Liza Sabater

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Michael Hart <hart@...>
> Date: Sat Feb 1, 2003 11:47:40 AM America/New_York
> To: "Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter" <gmonthly@...>
> Subject: [gmonthly] [posted] it looks like space shuttle columbia blew
> up! (fwd)
> Reply-To: Michael Hart <hart@...>
>
>
> Here is a list of what I have been able to find out on short notice.
>
> Space Shuttle Columbia Breaks Up 40 Miles High Over Texas
>
> Here are the salient points as I have been able to gather them
> from several sources.
>
> 1. Speed was about 12,500 MPH. . .or Mach 6, 6 x speed of sound.
> [Note speed of sound is faster at higher altitudes]
>
> 2. Time of the event: Earliest eyewitness [earwitness] 8:09 CST
> Last telemetry received 8:16 CST / 9:16 EST.
>
> 3. Earliest eyewitness says the Columbia zigzagged before breaking up.
> [You don't get to zigzag much at 12,500 MPH without breaking up.]
>
> 4. Prolonged very loud sound, multiple people said it was 90 seconds,
> where a normal sonic boom is only a fraction of a second. Whether
> this was due to multiple sonic booms from the dozens of pieces, or
> from an ongoing explosion was not stated. . .I'm guessing at these
> were multiple sonic boom effects, prolonged by the pieces not in a
> "flight attitude" that would minimize atmospheric air contact.
>
> 5. Many pieces on ground southeast of Dallas, witnesses said they can
> only describe the sound made coming down as "boomerang sound."
>
> 6. Looking at the NASA graph, right hand screen, which I presume is a
> "glide path". . .I can see that the Columbia was not pulling up, I
> do NOT know if they should have been at 200,000 ft. . .I have been
> to NASA and flew a shuttle simulator, but I don't recall what they
> had as the optimal altitude to start pulling up. My apologies.
> A little Google search found that shuttles level off at 2,000 feet
> . . .so perhaps they were still on the glide path at the time.
>
> 7. I'm probably stretching as far as I can here, will try to find out
> a bit more and get back to you. . .some of this is NOT repeated on
> the network news coverage.
>
> My apologies for any errors, typos, etc., I'm doing the best I can.
>
>
>
> Michael
>
>
>
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