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Pieces
of Shuttle
Almost
right over my house it happened. Because
of a terminal structural failure, the
Space Shuttle Columbia started an early
and unscheduled descent that resulted
in disaster.
 According
to NASA, the crew never felt a thing.
Remember that they initially said the very
same soothing thing about the Shuttle
Challenger and that may have not been
entirely the case.
Allegedly
that crew lived all the way until
impacting the Atlantic Ocean. The strong
capsuled enclosure sustained the lives of
these astronauts until they hit the waters
off the Florida shores.
Thankfully,
the agreements and contracts that these
heroes signed, incorporated this
possibility.
Do
you remember where you were when that
tragedy took place?
Yours
truly was in a pilot lounge at the Tulsa
International airport, we watched the
instant replay over and over and over
again. A white smoky devil with two horns.
Very surreal.
This
time, I was not home when the
accident occurred. In the past I had
watched several Space Shuttles pass high
to the south of me on the way to their
landing site at the Florida cape.
Right over Dallas, the falling vehicle
heats up the most. A more than 2000 degree
monstrous temperature is trying to
melt the heat resistant tiles of the
space ship's fuselage. As a result it
creates something that looks like airline
con-trails and when it is clear, you can
watch it speed by easily with the naked
eye. And even when it's cloudy, you can
hear the sonic boom caused by the
"faster than sound" shockwave.
But a
good friend and fellow pilot, Jed,
called me and filled me in. Like the other
people in his neighborhood, he was drawn
outside because of a persistent rumble
that lasted many seconds.
"We
have shuttle pieces all over our
ranch", he told me. He is responsible
for the photographs accompanying this
article.
To
prevent looting and souvenir hunting,
NASA decided to "warn" the
masses about possible contamination.
Jed
didn't think so: "What kind of
contamination is there left after you cook
it at 2000 degrees?"
It
really is amazing that pieces survived.
Even some human remains reached the
planet's surface, how can anything moving
at almost 13000 miles per hour at 200,000
feet not burn up completely before hitting
Terra Firma?
Thank
goodness the macabre and bizarre reports
were quelled at the source. Surviving
relatives do not need that kind of
detailed and gruesome information about
their loved ones.
 Jed
described the largest piece as
"refrigerator sized" and
"probably part of the cargo
door".
He
has a very keen mechanical perception and
space flight interests him.
This
crew really did not feel a thing. Just
like the TWA 101 passengers, it was all
over in a matter of a split second. The
Shuttle's fuselage could not withstand the
forces that brought about it's
destruction. The human body even less so.
Ever heard a 3 or 5 G's? This was 100+
G's. Ripping and final forces that act
fast and prevent suffering.
The
real culprit that started this disastrous
train of events, is yet to be announced by
NASA.
But
this we know; after the initial failure
which likely caused one of the wings to
separate, the normal attitude and flight
path of Columbia changed drastically and
thus dramatically. Not built to withstand
side forces of this magnitude, first the
tail broke off and then the remainder of
the spacecraft disintegrated rapidly.
The
people on the ground witnessing this event
erroneously reported explosions. What they
heard was not one shuttle, but many pieces
of shuttle making "speed-of-sound"
shockwaves.
So
instead of one sonic boom, they heard many
small ones.
No,
it will not affect out venturing into
space, our reaching out to new worlds and
places. The crew of Columbia truly are
heroes. They are avant gardes and blaze
our trail off this little blue place and
into space.
So
we can boldly go where no man has gone
before...
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