Could the Shuttle have been by Lightning during re-entry?

[John Kierein]

I am wondering if the Shuttle might have been hit by lightning during re-entry. Red sprites are known to go almost to orbital height as lightning above thunderstorms. I heard a report that a cameraman with IR saw a spark hit the shuttle. The plasma around the shuttle makes a good conductor to attract lightning and there have been reports of people hearing sounds when meteorites re-enter which must be due to some lightning-like phenomena because the sounds would not travel as fast as the light from the meteors. Heard any reports like this?

[Argos]

At least that would be more likely than a meteor impact, that some people got to consider seriously according to what I read in the news sites. They even put the probability of a meteor impact ahead of a terrorist act, which sound very strange to me, given the current circumstances.

[Valiant Dancer]

On 2003-02-03 09:10, Argos wrote:
At least that would be more likely than a meteor impact, that some people got to consider seriously according to what I read in the news sites. They even put the probability of a meteor impact ahead of a terrorist act, which sound very strange to me, given the current circumstances.

Ok. Here's the logic behind the possibility of a terrorist attack being almost nil.

Terrorists go for flashy. If they were going to blow up the Space Shuttle, they would have done it while it sat on the ground or shortly after liftoff. They would not have waited 16 days. So the chance of an internal sabotage is highly unlikely.

As for external shoot down of the craft, The soviets couldn't hit an aircraft flying at 80,000 feet and mach 3.2 with surface to air nor air to air missiles. How would you expect a terrorist to be able to hit something at over five times that speed and over twice the distance. This places an external terrorist attack to be likewise nearly nil for probability.

What possibly happened is that reentry tiles were damaged or destroyed on takeoff. On re-entry, the damaged or missing tiles allowed the extreme heat of re-entry to pass through to the left wing of the craft. This burned through and caused the loss of the craft and crew. (or at least according to current evidence and analysis) A meteor strike could also damage these tiles. With the extreme amount of security present post 9/11 at NASA sites and additional security added for the Israeli national on the mission, the possibility of a device smuggled on board the craft to destroy it 16 days later and the infiltrator escape unnoticed is nearly impossible.

[Jigsaw]

Heard this, dunno what to make of it.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...03/MN33624.DTL

Monday, February 3, 2003

Breakup may have begun above California
Caltech astronomer noted 'debris shedding' as Columbia passed overhead

...Top NASA officials appealed for photographs or video evidence from amateur sky-watchers on the West Coast, after confirming they had received detailed written descriptions from a Caltech radio astronomer who said he saw what appeared to be "debris shedding from the orbiter" as it streaked over the eastern Sierra.

Radio-astronomer Anthony Beasley, of Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory, told The Chronicle the shuttle had "a sparkle effect" as it passed overhead, and then he saw a bright piece separate. "It was like it dropped a flare, and kept going," he said.

The shuttle's passage over California at 5:53 a.m. PST Saturday coincided with the first indications of trouble onboard, when a bank of sensors on the trailing edge of the left wing blinked out. Five minutes later, streaking above New Mexico, the shuttle itself began to dip slightly to the left, suggesting a higher turbulence on that side of the vehicle -- which could have been caused by damaged or missing heat-shielding tiles.

Columbia broke apart 1 minute later...

< snip >

...And a San Francisco amateur astronomer has shown The Chronicle -- but not released publicly -- a photograph of a vivid, lightning-like discharge apparently crossing through the contrail's left side. The image is one of five snapped in sequence at 5:53 a.m., when the shuttle's sensors began to fail.

[Argos]

On 2003-02-03 09:46, Valiant Dancer wrote:

Ok. Here's the logic behind the possibility of a terrorist attack being almost nil.

Surely. I never thought of a terrorist attack.

What Iīm saying is that a meteor impact would be even more unlikely than a terrorist attack. John Kierienīs hypothesis is far more plausible to me.

Also, I donīt think we know too much about terrorists to rule out "non-flashy" displays. Again, I would look for a saboteur prior to considering a meteor.

[CJSF]

It was perfectly clear along Columbia's re-entry path. There were no thunerstorms below it to shoot red sprites or blue jets into the upper atmosphere.

CJSF

[g99]

Highly unlikely that it would of been hit by lightning. This time of the year it is very dry down south and little rain and thunderstorms.

Plus airplanes get hit by lightning all the time, all it leaves is scorch marks and that is it. No aftert effects except shocked crew and passengers.

[Bill Thmpson]

On 2003-02-03 07:59, John Kierein wrote:
I am wondering if the Shuttle might have been hit by lightning during re-entry.

I live near Austin, Texas. It was a beautiful, clear, and otherwise perfect day. I was amaized how clear the weather was. Unseasonably so -- like California.

[Hale_Bopp]

Lightning is unlikely, but not unprecedented. Apollo 12 was struck by lightning shortly after liftoff and survived. Of course, the skin of a Saturn V is a good conductor and probably provided good protection. The Shuttle tiles are not nearly as good of a conductor and would probably not provide the same level of protection.

