the NASA Select System. We will not speculate as to the
specific cause of the explosion based on that footage. It will take
all the data, careful review of that data, before we can draw any
conclusions on this national tragedy. Thank you."

- Jesse Moore
NASA Associate Administrator for Spaceflight
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
4:30pm, January 28, 1986
(Five hours after the disaster)

That's it. Everything else is either a fabricated memory of yours, or
the work of the talking heads and correspondents on TV who were making
things up as they went along. And most of those correspondents had no
clue what they were talking about, they were only there for Christa
McAulliffe. They feverishly worked to get people on air who did know
what they were talking about, but almost all of them were elsewhere,
not in Florida, and therefore not privy to what was happening within
NASA that horrible day (Gene Cernan seems to have been a network
favorite that day, but what that retired Apollo veteran knew about
Shuttle, I have no idea.)

Brian

[Brian Thorn]

On Sun, 22 Apr 2012 16:00:58 -0500, Dan <B24...@aol.com> wrote:


>> In the minutes after the explosion, had NASA said that it would start a
>> search and rescue just in case someone had survived, the PR aspect of
>> this accident would have been quite different because NASA would not
>> have to cover its error of assuming the crew had died instantly.
>
> Actually, NASA always had helicopters on SAR alert. We sent some from
>55th ARRS for some launches. The helicopters would be airborne at the
>time of the launch. I don't recall who provided alert helicopters for
>Challenger that day, but we sent some down immediately after.
>
>Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

I'm retired USAF too, and I was at Patrick AFB about 25 miles from KSC
that day (1985-89). I worked in the Commissary at the time. My
co-workers and I were outside the back dock watching the Shuttle
(finally) launch after delays all morning. When Challenger blew up, I
knew somethiing was wrong and hurried back inside where I could hear
the radio. I was thinking they were attempting an RTLS abort. But the
radio (WMEL in Melbourne) had already returned to normal programming.
Crowds of customers were rushing for the doors because word was
spreading around the Commissary that the Shuttle blew up and they
wanted to go see. WMEL broke in after maybe a minute with their
emergency tone, like they used for tornado warnings and then went
straight into "This is a CBS News Special Report..." Sometime in the
next few minutes, one of the Commissary managers got on the PA system
and announced that anyone who was in parked in the Commissary's south
parking lot (between the Commissary and the Base Hospital, and right
next to the heliport) had to move their vehicles immediately, because
the parking lot was going to be used as overflow for rescue
helicopters that might be bringing in injured crew members. There was
now a flood of people (mostly employees like myself) hurrying to their
cars to move them (most of us ended up parking at the Golf Course
across the street.) By the time I got back in the Commissary, I went
to the office where one of the admin staff was on the phone to her
husband who worked at KSC. She was holding back tears because her
husband had just her there was no hope for the crew... they were gone.

So I know NASA and the Air Force did initiate Search & Rescue
operations that day. I know because I was there.

Brian

[JF Mezei]

Brian Thorn wrote:

> That's it. Everything else is either a fabricated memory of yours, or
> the work of the talking heads and correspondents on TV who were making
> things up as they went along.

Fair enough. But I recall (in my fuzzy memory) questions on why NASA
wasn't sending divers down right away to recover potential survivors,
with the answer being that the crew couldn't have survived the explosion.

I am not sure how long after the accident NASA issued the statement you
quoted. But that statement confirms the crew were dead before any
recovery of the crew cabin had been made.

If you look at a plane crash in the sea (such as the Air France one in
the south atlantic a few years ago), it usually takes a number of days
before they switch from SAR to recovery. NASA did it right away.

[Greg (Strider) Moore]

"JF Mezei" wrote in message
news:4f94d756$0$1222$c3e8da3$f017...@news.astraweb.com...

>
>Brian Thorn wrote:
>
>> That's it. Everything else is either a fabricated memory of yours, or
>> the work of the talking heads and correspondents on TV who were making
>> things up as they went along.
>
>
>Fair enough. But I recall (in my fuzzy memory) questions on why NASA
>wasn't sending divers down right away to recover potential survivors,
>with the answer being that the crew couldn't have survived the explosion.
>

Divers to recover potential survivors? That was an idiotic question on the
part of any reporter.
You don't fall from 100K feet and survive underwater. Even had the
astronauts survived the water impact, if they weren't on the surface, they
certainly weren't alive.

