Holy cow .... are you watching the news .....

 

I was afraid this was bound to happen sooner or later,,,,,

 

I'm watching it now. I remember when the Challenger exploded. I had the same dropping feeling in my stomach when I read your post. I bet it was a heat shield or something on re-entry. They were still going 12,000 miles per hour when they lost contact. [undecided]

 

I feel sorry for the families of those who lost their lives in the incident, they will be in our prayers.<br><br>I wish the news stations would quit &quot;giving us the facts&quot; before they even know what happened. &gt;<br>

 

Jack<br><br>I too remember when the Challenger was lost. Watched it live on TV after coming home from working the night shift. <br><br>I know all of us have the Columbia astronauts and their families in our thoughts and prayers. <br>

 

I wonder if this had anything to do with it (taken from Yahoo News):<br><br>&quot;On Jan. 16, shortly after Columbia lifted off, a piece of insulating foam on its external fuel tank came off and was believed to have hit the left wing of the shuttle. Leroy Cain, the lead flight director in Mission Control, assured reporters Friday that engineers had concluded that any damage to the wing was considered minor and posed no safety hazard&quot;<br><br>

 

I watched Challenger as it took off across our gorgeous Florida sky. When the big puff occurred and multiple trails all over the sky, I knew something was wrong. Ran inside and turned on the TV to watch. Horrible. The trails of that looked exactly like what we are seeing this morning.<br><br>Our prayers must go to the families of the astronauts. They were doing what they loved and knew the dangers, yet we hope it never occurs. <br><br>SadBob

 

I was at work both times! Our prayers go out to the families for those on board :-[<br><br>KC

 

NBC keeps trying to push the terrorist attack issue. Now tell me, how is someone going to attack an aircraft at 200,000 ft msl travelling at mach 6? <br><br>I can understand that something may have occured before the flight, but I seriously doubt it. Not with the kind of security they have down there now. <br><br>There is a piece of heat tile that fell off the shuttle during launch. I wonder if that had anything to do with it, or if the angle of attack was wrong.

 

Oh my God, this sure don't look good. Prayers and condolences to those involved.<br><br>Obviously this will capture the media attention and be replayed endlessly for who knows how long, but when will we get any actual info?<br><br>Rob

 

[quote author=Jack Thorpe link=board=10;threadid=10374;start=0#99257 date=1044116815]<br>There is a piece of heat tile that fell off the shuttle during launch. I wonder if that had anything to do with it, or if the angle of attack was wrong.<br>[/quote]<br><br><br>angle of approach?

 

Nope, angle of attack. It's the acute angle between the chord of an airfoil and a line representing the undisturbed relative airflow. The reason is because if the tail is too low, the back will burn up, and if the front is too low, the front will burn up. The angle of attack is very important during re-entry.

 

ahhh... I forgot you were air control man... forgive my ignorance... ;D

 

Tony if they come in too steep (angle of attack) the ship breaks up and burns. If they come in too shallow the ship bounces off the atmosphere.<br><br> Whatever happened it is pretty obvious it happened pretty quickly, looks like overheating and then an explosion causing break up. Probably due to damage to the heat tiles that took more damage on lift off than they thought.<br><br> Also they may have known there was a problem but there was nothing they could do about it, but hope it didn't create a catastrophe like this.<br><br> There is no other option available to return to earth at this time, so they had to try it.