On Sat, 01 Feb 2003 17:28:15 -0600, you (Ed Cannon <ecannon@mail.utexas.edu>) wrote: >This is just to note that at 12,500 mph (20,000 kph), >the vehicle would travel 1,458.3 miles (3,888.9 km) in >seven minutes. Of course it was traveling faster than >that at the beginning of the seven-minute period. So >this would seem to stretch backwards in the timeline >from Texas back to California at least. Correct. To recap somewhat, 8:53am EST is the time the Shuttle was making its landfall over the California coast. At pretty much the same time, the temperature readings of the starboard wing inboard and outboard elevons were lost, the first sensors to fail (followed by other left wing sensors in the following minutes). Considering that we seem to have, by now, pretty certain visual reports from California observers that the Shuttle apparently was trailed by very small debris, IMO it doesn't take much rocket science to imagine what happened there. Whatever the exact root cause was (I'm avoiding the ET insulation foam issue here), to me this sounds like the starboard wing was disintegrating since fairly early in the entry interface. Anyone agree (or disagree)? CU! Markus ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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