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From: DKING@RPICIE.CSNET (Dave King)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Visual Shuttle Monitoring
Message-ID: <8602131946.AA04194@s1-b.arpa>
Date: Thu, 13-Feb-86 14:51:54 EST
Article-I.D.: s1-b.8602131946.AA04194
Posted: Thu Feb 13 14:51:54 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Feb-86 03:23:28 EST
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Organization: The ARPA Internet
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   This seems like a silly question, but I haven't seen it
discussed before ... 
   During a shuttle launch, is there someone assigned to watching
the video coverage who has the ability to abort the mission if he
sees something go awry?  In particular, if the SRB on the "camera
side" of the Challenger had developed a clearly visible flame out
of a seam, and this occurred, say, 10 or 15 seconds before the
explosion, would there have been someone specifically assigned to
watching that would have been able to push the button?
   The reason I ask is that I haven't heard anyone, in the media
or elsewhere, say "If only it had been on the near side."
   If there is no such observer, then I see this as a serious
oversight.  All the telemetry in the world is great, but you 
can't monitor everything, and why take the chance on overlooking
something obvious (like a flame out the side of an SRB)?  Imagine
how NASA would look if the SRB failure HAD taken place right in front
of the camera, and the accident still occurred!
   If there IS such an observer, then is the geometry of the flight path
such that we could have more than one camera angle in the future; that is,
could we move toward a more ideal situation where several camera angles
were being monitored simultaneously? 

Dave King
RPI Center for Integrated Electronics