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From: mrgofor@mmm.UUCP (Michael Ross)
Newsgroups: net.columbia,net.space
Subject: Re: Did the Challenger wobble?
Message-ID: <439@mmm.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 31-Jan-86 15:14:25 EST
Article-I.D.: mmm.439
Posted: Fri Jan 31 15:14:25 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Feb-86 21:50:25 EST
References: <437@mmm.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrgofor@mmm.UUCP (Michael Ross)
Distribution: net
Organization: 3M Company, St. Paul, Minn.
Lines: 31
Xref: watmath net.columbia:1913 net.space:5478
Summary: 


I posted this article the other day:


* While watching my VCR replay of the shuttle disaster, I noticed
* something that others may not have caught. The TV people kept showing
* slow motion footage of the explosion itself - but they didn't think
* to go the other way and speed up the tape rather than slowing it down.
* 
* Using the fast scan on my VCR, I watched the whole flight in fast
* motion. Just before the camera cut to the chase-plane's view, Challenger
* seemed to be wobbling back and forth a little bit. It's too slow to 
* notice at normal speed - but I thought it was fairly easy to see
* at the faster speed. You people out there who have it on tape - try
* it and see. Is it my imagination? Could it hold a clue?

Several people mailed me responses asking if it couldn't have been
the camera wobbling. I obviously did not speak clearly the first time.
I am an amateur photographer, and I know about camera shake - that wasn't
what I saw. The wobbling was more like skewing (what do they call it when
the rear tries to overtake the front - yaw? pitch?) Anyway, it looked
as if it started to steer to the left, then the guidance system compensated
and it steered to the right, then back to the left, etc., as if the pilot
were driving a car and turning the steering wheel back and forth.

	It might be my imagination, but look at it yourself, if you can,
in sped-up mode. You can't see it at normal speed. It's sort of like
applying a "speed filter" - the speed lets you see patterns that would
normally be too slight to notice. 

	--MKR