Although unlikely, it could't hurt to check weather records. Still sounds like thermal failure to me.

Rob

[Kaptain K]

Lightning? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_confused.gif[/img] Your joking, right? Lightning (of any kind) requires thunderstorms. Sprites occur only over the most severe of severe t-storms. Like Bill Thompson, I live near Austin, Texas and can assure you that there was not a cloud in the sky, much less severe weather of any form.

[Bill Thmpson]

http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/vi...3688&forum=2&8

[John Kierein]

I had a meteorologist look over the weather along the shuttle flight. There were thunderstorms around 180 deg W and 30 deg N, well to the west of Hawaii. I looked at
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata...sc255_long.gif
It appears the Shuttle flew directly overhead of there. This is probably the time of blackout.
But, of course, the report of lightning was from California. These sort of reports may be suspect. I rather doubt the lightning possibility, but at this stage we don't want to rule out anything. I agree that the weather was clear everywhere else along the path.

[calliarcale]

Lightning sounds very unlikely, but yes, I suppose it shouldn't be ruled out completely.

A micrometerite impact during the mission might be possible, though I find the odds of hitting one during reentry to be extremely small. The crew would probably have noticed such an impact anyway; they feel impacts that cause much less damage.

The terrorism theory is laughable, frankly. It simply cannot have been shot down, and the level of checking, double checking, and triple checking that goes on during the preflight processing gives a terrorist basically no chance to do anything without having it be detected prior to liftoff.

The most likely thing to look at is impact damage from whatever came off the ET (foam, ice, both), but even that may well turn out to be a red herring.

[g99]

I see where you are going on this now. I agree you can't throw anything out, but the highly unlikely ones you can put less emphasis on finding out the truth on. It is a possibility, but not that large.

[nebularain]

From article posted above

...And a San Francisco amateur astronomer has shown The Chronicle -- but not released publicly -- a photograph of a vivid, lightning-like discharge apparently crossing through the contrail's left side. The image is one of five snapped in sequence at 5:53 a.m., when the shuttle's sensors began to fail.

So, what are the speculations on what this man(?) saw?

[Eirik]

Hard to speculate until we see the photos he claimed to have taken. My thought, after seeing a video last night shot in Nevada where the sky was still dark, it that it was essentially a flare from something buring up after falling off the shuttle. That video showed a bright flash and then a second smaller bright blip in the flight path. The cameraman even is heard saying something like "Holy crap! What was that?"

Given that the sensors started failing long before it crossed over Texas, it's possible that the shuttle had small bits breaking off for many hundreds or thousands of miles before the final catastrophic failure.

[Stuart]

On 2003-02-03 09:46, Valiant Dancer wrote: Ok. Here's the logic behind the possibility of a terrorist attack being almost nil. Terrorists go for flashy. If they were going to blow up the Space Shuttle, they would have done it while it sat on the ground or shortly after liftoff. They would not have waited 16 days. So the chance of an internal sabotage is highly unlikely.

As for external shoot down of the craft, The soviets couldn't hit an aircraft flying at 80,000 feet and mach 3.2 with surface to air nor air to air missiles. How would you expect a terrorist to be able to hit something at over five times that speed and over twice the distance. This places an external terrorist attack to be likewise nearly nil for probability. What possibly happened is that reentry tiles were damaged or destroyed on takeoff.

With the extreme amount of security present post 9/11 at NASA sites and additional security added for the Israeli national on the mission, the possibility of a device smuggled on board the craft to destroy it 16 days later and the infiltrator escape unnoticed is nearly impossible.

Amen. Timing an explosive device to go off during re-entry would require miraculous skills. As to missiles, the only ones that could score an intercept at the altitudes and speeds in question are the ABMs around Moscow. They are nuclear-tipped; if one had been fired, somebody would have noticed. We can pretty well rule terrorism out on this ome.

[Rue]

Pravda seems to claim an internet experiment is responsible for the accident.

<quote>"...it was for the first time that a space craft got an Internet address of its own which provided it with connection with the Earth through the satellite. Such an experiment was held for the first time; it is no wonder that when the catastrophe occurred, it was almost immediately reported that it could be somehow connected with the Internet experiment carried out during the flight. It will take some time to find out whether such suggestions are true or absurd."
</quote>

http://english.pravda.ru/main/2003/02/03/42911.html

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Rue on 2003-02-03 14:29 ]</font>

[calliarcale]

Not likely; flight-critical computers have no support for Interent protocols and no reason to be on the Internet at all. Most likely, if there was an Internet-related experiment going on it was something in the SpaceHab module running on a Windows or Linux laptop. It would likely only have been operational while the high-bandwidth Ku-band antenna was deployed, which means only while the Shuttle's payload bay was open. It would have had no impact whatsoever on the mission.

[SiriMurthy]

The only country capable of hitting a space shuttle at the time of reentry using a missile is USA. This is NOT a terrorist act.

