Challenger/Columbia, here is your chance to gain a new convert!

Paul Maxson wrote in message
...
Dear group,

I have decided to broaden my horizons on what the consensus
is concerning the two space shuttles in the subject title. I will
start off by giving my condolences to the loved ones of the lost
heroes. Loss of a loved ones life is something I know well.

I will also say I am a non aerospace engineer, space type expert
either so my questions will reflect that. Not everyone in the world
has the engineering knowledge that this group possesses but that
(to me) should not disqualify someone from;
A. Being interested
B. Asking questions

So I am an interested non professional with a few questions.

snipped for brevity

Don't let the twerp twins bother you, Paul. If there's any serious
interest here, you'll get professional answers and comments.

--
John Thomas Maxson, Retired Engineer (Aerospace)
Author, The Betrayal of Mission 51-L (www.mission51l.com)

**A correction (amendment.)**

I found some emails from 1987 that show John Maxson and Henry Spencer
discussing Boisjoly (what a find!) So why do people that were there in the know
pretend that John Maxson was a "janitor" or is a kook? Here is my father being discussed
by Henry Spencer in 1987 as an example.

My intentions in the paragraph were to state that I found Henry Spencer discussing
John Maxson and Boisjoly back in 1987. John Maxson was being discussed he was not
part of the discussion. IOW, he does not have emails written there by him.

Also on this paragraph,

Lastly on Challenger, will someone go get my father John Thomas Maxson's testimony
in it's entirety (I am not going to pretend I am 100% clueless on Challenger)
and walk me through it please?

I am asking someone to post John Maxson's testimony (*listed in the PCR index.*)
Pretty simple requests (IMHO.)

Thanks,

Paul Maxson




"Paul Maxson" wrote in message ...
Dear group,

I have decided to broaden my horizons on what the consensus is concerning the
two space shuttles in the subject title. I will start off by giving my condolences
to the loved ones of the lost heroes. Loss of a loved ones life is something I know well.

I will also say I am a non aerospace engineer, space type expert either so my questions
will reflect that. Not everyone in the world has the engineering knowledge that this group
possesses but that (to me) should not disqualify someone from;
A. Being interested
B. Asking questions

So I am an interested non professional with a few questions. Mainly about video and imagery.

From everything I have read imagery is only taken on lift off, not landings. Is this true?
Is so why? I am not just talking about ground camera's and elevation here.

Mission 51-L (or STS 51-L as some refer to it) had at *least* 7 camera's on it at lift off
correct? Let's just assume I have most of the publicly available angles/videos for now.

Can someone here (someone who has offered website help in the past) upload E-207
on lift off date from NASA on Mission 51-L to their website and walk me through it step
by step and show me what is occurring? Frozen screen shots or the ability to pause would
be extremely helpful. What is the best software (besides WMV) to view E-207?
What is the best software to view (that is publicly available) MPEG II's?
I'm currently using a 15 day trial version of a program I dislike for MPEG II's.

I understand E-207 had a real good angle/view of the tragedy but I don't have it.
Will someone share and expound on it in a step by step fashion?

More on imagery;

In 1986 were our satellite camera's less capable than they are now? ( Please follow me
on this, please give me a little leeway.) Have the cameras ever been updated or do they
just upload new satellites with newer cameras? I honestly do not know. I know I have
seen very excellent imagery of weapons etc being moved in a very zoomed in fashion.

Lastly on Challenger, will someone go get my father John Thomas Maxson's testimony
in it's entirety (I am not going to pretend I am 100% clueless on Challenger)
and walk me through it please?

I found some emails from 1987 that show John Maxson and Henry Spencer
discussing Boisjoly (what a find!) So why do people that were there in the know
pretend that John Maxson was a "janitor" or is a kook? Here is my father being discussed
by Henry Spencer in 1987 as an example.

http://yarchive.net/space/shuttle/challenger.html

So let's all just play along and assume we know that one John Maxson "refused to share
the stage with Boisjoly." BTW, I don't think any janitors were up on stage that day.

So someone go get my fathers testimony to the PCR and upload it and let's all read
for *ourselves* what my father said then and compare it to what he is saying now.
Here is a cite as a source of reference.

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1appa.htm edit find Maxson

Did anything my father say in that testimony concern safety experts at the time?

And then to be fair to the group a page my father doesn't really agree 100% with (that I know of.)

