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Columbia Accident
700,000 acres were searched on foot, 1.6 million from aircraft including 37 helicopters and 7 fixed wing. That's an area equal to a strip 1.25 miles wide from Seattle, WA to Boston, MA. 83,013 pieces of the vehicle were found with a total mass 39% of the original mass of the Columbia orbiter.
Craig Fischer, M.D. - Loss of Contact: Analysis of the Columbia Accident (2016) "Just give you an idea of what we were faced with (showing a map of the debris track), you can see that's Texas on the left at Alabama on the right. Each of those dots represent the position where a piece of the vehicle was found. This stuff was raining down all over this (debris) track, some pieces as big as a car, some pieces as small as a bullet coming in with a tremendous amount of energy and not one person was hit." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eMKygo5Q5E Farewell, Columbia - The recovery and reconstruction of space shuttle Columbia (an incredible effort described and shown by the author of the book, "Bringing Columbia Home: The Untold Story of a Lost Space Shuttle and Her Crew") "A couple years later a more detailed analysis was done and it was determined that the actual approximate cause of the accident was that the plasma melted through the hydraulic lines which caused them to lose control of the elevons and the body flap so Columbia was no longer able to steer itself and it went into a spin and then the (left) wing broke off. The Columbia accident investigation board didn't get into that level of detail with the analysis." Since the data from a massive hypersonic accident is scientifically valuable: "Columbia now resides in a room on the 16th floor of the VAB. What NASA does now to make Columbia a lesson for all of its employees is that everybody who starts working at the Cape, whether you're a contractor or NASA they encourage you very strongly within the first month of working at the Cape to go through the Columbia recovery office and see the consequences of making a decision or making a non-decision and so it's a it's a very tactile reminder of what can happen if you make the wrong decision and don't think through the consequences of an action. So, there are pieces of Columbia that are still on display for people who are working at the cape to be able to take a look at." "Most of Columbia resides in boxes like this again because most of the pieces are only a couple of square inches at most in size and again they're all categorized, they're all catalogued NASA knows where every piece is if somebody wants to strip to study what happened to a certain structure at a certain time they can go through and pull this material out within a day or so and get that information to you. That's what Pam Melroy did in the crew survivability report that came back several years later and pulled critical pieces to be able to analyze in more detail how the crew compartment came apart and put together a detailed timeline of how the orbiter came apart. So, you can fill out a material request form like borrowing any other type of material from an institution." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UVMy9PlhQk Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations...20090002404.pdf According to the first Columbia accident video above, I knew to search for this.: Challenger debris bound for silo OCT. 3, 1986 https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/1.../8455528696000/ CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The torn wreckage of the shuttle Challenger will be buried in two 90-foot-deep missile silos to protect it from the elements and provide security for the spaceship, NASA officials said Friday. The 215,000 pounds of shuttle debris recovered during history's most massive ocean search and salvage operation will be stored indefinitely in the deactivated Minuteman ICBM silos at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station early next year. 'The storage of the Challenger debris will conclude NASA's primary activities related to the analysis and disposition of recovered hardware,' a space agency statement said. Air Force Col. Edward O'Connor, who orchestrated the massive shuttle search operation off the coast of Florida, said using the old silos provided a low cost solution to the problem of where to store the shuttle wreckage. 'I said I would look for a close by place to store this,' he said in a recent interview. 'Putting on my Air Force hat, I said, 'Gee whiz, I know of some old missile sites over on the cape side that may be potential candidates. 'They agreed they could offer up two Minuteman tubes over there and some old blockhouses.' The silos are roughly 15 feet wide and 90 feet deep. They provide about 31,000 cubic feet of storage space. Once the wreckage is placed in the silos, massive concrete caps will be lowered in place. The result will be a weatherproof, controlled environment enclosure for the wreckage.
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The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan Last edited by Winston2021 : 09-16-2022 at 03:07 PM. |
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Yep my great uncle on my mom's side, Uncle Will Roberts, the baby of the family on her dad's side, searched the great Texas Piney Woods area for shuttle wreckage along with the rest of his VFW post's volunteers... they recovered more than a few pieces. For anyone who's never been to the area, basically the entire region from just north of Houston to Texarkana and most of the way over toward Dallas is part of an enormous southern pine forest and thickets, cut by various creeks and rivers.
We had our family reunion for awhile near Rosevine, TX in the fellowship hall of the small Baptist church there, which also served as their VFW meeting hall. They had a big 4x8 banner hanging over the double doors, thanking them for their service in the recovery of Columbia, to their VFW post number, which was also signed by many dozens of NASA people in charge of the recovery effort. They're still finding missing parts of Columbia to this day... in a severe drought in East Texas a few years ago, they found one of the helium spheres which had impacted into the Sam Rayburn or Toledo Bend reservior (can't remember which) and had promptly filled with water and sank... it was about 3-4 feet in diameter IIRC. It had corroded pretty badly but was still recognizable and was recovered from the lake bed after being exposed due to the shallow lake levels. Parts of Columbia were even found on the tracks of the Texas State Railroad, which runs between Palestine, TX and Rusk, TX through the Piney Woods region. Later! OL J R
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I highly recommend the book Bringing Columbia Home: The Untold Story of a Lost Space Shuttle and Her Crew. It is one of the most memorable books I have ever read. It's an amazing story that carries you along from tragic lows to exhilarating highs.
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Quote:
Farewell, Columbia - The recovery and reconstruction of space shuttle Columbia in 2003 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UVMy9PlhQk
__________________
The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan |
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Not Columbia, but...
NOVEMBER 10, 2022 Section of destroyed shuttle Challenger found on ocean floor https://phys.org/news/2022-11-secti...cean-floor.html It's one of the biggest pieces of Challenger found in the decades since the acciden t, according to Ciannilli, and the first remnant to be discovered since two fragments from the left wing washed ashore in 1996. Divers for a TV documentary first spotted the piece in March while looking for wreckage of a World War II plane. NASA verified through video a few months ago that the piece was part of the shuttle that broke apart shortly after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986. All seven on board were killed, including the first schoolteacher bound for space, Christa McAuliffe. The underwater video provided "pretty clear and convincing evidence," said Ciannilli. The piece is more than 15 feet by 15 feet (4.5 meters by 4.5 meters); it's likely bigger because part of it is covered with sand. Because there are square thermal tiles on the piece, it's believed to be from the shuttle's belly, Ciannilli said. Roughly 118 tons (107 metric tons) of Challenger debris have been recovered since the accident. That represents about 47% of the entire vehicle, including parts of the two solid-fuel boosters and external fuel tank. Far less has been recovered of Columbia—42 tons (38 metric tons) representing 38% of the shuttle. The Columbia remains are stored in converted offices inside Kennedy's massive hangar. A History Channel documentary detailing the latest Challenger discovery airs Nov. 22. https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/hir...stroyed-s-2.jpg
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The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan |
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