Marc Flemming
Renovator
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Registered: Jan 2003
Local time: 04:57 PM
Location: Santa Cruz
Posts: 3663
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The latest from NASA is that plasma, the superheated gas that surrounds a shuttle as it attempts re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, got inside the shuttle. Most NASA officials say they aren't sure how it happened yet, but the New York Times quotes NASA spokesperson James Hartsfield's comment that investigators are looking into a possible breach--a "hole," says the paper--in the shuttle's aluminum siding on its left wing, in its fuselage, or in the seal of the wheel wells. This, says the paper, all but eliminates an earlier theory that a damaged tile caused heat to be conducted through the aluminum.
USA Today, by contrast, seems a little more skeptical. The paper conjectures that heat alone couldn't cause Columbia's destruction, but nonetheless says in its second paragraph that "temperature hikes shown by sensors in the left wing mean that superheated air burned or seeped through the shuttle's aluminum skin," which pretty much echoes the conduction theory NASA has abandoned.
USA Today also mentions the e-mail that NASA safety engineer Robert Daugherty wrote two days before the breakup, warning that heat could burst the tires inside the spacecraft's wheel compartment. The paper quotes the head of the investigation board as saying the e-mail is "one of the many, many interesting leads that we have." The paper doesn't mention that only the day before some people high up at NASA were saying the e-mail would play no critical role in the investigation and that Mr. Daugherty was just "what-iffing."
The New York Times says inside that some senior congressmen are pushing the White House to take over the Columbia investigation, citing concerns about the NASA panel's independence.
Source: Various
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02-14-2003 08:28 PM