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/5.62.html#subj11

So are people still at a doubt as to what role John Thomas Maxson played in Mission 51-L?

If so please walk me through the Roger's Report version to better understand. Civilly dispute
my fathers testimony there and slow mo E-207 for me. I will read and view it all with an open mind.
This could forever change the course of the rest of my life if done convincingly! Help me understand!

Secondly, on Columbia. There weren't any camera's on the *ground* that could view that
high upon it's reentry correct or not? On take off though they have video of a strike to the
wing! Knowing (and having seen this strike) would NASA had any *other* camera's
watching the reentry? What is the protocol for this scenario? FDO's expound please.
I have seen video and read emails that the launch wasn't normal so why not track it's decent?
Again, what is the protocol for this scenario ?

Satellites.

What is the ability of our satellites in 2003 in regards to space shuttles?
Were *any* of them trained on shuttles in 2003? ( I haven't finished reading the CAIB.)
If not then why? What are these camera's capabilities and would their imagery helped
in the investigation?

Is anything crucial as to the cause sealed (unavailable) on Columbia?

If so should it be unsealed, would it reveal anything we don't know?

Here is your chance to gain a new convert, convince me to believe by answering
my very simple layman's type questions and I will read them with an open mind.

Sincerely,

Paul Maxson



For posterity here are some UUnet posts from 1987 that reference John Maxson.

-----------------------------

Index Home About
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.risks
X-issue: 5.70
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 87 15:47:52 EST
From:
To:
Subject: Whistle-blowers who aren't

Maxson will share the stage with former Morton Thiokol engineer Roger
Boisjoly, who currently has a billion-dollar suit underway...

Maybe I am just being picky about this, but it still makes me see red when
I see Boisjoly described as a "whistle-blower". Boisjoly is the man who
could have blown the whistle BUT DIDN'T, and seven astronauts died as a
result. Boisjoly was the engineer who told MT management "don't launch",
was told "put on your management hat", did so, and changed his expert
professional opinion 180 degrees to match his hat color. In a just world,
I cannot help but think that he (and, certainly, his management) would be
facing criminal charges. Boisjoly did not blow the whistle; he merely
turned "state's evidence" after the fact.

Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry


Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 2 Dec 87 15:48:00 EST
From:
To:
Subject: Space Shuttle Whistle-Blowers Sound Alarm Again (reprint)

... new and improved shuttle escape mechanisms. Lot's of
money is being spent, but whether reported or not, upon (close) examination
none of these mechanisms would prevent the death of astronauts in a
Challenger type disaster. I wonder just how much additional engineering
is happening for purely public relations purposes...

The escape work is not being done for purely public relations purposes; it
merely, for the most part, does not address situations as severe as the
Challenger disaster. There is in fact some attention being given to such
situations, but the thorough re-examination of shuttle safety issues turned
up other cases where modest effort would yield a much higher probability
of survival. The reason why most escape-system work is not addressing the
Challenger scenario is that it is very difficult to get the crew out
of such a situation reliably! There are also tradeoffs to be considered:
regardless of managerial idiots blithering about safety being an absolute
priority, the only way to make the shuttles completely safe is to put them
in museums and never fly them again. In practice, there is no way to avoid
some level of compromise between safety and utility, since adding any type
of escape system reduces payload. There are also safety-vs-safety tradeoffs
to be made, since even simple ejection seats can and do fire accidentally,
often with fatal consequences.

Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.risks
X-issue: 5.78
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 87 04:41:38 EST
From:
To:
Subject: Roger Boisjoly and Ethical Behavior

There has been a fair bit of back-and-forth over Roger Boisjoly et al. in
private mail [subsequent to RISKS-5.63,70,71], most of which is pretty
peripheral to Risks. Herewith a straight chronology of verifiable events.
One or two personal notes are in brackets []. Numbers in brackets are page
numbers in the Rogers report, "Report of the Presidential Commission on the
Space Shuttle Challenger Accident". (Any library with any pretensions to
quality should have this; it is not an obscure technical report, but a
widely-distributed and not overly expensive book that is basic to real
understanding of the disaster.) Quotes in single quotes are approximate,
double quotes are literal.

