Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!datapg!viper!dave
From: dave@viper.Lynx.MN.Org (David Messer)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Discovery's launch: Am I imagining things?
Keywords: Let's hope were wrong!
Message-ID: <1451@viper.Lynx.MN.Org>
Date: 30 Sep 88 19:46:44 GMT
References: <1104@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu> <15722@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Reply-To: dave@viper.Lynx.MN.Org (David Messer)
Organization: Lynx Data Systems, Eagan, MN
Lines: 40

In article <15722@ames.arc.nasa.gov> chguest@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Charles Guest  RCE) writes:
 >In article <1104@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu> mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) writes:
 >>BUT....  At about 80 to 90 seconds into the flight, I and several
 >>friends independently thought we saw flame coming out of the right hand
 >>(no, right on the TV screen, so I guess that must mean its really the
 >>"left hand") SRB at the case-to-nozzle joint (where the cylindrical
 >>booster starts to flare toward the bottom). Did anyone else see this?
 >>The commentators didnt mention it. I hope I'm wrong.
 >
 >Unless it was a nationwide hallucination you did in fact see what you
 >think you saw. I noticedit too.
 >
 >I was listening to a prss confrence on NASA select at about 1400 pdt
 >this afternoon and a member of the press asked this exact question.
 >The moderator poo pooed the ideaand said that he hd not seen it.
 >
 >It may be tat the government wanted to present~this as a flawless flight
 >so they will wait until they are certain what exactle happened before
 >they release any data.

I noticed it also.  It was probably a reflection or
aerodynamic heating, but another burn-through was certainly a
possibility.  It angers me that the NASA officials are back to
their old habit of assuring the press that everything is
flawless however.  They could've said that they were studying
the tapes and would give a report on the cause.  Instead, as
you say, they poo-pooed the idea of anything being wrong.

This attitude is one of the reasons for the 51L disaster in
the first place.
-- 
If you can't convince |   David Messer - (dave@Lynx.MN.Org)
them, confuse them.   |   Lynx Data Systems
   -- Harry S Truman  | 
                      |   amdahl   --!bungia!viper!dave
                      |   hpda    /

Copyright 1988 David Messer -- All Rights Reserved
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