>I am not sure how long after the accident NASA issued the statement you
>quoted. But that statement confirms the crew were dead before any
>recovery of the crew cabin had been made.
>

5 hours. He said in the post.

And yes. It was pretty clear to anyone who knew anything about the program
that if they didn't die in the initial break-up (which we know now some did
survive) they almost certainly died on impact (and honestly and morbidly had
they survived that, drowning was not inevitable.)

>If you look at a plane crash in the sea (such as the Air France one in
>the south atlantic a few years ago), it usually takes a number of days
>before they switch from SAR to recovery. NASA did it right away.
>

Yes, because they knew what happened. Note, we didn't learn the true fate
of the Air France flight until just this year. (Though it was suspected long
before). It's conceivable that a ditch at sea (similar to the "Miracle on
the Hudson") could have produced survivors. And since they didn't know the
cause of the accident they had to consider that.

I'll admit, when I first saw the footage that morning (not live) I actually
picked out what I thought was the crew cabin (and later learned I was
accurate) and my first thoughts were to summon rescue assets. When I
learned the peak altitude, I knew there was no chance. I can only assume
that those in the knew had even more facts at hand.

[Dan]

The difference between the Air France disappearance and the
Challenger explosion is the latter was witnessed. The airplane was
simply missing and the hope was their might have been survivors.

In the Challenger exploded at about 48,000 feet. The crew compartment
continued to climb to about 68,000 feet. Even if any crew members
survived the breakup, it seems some did, none could have survived the
ocean impact. Impact was on the order of 200g.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster

Even though the controllers didn't yet know the details of the event
it was obvious no SAR was possible.

[Jeff Findley]

In article <4f93a6c3$0$27644$c3e8da3$14a0...@news.astraweb.com>,
jfmezei...@vaxination.ca says...

>
> bob haller wrote:
>
> > at the time of challeger the crew compartment remained mostly intact
> > thru vehicle break up, fall to ocean impact. news reports at the time
> > stated it was a leftover of the jettisonable crew compartment plan.
>
>
>
> I clearly remember NASA initially stating categorically that there was
> no chance that the crew compartment would have survived the explosion.
> It was only much later that they admitted that the compartment had
> survived and the crew probably killed at impact with water. (And NASA
> quickly buried the orbiter remains to stop any debate/speculation on
> crew survivability of this accident)

It was relatively intact, but it was almost certainly not pressure
tight. Even with the air packs turned ON, the astronauts would have
lost consciousness in a short amount of time.

> Just because the cabin crew separated fairly cleanly from the paylod bay
> does not mean that it was designed specifically to do that. The ship
> *broke* apart. It just so happens that the area between the wing
> leading edge and crew compartment was probably a weak point.
>
> All this is water under the bridge now because it will be decades before
> a similar type of advanced ship is developped again.

Because landing on a runway isn't a hard requirement. The USAF loves
that requirement, but beyond them, there is nothing terribly special
about wheels on a runway during landing.

[Jeff Findley]

In article <4f945fb8$0$9297$c3e8da3$9b4f...@news.astraweb.com>,
jfmezei...@vaxination.ca says...

>
> Brian Thorn wrote:
>
> > You must inhabit a different universe than the one I'm living in,
> > because I don't remember that at all. I do remember them saying there
> > was no chance the *crew* survived, which was of course correct.
>
> What I remember is that NASA and/or media stating that there was no need
> for a search and rescue because there was no chance they survived the
> explosion.

Cite? Foggy memory does not a good argument make.

[Jeff Findley]

In article <4f94d756$0$1222$c3e8da3$f017...@news.astraweb.com>,
jfmezei...@vaxination.ca says...

>
> Brian Thorn wrote:
>
> > That's it. Everything else is either a fabricated memory of yours, or
> > the work of the talking heads and correspondents on TV who were making
> > things up as they went along.
>
>
> Fair enough. But I recall (in my fuzzy memory) questions on why NASA
> wasn't sending divers down right away to recover potential survivors,
> with the answer being that the crew couldn't have survived the explosion.

What planet do you live on? Divers? Are you f-ing serious?

The crew cabin was never designed as an undersea pressure vessel.
Besides, impact with the water almost certainly killed them all
instantly. Even if the thing managed to float, everyone would still be
dead?

> I am not sure how long after the accident NASA issued the statement you
> quoted. But that statement confirms the crew were dead before any
> recovery of the crew cabin had been made.

They were.

> If you look at a plane crash in the sea (such as the Air France one in
> the south atlantic a few years ago), it usually takes a number of days
> before they switch from SAR to recovery. NASA did it right away.