Dramatis Personae:

B = Roger Boisjoly, Morton-Thiokol engineer
L = Bob Lund, M-T VP engineering
H = George Hardy, NASA manager
M = Larry Mulloy, NASA manager
K = Joe Kilminster, M-T VP boosters
R = Stan Reinartz, NASA manager

The scene: a teleconference between M-T Utah and two NASA centers, called
to discuss the issue of cold vs. SRBs [107].

1. B: 'Don't launch.' [89] L: 'Don't launch.' [90]

2. H: 'Argh. But if contractor says don't launch, we won't.' [Note NASA
willingness to at least talk about not launching.] [90]

3. K: 'If the engineers say no, M-T says no.' [90]

4. M&H: 'Argh. We think it's not that bad. We're impatient to launch.' [91-2]

5. K: 'We want a recess to talk about it.' Done. [92]

6. Much discussion. L told to put on his management hat. [93]

7. Teleconference resumes, same participants [including B]. [108]

8. K: 'Go ahead and launch.' [93] B comments later in testimony: "I did
not agree with some of the statements that were being made to
support the decision." [93] [Note: not just 'decision wrong' but
'supporting arguments are lies'.]

9. R asks whether anyone in the teleconference has a different position or
further comments. [96,100]

10. --- SILENCE --- [96,100] In particular, B is silent. [93]

11. Teleconference concludes. B is unhappy but does nothing. [93]

12. Next morning: manned space program in shambles, seven astronauts dead.

13. Later, in testimony, B: "I felt I really did all I could to stop the
launch." [93]


The reader will have to form his own opinions on whether Boisjoly was, in
these events, a heroic whistleblower risking his job for his principles,
or a dutiful company man who shut up when his management told him to shut up.
He clearly did become a whistleblower later... after the damage was done.

Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.risks
X-issue: 6.59
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 88 14:57:31 EDT
From:
Subject: What happened to personal responsibility?

... To sit in a 30mph steam train was not only a joy, you placed
your life in the hands of engineers who were ultimately accountable. To
sit in a 125mph bullet train or a high-speed local subway is no longer
quite so joyful. You *still* place you life in the hands of the company,
but is it the Engineers, software or otherwise that carry the can?

Why, nobody, of course.

If you want a good example of what I'm talking about, consider the Challenger
disaster. I think there is little doubt that specific people could plausibly
be held responsible for it, although there might be some debate about exactly
who. Now, look at the aftermath. How many people have been arrested on
criminal charges as a result? None. How many people have been fired in
disgrace as a result? None. (A few have run into trouble for talking too
much about the incident, but not for causing it!) How many companies have
been disbarred from government business as a result? None. What penalties
were assessed against Morton Thiokol? Well, after a long debate it was
agreed that ten million dollars would be deducted from payments on their
SRB contracts. (Note that (a) the replacement value of a shuttle orbiter
is approximately two *billion* dollars, (b) both NASA and its customers
have been hard-hit by the long hiatus in spaceflight and other side effects
of the disaster, (c) Morton Thiokol has received many millions of dollars in
fix-the-SRBs contracts, and (d) the issue of an alternate source for SRBs,
a major worry to M-T, has been postponed for some years.)

To avoid a repetition of the Challenger disaster, people need an incentive
to avoid one. For the lawyers and MBAs who run most aerospace companies,
that means a financial incentive. Only if technical disaster translates
into financial disaster will the bean-counters see to it that the whole
company has a firm commitment to avoiding it. Only then will a "no" from
the engineers be backed up by the management, even if it hurts. So how much
of a financial disaster has Morton Thiokol undergone? None!

Look at the results, not the rhetoric. Who was responsible for Challenger?

Nobody.

Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.risks
X-issue: 6.69
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 88 10:45:56 EDT
From:
Subject: Accountability

... more indicative of a social failure than a true RISK ... because it's
about the failure of a chain of command to control the situation.

I would diagnose it differently, unless you mean this in the broadest possible
sense. The problem is not that the people on top are not properly in charge;
the problem is that the people on top do not *WANT* to be held responsible
for results (or lack thereof). The more complex the organization, the
easier it is to point fingers at someone (anyone) else, until responsibility
is so diffused that nobody is ever really to blame when something goes wrong.

Particularly in that sort of setup, it is important to supply incentives
for doing it right that affect the whole organization rather than specific
individuals. (Note that I am addressing pragmatic tactics here, not right
versus wrong. I believe very strongly in individual responsibility, but
when dealing with, say, Morton Thiokol, it's not an easy notion to enforce.)
Major reductions in cash flow tend to get everyone's attention.

