Breaking News - Shuttle Lost

[Tenko]

Nasa has lost the Shuttle columbia during re-entry over texas.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2716369.stm


A bad day for exploration, I feel gutted right now


edit: feed for live news coverage from BBC

Realplayer live coverage

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

'Lost' meaning 'blown up' I presume?

 

[Munkey-]

yeah, been watching this on FOX. They say they lost communication and nothing has been heard since 9:00 am Eastern Time. They say "lost contact" but I fear the worst for the crew of the shuttle Columbia, one of the oldest in the NASA fleet.

link here

 

[Tenko]

it was 15 mins from landing (over an hour ago)

There looking for wrekage and people are told to stay away from any wrekage.

The President is going to make an official statement v.soon

Basically it was doing about 12,500 Mph@ 200,000 feet.

pictures show mutiple contrails, ie it broke up.


It's fucked.

The beeb feed is a good one, from BBC NEWS 24.

 

[Munkey-]

aye. but they refuse to say that it has been officialy lost yet.

Oh yes, and if anyone does find a piece....dont touch it, apparently its toxic.

 

[danger]

yeah it's fucked.... it's a tragedy... although, statistically it's bound to happen every once in a while, just like plain crashes, car crashes, boats sinking....

The footage on BBC News 24 was quite disturbing, seeing the shuttle breaking up

 

[]SK[]

 

[S-Gray]

Yeah... just seen it on the News now.. No doubt they will all have died....

There was also an Israeli on there... apparently the first ever one to go up into Space...

 

[Me²]

Bloody hell

 

[Shocko]

Originally posted by Super_Gray[SG]
There was also an Israeli on there... apparently the first ever one to go up into Space...

God smote it, to stop his "chosen" people from asscending to the sky, and reaching heaven!

 

[PR.]

A setback for space exploration.

I hope this doesn't seriously effect the project Prometheus

 

[Tenko]

Bit early to talk about the effects but obviously things can go either way.

But when comparing it to the Challenger disaster there will be some repercussions, possibly even positive if the Senate believe that at this moment in time the US cannot to be seen as weak in any field or negative if they feel they need to re-assess their spending priorities.

 

[Embattle]

 

[prime1]

Originally posted by Shocko

God smote it, to stop his "chosen" people from asscending to the sky, and reaching heaven!

you really can be a prick sometimes, what with your "im glad that 9/11 happened" etc

 

[Shocko]

Deal with it

 

[Embattle]

Shortly after Columbia lifted off Jan. 16, 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.

Fox News

 

[Testin da Cable]

yeh, watching it now. poor astropeeps. all of them

 

[adams901]

They just interviewed someone on CNN and apparently he was listening to the re-entry via his broadband on the nasa website.

I didnt know you could listen to stuff like that, guess you learn something new every day...

Nasa have made some kind of statement on their web page http://www.nasa.gov/

 

[PR.]

Stinking Cache!

I had been going to see Nasas site and it looked awful and old all times new roman text and missing pictures!

I just refreshed the cache and its totally different. Bloody ntlworld transparent proxy

 

[Embattle]

Just watched the BBC news and they also showed the explosion of Challenger which I still remember very well....still shocking watching it today.

 

[S-Gray]

I dont really remember it... I think i was only a few years old when it happened (or happened before i was born).

Only heard it mentioned about 2/3times in my life... But seeing that explode (Challenger?) was... shocking.

Might read more into what happened to it soon maybe.... Seems interesting

 

[Mellow-]

NASA will need some time to recover from this, we only ever hear about their mistakes.

 

[adams901]

heh nasas latest update on the website...

NOTE TO PERSONS IN THE AREA: All debris is United States Government property and is critical to the investigation of the shuttle accident. Any and all debris from the accident is to be left alone and reported to Government authorities. Unauthorized persons found in possession of accident debris will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

 

[Scouse]

Real shame



Guess we'll here all the old jokes resurfacing about "Need Another Seven Astronauts" etc....

 

[adams901]

CNN just showed the mission control screen and played the communication between mission control and Columbia.

You hear Columbia respond to mission control with something about tyre pressure indications not corresponding , Columbia then they say "roger", you then hear them break up mid sentence, everything goes quiet for about 5 seconds then all you hear is static..

Very Sad

 

[Gumbo]

Yeah, those old jokes really piss me off....

BTW they just played that last transmission on CNN..

'Okay, you can let the woman drive now....'

 

[Scouse]

Ouch - but LOL ..........

 

[Embattle]

Originally posted by Super_Gray[SG]
I dont really remember it... I think i was only a few years old when it happened (or happened before i was born).

Only heard it mentioned about 2/3times in my life... But seeing that explode (Challenger?) was... shocking.

Might read more into what happened to it soon maybe.... Seems interesting

You were two when it blew up and I was 8, after it exploded the Shuttle's were grounded for 3 whole years until they could find out what happened and improve safety.

This case is slightly different since considerable amounts of the Challenger could be found due it exploding about 1 minute after takeoff in a more vertical position. Columbia however was coming in at a more horizontal position and will scatter debris over a wider area, what didn't get burnt that is.

 

[Testin da Cable]

I wonder how long it will take for shuttle bits to turn up on ebay? :/

 

[PR.]

They already are on ebay, about 30mins after it happened

Debris has been thrown across two states.

The BBC reckon that the remaning ISS crew will use the old Russian escape pods to get home and that will be it. Unless Russia use its old rockets to ship people up there. Us euros can't get empty rockets in the air without the blowing up so were not much use :/