[SiriMurthy]

I was wondering though, how likely is it to be hit by a micro-meteorite?

[Colt]

On 2003-02-03 14:03, Stuart wrote:

On 2003-02-03 09:46, Valiant Dancer wrote: Ok. Here's the logic behind the possibility of a terrorist attack being almost nil. Terrorists go for flashy. If they were going to blow up the Space Shuttle, they would have done it while it sat on the ground or shortly after liftoff. They would not have waited 16 days. So the chance of an internal sabotage is highly unlikely.

As for external shoot down of the craft, The soviets couldn't hit an aircraft flying at 80,000 feet and mach 3.2 with surface to air nor air to air missiles. How would you expect a terrorist to be able to hit something at over five times that speed and over twice the distance. This places an external terrorist attack to be likewise nearly nil for probability. What possibly happened is that reentry tiles were damaged or destroyed on takeoff.

With the extreme amount of security present post 9/11 at NASA sites and additional security added for the Israeli national on the mission, the possibility of a device smuggled on board the craft to destroy it 16 days later and the infiltrator escape unnoticed is nearly impossible.

Amen. Timing an explosive device to go off during re-entry would require miraculous skills. As to missiles, the only ones that could score an intercept at the altitudes and speeds in question are the ABMs around Moscow. They are nuclear-tipped; if one had been fired, somebody would have noticed. We can pretty well rule terrorism out on this ome.

*cheers* I was about to say the same thing before I read your post. It would take something like an ICBM flying up in front of the shuttles trajectory and then detonating to knock it down. I think someone would have noticed that too. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] -Colt

[Argos]

I think there is a
The chain of events starts at the moment the left wing is hit by debris in the beggining of the flight.

[harlequin]

On 2003-02-03 14:28, Rue wrote:
Pravda seems to claim an internet experiment is responsible for the accident.

<quote>"...it was for the first time that a space craft got an Internet address of its own which provided it with connection with the Earth through the satellite. Such an experiment was held for the first time; it is no wonder that when the catastrophe occurred, it was almost immediately reported that it could be somehow connected with the Internet experiment carried out during the flight. It will take some time to find out whether such suggestions are true or absurd."
</quote>

http://english.pravda.ru/main/2003/02/03/42911.html

Pravda is probably even less reliable now then it was when it was a in the Soviet propoganda business. It has found a post-communist niche with tabloid-quality journalism.

[AstroGman]

No,It was too high up.200 000 feet is almost forty miles above the earth,and I would think that the air is WAY too thin up at that height to carry lightning.So no,I don,t think that lightning is the culprit.I think that the failure of the heat tiles caused the accident.

[SiriMurthy]

On 2003-02-04 18:07, AstroGman wrote:
No,It was too high up.200 000 feet is almost forty miles above the earth,and I would think that the air is WAY too thin up at that height to carry lightning.So no,I don,t think that lightning is the culprit.I think that the failure of the heat tiles caused the accident.

NPR reported that they have found pieces of the Shuttle in Phoenix, AZ. This could be an important clue as something might have happened way before the reentry.

I was wondering about the likelihood of getting hit by space debris. Is there such a chance?

According to NASA engineers a piece of insulation or ice falling onto the wings should not cause the damage to the extent that leads to a catastrophic failure like this one. At most, it might produce a scratch or a gouge.

[nebularain]

I asked this on a thread that ended up getting locked. Sorry, BA, I wasn't trying to feed a conspiracy-thread; I was just curious about some mechanics. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_frown.gif[/img]

Do the shuttles normally leave a vapor trail behind on re-entry?

In watching one of the videos, it looked like there might have been an explosion before some pieces broke off. Was that mere appearance, or would the breaking apart of the shuttle created some things to explode?

I hope it is OK to ask this. I really am just being curious and wanting to understand.

[Hale_Bopp]

Well, as to the probablity of being hit by space debris, the Chicago Tribune did an interesting little exercise. They estimated the number of pieces falling on Nacodoches (sp?) county, assumed everyone was outside and standing evenly spaced and found that there was only a 6.5% chance of anyone being hit if EVERYONE was outside! So they seem to be saying that this incident fell in the 95.5% of the times that no one would get hit.

Rob

[Donnie B.]

Once the orbiter began to break up, hypergolic fuels could have leaked, mixed, and exploded. That would be a result of the breakup, not the cause.

I saw the home video taken of the orbiter over Arizona, which clearly shows something coming off the shuttle. It was obvious enough that the photographer pointed it out and, in an alarmed voice, said, "What the heck was that?"

Another observer (an astronomer) saw several glowing objects break off the shuttle over California.

Interesting, however, that whatever caused those phenomena was not obvious to the pilot - he made no report of unusual events (and this was several minutes, at least, before the last communication).

[Donnie B.]

Hale, I think the question was referring to the possibility of the shuttle being struck by space junk on orbit or during reentry - not the public being struck by shuttle debris.