-That cash is the only effective incentive for producing results is the
ultimate disaster of our times...

While I agree that it's an undesirable situation, I feel compelled to point
out that it's not a problem of "our times"; historically, life has always
been cheap. Society has, on the whole, become considerably *more* humane
in recent times.

Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry
Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: Henry Spencer
Subject: Challenger Disaster
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 06:25:40 GMT

In article Gerhard Wisnewski writes:
1. US-Senator Ernest Hollings was sure, that the government
forced NASA to launch Challenger on January 28, 1986 because of
an important speech of Pres. Reagan ...

Richard Feynman, easily the most skeptical and most independent member of
the Rogers commission, went looking for evidence of this, and found none.
His conclusion, as I recall, was that too many people would have to know
-- the secret couldn't have been kept. (This is a common failing of such
theories: they assume that a government which couldn't keep Iranscam
secret could hide much nastier secrets. A much simpler way to explain it
is that the "secret" is entirely someone's overactive imagination.)

2. Richard Cook, a former financial expert of NASA, wrote in an
1986-issue of "Washington Monthly", the Rogers commission failed
to ask, WHY Challenger was forced to start on this morning...

It wasn't. There was pressure to get things moving because the launch
had already slipped repeatedly, NASA leaned on Thiokol, and Thiokol
gave in. "Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained
by stupidity."

Does somebody know something about the schedule and purposes
behind this PR-event? Why was McAuliffe aboard and which plans
hat Reagan with her? What about the purposes of the teachers in
space-program? Hope, somebody can help... Many thanks,G.Wisnewski

The teacher-in-space flight was the first Citizens In Space flight.
C.I.S. was intended to eventually fly a wide variety of observers --
journalists, artists, etc. -- as a sort of proxy for the shuttle's
inability to fly ordinary people in quantity. It had been widely
expected that a journalist would be first, but when Reagan officially
announced the program, he specified that a teacher would be first.

There is no evidence that Reagan had any special plans for this
flight. It happened to be on the same day as his State Of The Union
address... but that was entirely accidental, the result of repeated
schedule slips. It wasn't scheduled for that day.
--
Look, look, see Windows 95. Buy, lemmings, buy! | Henry Spencer
Pay no attention to that cliff ahead... |

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: Henry Spencer
Subject: Shuttle carrying explosives?
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 02:08:28 GMT

From what I heard, the explosion was caused, not by explosives, but by
the failure of an "o-ring" which was supposed to flex during liftoff...

Basically correct (as Ken H. has already elaborated on). The fact that
the SRBs both surived the breakup indicated that *their* destruct charges
weren't involved. There was, however, considerable suspicion about the ET
destruct charges. The salvage effort made a considerable effort to find
them or their remains, and succeeded: they were recovered, intact, unfired.
(You can find pictures of them in the Rogers commission report, in fact.)
This finally exonerated the destruct charges of any responsibility.
--
Look, look, see Windows 95. Buy, lemmings, buy! | Henry Spencer
Pay no attention to that cliff ahead... |

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: Henry Spencer
Subject: Challenger, a major malfunction?
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 20:07:51 GMT

In article (Randy Kielich) writes:
Should the Challenger have flown that day or should they have
*never* even thought about a launch that damn cold day? ...

It was, unfortunately, a judgement call. The hard, cold fact is that
perfect safety is impossible, and it's always necessary to fly with
less than complete assurance that everything is right. The trick is
to draw the line between "we'd better look at this" and "this doesn't
look important" in the right place. You can't avoid having to draw it.

The Challenger managers had legitimate concerns: the flight was already
running late, and NASA had an ambitious schedule for that year, including
some flights with narrow launch windows that could not be postponed. It
was quite reasonable for them to ask Thiokol "are you sure that the low
temperatures are really a problem?".

Of course, if the managers had been doing their jobs and keeping an eye on
safety-related engineering problems (which lower echelons know about but
hadn't succeeded in communicating), they wouldn't have pushed Thiokol so
hard about it. There *was* real reason for concern. But even so, it
wasn't self-evident that a launch in cold weather would lead to disaster,
only that it would reduce an important safety margin whose exact size was
somewhat uncertain.

Mind you, the mere fact of that uncertainty would have been a red flag in
a rationally-run program. The aircraft people have known for a long time
that the only way to be sure an aircraft will work in low temperatures is
to test it in low temperatures. Unfortunately, the shuttle program wasn't
very well run, and didn't believe in thorough flight testing.

