Space Shuttle burns up

[Warren]

[Mechcommander]

Sorry, just re-read the thread. Seems I missed the part about the insulation falling off at takeoff. I could've sworn I heard in came off during re-entry.
Hermmm.. then my best guess would be one of the heat-shielding tiles came off and smacked the wing. Or one of the tiles fell off of the wing, let the heat in and tore it off.

[Warren]

Or maybe the Space Shuttle hit a bird in the air, or they opened the door by accident, or they may have pressed the self-destruct button, or, I don't know! What made Challenger blow up? Wasn't it a washer on a fuel pipe or something?

[goodbye]

First a water pipe blows up this morning, turns main street into a river and shuts off almost all water around the area and the whole town in a mess. Then I get home and hear about this. This is such a messed up day.

[Mechcommander]

It was a rubber O-Ring on one of the solid fuel boosters that had frozen overnight.

[Warren]

The current speculations on what happened is this:

The insulation (a small piece) fell off of the orange fuel thingy during takeoff, hitting the Shuttle's wing, tearing off a tile. During reentry, heat spread on that place where the tile tore off, and more tiles around it started tearing off, finally getting to the point where heat was getting to the inside, ripping the spacecraft apart. They're also saying that the crew may have been alive all the way until they hit the ground. But you would think that if the Shuttle blew up into so many pieces like that, that death would be pretty quick, I mean, 3000C, that would melt you, if you wouldn't blown into pieces from explosions, or pulled out of the craft into the air going 12,500mph, being disintegrated. But if they died (which is 99.99% chance yes), I hope it was a quick one.

[sponge]

Thanks for that post, I've given up with the news channels, and haven't had a clue what's happening.

[Mechcommander]

Exactly Warren. I was just thinking that when I was upstairs installing Windows. Looks like you beat me to the punch though.

[sponge]

By the way Warren, you might know this, why is it still called the State of Israel? Is it not a country now?

[Warren]

It's called the State of Israel, it's just the formal name, like the Czech Republic, or Swiss Confederacy. I've wondered the same thing myself, but the State of Israel does sound cool, and threatening, I mean, the Israeli Republic? That doesn't sound as cool as the State of Israel.

Well, I don't want to get off topic, so I better say something. Well, I've been looking around, and I think one of the companies I'd like to work for when I grow up would be Contraves Space in Switzerland. They make a lot of the satelitte rockets and stuff.

[Jadam]

Warren do me a favor and shut up.

Columbia was delayed because cracks were found in the other shuttles on the fuel pipes(i believe)

[Paul]

well i wouldnt mind working for CERN in geneva, so maybe we'll see eachother out there?

my maths for computing lecturer says recruitment guys from come to my university. that'd be cool too.

[Orpe]

What I wonder is: What would they have done if they had discovered while still in space that they probably wouldn't survive reentering earths atmosphere?

Could they have sent something up to repair it?

Do they have any options on how to reenter? As I understand it there pretty much is just one way and you have to be within 1 degree of the specific angle you need... And I'm guessing that they don't have any way of reentering at a lower speed.

Could they have gone to the ISS and waited to be picked up by another shuttle?

These things are always so sad.

[Warren]

[Paul]