With an aircraft, there is a chance that someone might survive a
ditching. No one was going to survive Challenger, period. Best to
accept that and move on than to give the public false hope that someone
might be found alive.

[Jeff Findley]

In article <8954dd20-1908-405b-a3f0-e1e75d4028e0
@f5g2000vbt.googlegroups.com>, hal...@aol.com says...

>
> On Apr 22, 11:52 am, Brian Thorn <bthor...@suddenlink.net> wrote:
> > On Sat, 21 Apr 2012 04:08:30 -0700 (PDT), bob haller <hall...@aol.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >at the time of challeger the crew compartment remained mostly intact
> > >thru vehicle break up, fall to ocean impact. news reports at the time
> > >stated it was a leftover of the jettisonable crew compartment plan.
> >
> > Challenger's left wing came off cleanly and can be seen falling
> > intact, too. Does that mean the left wing was meant to separate?
> >
> > Brian
>
> no the crew compartment was originally designed to be jettisonable in
> a accident.....

No, it was not. Just because you keep repeating a falsehood, does not
make it true. The crew compartment was never designed to be
"jettisonable in a accident". Just because you can find a study or
proposal along these lines does *not* mean that the crew compartment was
actually designed for this to happen.

> to save money and weight this safety feature was deleted, but the
> heavy structure was already built, without the ordinaces to seperate
> it, or extra oxygen....

It was never a "safety feature" to begin with.

> thats why the compartment survived.

No, it "survived", relatively intact, was because pressure vessels are
necessarily rather sturdy structures. The crew compartment was designed
to be pressurized to 14.7 psi.

> one day i will try to find this on the net

Keep looking Bob, the "proof" which you seek does not exist.

[bob haller]

On Apr 23, 9:07 am, Jeff Findley <jeff.find...@nospam.ugs.com> wrote:
> In article <8954dd20-1908-405b-a3f0-e1e75d4028e0

> @f5g2000vbt.googlegroups.com>, hall...@aol.com says...

another thing to note immediately after the accident parachutes were
spotted, those chutes were from what remained of the solids, they were
sent the destruct order.

those chutes confused people in the early moments after the accident.

another thing to note the shuttle was originally planned to use liquid
fueled engines, and a flyback booster, which would of prevented the o
ring issue...

nasa did serious cost cutting that ultimately caused the end of the
program.......

[Jeff Findley]

In article <e797f010-7de8-4b30-9676-b18b8e4f14e0
@dc2g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, hal...@aol.com says...

> another thing to note immediately after the accident parachutes were
> spotted, those chutes were from what remained of the solids, they were
> sent the destruct order.
>
> those chutes confused people in the early moments after the accident.

They only confused those who were ignorant about the shuttle's complete
lack of crew escape capability.

Only the initial "test" flights contained crew escape in the form of e-
seats for the crew of two. E-seats might not have done the Challenger
crew any good. Trying to eject out of a mangled crew cabin would be
attempted suicide. Of course, not trying would be certain death, so I'd
imagine the crew would have risked it.

> another thing to note the shuttle was originally planned to use liquid
> fueled engines, and a flyback booster, which would of prevented the o
> ring issue...

There were lots of competing concepts until the final design was
selected. But, you're muddying the water by trying to claim that
somehow SRB's "replaced" liquids. That is not the case.

> nasa did serious cost cutting that ultimately caused the end of the
> program.......

Despite the loss of two orbiters and crews, the politicians were all too
happy to keep the program running until ISS was declared "assembly
complete" by NASA. That is now a historical fact.

[Me]

On Apr 22, 3:44 pm, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:

> NASA's silence caused a PR backlash and politicians reacted by creating
> that Commission.
>

Wrong, the commission would have been created regardless

[ala]

"Jeff Findley" <jeff.f...@nospam.ugs.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.29ff1e1de...@news.eternal-september.org...

> Keep looking Bob, the "proof" which you seek does not exist.
>

I would say try after 8 pm no earlier.

[ala]

"Greg (Strider) Moore" <moo...@ignorethisgreenms.com> wrote in message
news:R5ydnVx7sqk2mw_S...@earthlink.com...

> "bob haller" wrote in message
> news:f59d8e53-a9dd-41e1...@r13g2000vbg.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>
>
> As usual like a stopped clock Bob gets a few things right, but most things
> wrong.
>
>

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.==wh auden