The *real* problem came when (a) Thiokol management decided to overrule
its engineers and (b) the Thiokol engineers sat still for it. The
Thiokol engineers were the only people to whom it was clear that the
launch was a serious mistake, and they dutifully shut up when told to.

In short... given the context, it wasn't an unreasonable judgement call
on the NASA side. The problem on the NASA side was that the context
should have been different. The failure of the NASA managers was in
program management, not in that day's decision. Had the program been
better run, it would have been clear that launching that day was a bad
idea; as it was, that wasn't obvious. The only people who really knew
how worrisome the situation was, weren't talking.
--
The Earth is our mother. | Henry Spencer
Our nine months are up... |

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: Henry Spencer
Subject: Did the Challenger crew survive the explosion, prior to falling to the ocean?
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 04:20:31 GMT

In article CLAUDE BARIL writes:
Did the Challenger crew survive the explosion, prior to
falling to the ocean? No way,they we're to high (75'000feet)
they had no air,and they we're probably kill at the explosion
the steel didn't take it ,imagine the body...

Human bodies are pretty tough, and the orbiter isn't made of steel.
The Kerwin medical/forensic report concluded that the breakup (there
was no explosion, by the way) was not violent enough to have much
chance of killing the crew, and that the air used from some of the
emergency air packs indicated fairly conclusively that at least some
of the crew were alive until water impact. There is no chance that
they would have stayed *conscious* unless the cabin held pressure,
which is extremely unlikely, but nothing before the water impact is
at all likely to have killed them.
--
Space will not be opened by always | Henry Spencer
leaving it to another generation. --Bill Gaubatz |

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: (George Herbert)
Newsgroups: sci.space.policy,rec.arts.sf.science,rec.aviation. homebuilt,rec.models.rockets
Subject: SpaceCub FAQ
Date: 19 Mar 1996 23:38:16 -0800

In article , wrote:
So... would the Challenger astronauts have survived a 1/1000th strength
explosion? If you're the size of an ant, then a newt is just as fatal as
a T Rex.

The answer is undoubtedly yes, they would have survived a 1/1000th strength
explosion. They might have survived a 10 times larger explosion.
They *did* survive the "explosion" when Challenger let go. That is not
the right question, however, as there basically was no explosion
when Challenger's SRB burned through.

What is commonly referred to as "the explosion" was not an explosion.
It was a fire or a fireball. Neither of the SRBs exploded, as you can
see from looking at the video, as they are both intact after the fireball.
The SRB that failed leaked a jet of hot gas or flame from inside onto
the surface of the rear of the external tank, in front of where the aft
SRB attach point is located. That caused the tank to suffer a structural
failure in that region, which let the hydrogen out and caused the SRB to
pivot around its forwards attach point until it ruptured the oxygen tank.
The tank came apart on its own and shortly thereafter the LOX and hydrogen
mixed and fireballed. A pressure wave from the fireball in combination
with the now highly disrupted airflow (the orbiter started to come loose
and pitched up into the airstream, if I remember right) caused the orbiter
to suffer a catastrophic structural failure. It did not get blown to
bits; it broke into large pieces (the crew compartment, the engines and
tail section, the wings all came off intact, with the center section
being broken into smaller pieces) as the loads exceeded the strength.

A 1/1000th as strong explosion would mean something akin to the tank
fails but the end result is the shuttle flying free not attached to
the tank. It might well be sufficiently stable to survive that,
though I wouldn't want to know. I was told early on in the shuttle
program that they had simulated dropping the shuttle off the stack
early as an abort sequence, though several people within the program
have since denied that it is a known or safe procedure (some vehemently...).
Your mileage may vary.

In any case, the "explosion" didn't kill anyone, probably. The nose of
the Shuttle was intact as it came out of the low pressure fireball as
the propellants mixed and burned.

-george william herbert
Retro Aerospace




Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Henry Spencer
Newsgroups: sci.space.tech
Subject: Space Shuttle
Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 16:41:14 GMT

In article (Anonymouse) writes:
Out of curiosity, how much was recorded after the well-known "Roger, go
at throttle-up" (roughly quoted)? Was it ever determined how long the
astronauts survived after the explosion? And one more question: would
the currently-employed crew-escape system be of use in a
challenger-type disaster? I don't know much about it.

Well the last words issued by nasa were "Uh-Oh" said by onzuka? ..

Actually, I believe the "uh-oh" was from Smith.

Nasa never said if there was more...

The "uh-oh" was the last thing on the tape, because the orbiter recorders
are not battery-powered and they lost power as the orbiter broke up.

They could have been concious for
200 seconds... If I remember correctly..

There are two possibilities, depending on whether the cabin held pressure.
If it didn't, they would have been unconscious within seconds due to lack
of oxygen (the accident took place at fairly high altitude), and would not
have regained consciousness before impact. If it did hold pressure, they
could have been conscious all the way down. Indirect evidence suggests
that they were unconscious -- for example, it is known that they were all
still in their seats at impact -- but even quite detailed investigation
could not resolve whether the cabin held pressure or not.

No The escape system would be worth jack crap...

The escape system itself is mostly designed to get the crew clear of the
orbiter if it is in controlled flight but unable to reach a runway. It's
simply irrelevant to an accident like Challenger's. (An escape system
which could get the crew clear of a Challenger-class accident is not
impossible, but it would be heavy enough to severely limit the shuttle's
usefulness, and it would add its own hazards. NASA has studied the
possibility repeatedly and each time has concluded that it is
impractical.)

The parachutes and pressure suits that were added at the same time are a
slightly different story. The suits would have kept the crew conscious,
and the parachutes would have offered a way of landing safely. The hard
part would have been getting out of, and clear of, the cabin.
--
If we feared danger, mankind would never | Henry Spencer
go to space. --Ellison S. Onizuka |


Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: Henry Spencer
Subject: Challenger Shuttle ?
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 16:28:54 GMT

In article (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
: Nasa conducted a very aggressive investigation of anyone found to have
: "collected" debris from the accident, some people will sell anything...

What is the status of such debris uder maritime law?

Contrary to popular belief, the basis of maritime salvage law is *not*
"finders keepers". Debris of identifiable origin belongs to the original
owner, except in certain unusual situations.

Now mind you, if you recover such debris, and if it's still of value, the
original owner may owe you a salvage fee. And if he doesn't pay, the
obvious response is to put a lien on the debris, which may end up with
you owning the debris instead of the fee.

However, I expect the bottom line in this particular case is that the sea
bottom immediately off the Cape is considered government property, and
private diving there is forbidden. Generic maritime law can be overruled
by any number of such local issues until you get out into international
waters.

(Caution: I am not a lawyer. Consult an expert before making investments.)

To what end did NASA conduct the "very aggressive investigation"?

To find anyone who was misappropriating government property for private
gain.
--
...the truly fundamental discoveries seldom | Henry Spencer
occur where we have decided to look. --B. Forman |


Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Where are Challenger wreckage?
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 03:12:04 GMT

In article ,
Kim Keller wrote:
The Challenger wreckage is stored in an old Minuteman missile launch silo on
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. As remaining wreckage washes in from the
ocean, it is added to the collection.

Incidentally, it's not a question of just dumping all the wreckage down a
hole. Missile silos in general, and the Cape test silos in particular,
have assorted underground rooms attached to them, for support equipment
and such. It's a place which is out of public view and secure against
thieves, doesn't require spending a bunch of money on construction or
maintenance, and provides reasonable protection against the elements in
case there's ever some reason to take another look at the wreckage (or use
bits of it in test programs and the like -- this has been done for one or
two items of hardware).
--
The good old days | Henry Spencer
weren't. | (aka )
Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Off-Earth fatalities.
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 20:18:15 GMT

In article ,
Karl D. Dodenhoff, RN wrote:
The Challenger crew did not have suits. Assuming that the cabin lost
pressure -- which appears likely but could not be conclusively proved --
they were alive but unconscious at impact.

At least one of the crew's emergency oxygen packs had been activated,
which means that, whoever did the activating had to be conscious, I
would think.

Emergency air packs, not oxygen packs. And yes, several of the packs had
been activated, indicating that at least some of the crew were conscious
*briefly* after things went sour. However, this merely proves what was
already almost certain: the crew survived the orbiter's breakup.

(In fact, one strong argument
that the cabin *did* lose pressure is that there *is* conclusive proof,
from the damage to seat-support structures, that all seven were still in
their seats and strapped in at impact.)

Where else would they go? There was no system to bail out of the
orbiter back then...

So? These are resourceful people, trained to *cope* with an emergency as
best they can, not to sit there like sheep waiting for divine intervention
to save them. It is ridiculous that of seven people with that kind of
training, not one would have so much as gotten out of his seat.

No matter how poor your chances are in a long free-fall into water,
they've got to be better than your chances inside a multi-ton cabin.
There wasn't an organized *system* for bailing out, but there were escape
hatches, intended for use on the ground. Get the side hatch or the
overhead escape hatch open, maybe try to grab a spare coverall or
something to slow you down even a little bit, and get out! (Actually,
hold off on the hatch opening until reasonably low altitude, since you
don't want to depressurize the cabin too early... but that gives you more
time to get people organized and ready, collect spare coveralls, etc.)
Above all, try *something* -- it's got to be better than doing nothing!

The situation wasn't good and the odds were poor, but they would have been
*trying*. The only plausible reason for them still being in their seats
was that they became unconscious within seconds and stayed that way until
impact.

Even if there had been, a vehicle plummeting down
through the atmosphere is impossible to bail out of.

Utter nonsense. Plenty of WW2 aircrew bailed out of falling pieces of
aircraft. Many, even most, who tried it didn't make it, but some did.
By the way, a few of the ones who did it *without parachutes* survived.

The current system
requires that it be in stable, controlled flight for the crew to escape.

No, the current system requires that it be in stable controlled flight
for the crew to *reliably* escape. There's a big difference.

BTW - I believe that the first few shuttle flights had ejection seats.
But, they were removed after the shuttle was deemed "operational".

Yes, seats for the two test pilots. They were intended primarily for
situations in which the orbiter was in stable controlled flight but unable
to reach a runway. The chances of such a situation developing were
(correctly) assessed as being low in operational service. Removing the
seats was a reasonable decision: they are heavy and dangerous, of very
limited use, and couldn't straightforwardly be provided to the whole crew.
--
Being the last man on the Moon is a | Henry Spencer
very dubious honor. -- Gene Cernan | (aka )

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Off-Earth fatalities.
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 03:15:39 GMT

In article ,
James A Davis wrote:
...But Karl's point I believe is the difficulty of
exiting an intact cabin that is tumbling out of control. WW2 experience
is relevant here also. It is next to impossible to overcome the
centrifugal forces inside an out of control, tumbling bomber.

Note key words he "difficulty", "next to impossible". In other words,
while the odds of getting out are slim, the chance is there, and sensible
people -- if conscious -- will try.

...Unless the cabin was stabilized
in descent somehow they would have had no chance to reach a hatch and
exit on their own...

Actually, it appears to have been stabilized to some degree by trailing
cables and plumbing. It's hard to say how well.

Again, though, my original point: the key thing to notice is not that
nobody got out, but that nobody was trying. That means they were dead
(but other evidence indicates otherwise) or unconscious.
--
Being the last man on the Moon is a | Henry Spencer
very dubious honor. -- Gene Cernan | (aka )

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Off-Earth fatalities.
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 22:37:32 GMT

In article ,
Karl D. Dodenhoff, RN wrote:
I can't even believe this. There is just no comparison to being in a
WWII bomber getting shot up and what Challenger went through. NOBODY
can remain calm, cool, and collected in such a situation. It was just
too mind-numbingly horrific.

So they just sat there, paralyzed with fear, until they hit? (Remember,
not only did nobody get out, but nobody was trying.)

Maybe you would. Perhaps (although I'm skeptical) two payload specialists
would. But five career astronauts wouldn't, especially not the three with
military flight-crew training. Nobody's calm and cool in such situations,
but collectedness is something people can be, and are, trained for. You
deal with the situation *first*, and change into dry pants *later*, when
you get the chance. (I'm not kidding one little bit.)

In fact, what little evidence we have of any crew action after the breakup
supports this. Judy Resnik turned on not only her own air pack, but also
Mike Smith's -- they were stowed on the back of Smith's seat and he
couldn't easily have reached his own. Not that it helped much in the end,
but it was worth trying, and so she did.

Actually, this is the way a lot of human beings behave. Folklore greatly
exaggerates the extent to which disaster paralyzes people. Some just
break down into quivering uselessness, but many others do what they can to
cope. And training improves the odds still more.

If you want to know how astronauts would behave in a crunch, the best
illustration I know is still from a press conference a little while before
Apollo 11. Somebody asked Armstrong and Aldrin what they would do if the
ascent engine didn't light, and they were stranded on the Moon with only a
few hours of oxygen left -- what would they do in those hours? I believe
it was Aldrin who responded "I think we'd spend most of them trying to fix
the engine..."
--
Being the last man on the Moon is a | Henry Spencer
very dubious honor. -- Gene Cernan | (aka )

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: (JamesOberg)
Newsgroups: sci.space.policy
Subject: NASA Keeps Subsidizing Mir Operations
Date: 3 Sep 1998 12:38:25 GMT

Pat: I merely wanted to point out that Jim has firsthand knowledge of self
delusion in action.

Of course, Pat has no such insights into what I felt, or saw, or thought, but
that doesn't stop him from proclaiming that he did.

In 1985, however, there were lots of signs of growing sloppiness in space
operations, and although I was working that year in flight design activities,
not mission operations, I recall vividly the case in which the "Pointer"
console sent a wrong data load to the Orbiter when it was supposed to point its
middeck window towards a ground site to measure an IR laser through its
optically flat high-transparency window (the flight deck windows are coated for
crew protection). The data load used feet instead of nautical miles for the
altitude of the site, on a Hawaiian mountain peak, the value was 11,000 feet,
so the Orbiter turned its window to view a spot 11,000 miles above Hawaii. It
was embarrassing, but it also was the result of inadequate ground checks and an
arrogant attitude to outside reviews (one young designer had actually warned
the Pointer office that their values were wrong, two months before flight, but
they ignored him). Equally objectionable to me, the flight control team laughed
off the mistake later, even though it was symptomatic (in my view) of wrong
attitudes. I recall writing up the incident for my own team and circulating the
memo higher up as an alert to this sort of problem.

As for the pressure to launch Challenger, I've always felt it was due to the
unslippable Jupiter launch windows in May 1986, and the near-panic over the
overambitious plans for two Centaur launches six days apart. Maybe if a former
General Dynamics official (they built Centaur) hadn't been head of NASA
somebody would have had the nerve to say we couldn't do it, we had to step back
from a "Can Do" obsession, and aim for lower targets -- one Centaur only, or
perhaps none until a year later.

That experience, and the post-hoc validity of my impressions at the time, made
a big impression on me.
Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.policy
From: (Henry Spencer)
Subject: MPL lies
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 03:00:32 GMT

In article ,
rk wrote:
Oops, left off one part of my post, a good url:
Roger Boisjoly: Fulfilling an Engineer's Responsibility for Safety
http://onlineethics.org/moral/boisjoly/RB-intro.html

A small note of caution he Boisjoly speaks about this from the
viewpoint of someone who abdicated that responsibility on the one occasion
when it really mattered. Thiokol management told him to shut up; he did.
("I had my say, and I never take [away] any management right to take the
input of an engineer and then make a decision based upon that input... so
there was no point in me doing anything any further...") When Stanley
Reinartz (shuttle project manager) concluded the infamous teleconference
by asking if there were any further comments, Boisjoly said nothing.
--
Microsoft shouldn't be broken up. | Henry Spencer
It should be shut down. -- Phil Agre | (aka )

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Surviving a Challenger Disater
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 08:45:10 GMT

In article ,
David Sander wrote:
Wouldn't the TPS offer *some* form of protection from the SRB exhaust? Or are
we talking gas ejection velocities and temperatures substantially greater than
atmospheric re-entry velocity / temperature levels?

Reentry takes place mostly in very thin air. The *density* of the SRB
exhaust is literally orders of magnitude higher... and it's full of
abrasive aluminum-oxide particles too. The TPS wouldn't help noticeably.

I was under the impression Challenger was blown to bits rather than
incinerated...

Neither, really -- it broke up because it was thrown violently out of
control at high supersonic speed. (Which is why the crew survived,
probably until water impact.) Not even a jet fighter, far more strongly
built than a shuttle orbiter, can survive trying to fly sideways at
supersonic speeds. For example, the F-100's yaw limit at maximum
aerodynamic pressure was 8 degrees, which one commentator (discussing
an infamous accident where that limit had been grossly exceeded due to
unexpected problems) described as "indicative of impressive strength".
--
Microsoft shouldn't be broken up. | Henry Spencer
It should be shut down. -- