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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!rcj
From: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Re: Challenger SRBs
Message-ID: <977@burl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 31-Jan-86 09:42:26 EST
Article-I.D.: burl.977
Posted: Fri Jan 31 09:42:26 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Feb-86 06:17:35 EST
References: <Challenger> <SRBs> <4270@mhuxd.UUCP> <958@ihuxx.UUCP>
Reply-To: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson)
Organization: AT&T Technologies, Burlington NC
Lines: 48
Summary: 

In article <958@ihuxx.UUCP> rck@ihuxx.UUCP (Kukuk) writes:
>It's my belief that NASA Launch Operations will regret that they
>intentionally destroyed the SRBs.  As I understand that situation,
>there was only a POSSIBILITY that the SRBs could have fallen on
>populated areas.  They surely would have burned for only a few
>more seconds.  Would the parachute recovery mechanism have worked even
>after the shuttle explosion?  Recovering those SRBs, even after
>a fall of ten miles, might have provided some evidence concerning
>the tragedy.
>
>Ron Kukuk
>
And also may have provided a scapegoat.  I didn't want to post this
before, but I'm *very* pissed off at NASA at the moment.  They kept us
waiting for over an hour on the afternoon of the explosion only to tell
us that they wouldn't tell us anything.  My father was intimately involved
in the shuttle program on the safety end of the business for about 8 or 9
years.  He called the director of flight safety for the SRBs in Florida
shortly after the explosion and was told that the pilot knew there was
a problem and had made the decision to jettison both the SRBs and the ET
and abort back to ground, but that the thing exploded before he could
accomplish any of this.

This means that there had to be air-to-ground audio traffic on this matter,
but we never heard any.  I did notice in the press conference that the
deputy director (or whoever he was) said that the shuttle blew approximately
1.5 minutes after launch (close enough), but he said *twice* that there was
no evidence of any problems at all *UP TO ONE MINUTE AFTER LAUNCH*.  Of course,
no one in the press corps had the intelligence to do a little subtraction and
ask a pointed question.

Also, from a (possibly) less reliable source:  The thing that came down on
a parachute that took forever (almost 20 mins.) to fall was supposedly
the "black box"; just like the flight recorders used on airliners.  I don't
know if it was successfully recovered.

Please don't write me for extra "inside" information because I don't have
any that I consider even remotely outside the realm of speculation.  I do
have it from several people in the program that they do NOT suspect the SRBs
of burning through at this time -- I just hope they don't try to blame it
on them anyway and get anyone else killed.

Anything I hear will be posted post-haste,
-- 

The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291)
alias: Curtis Jackson	...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj
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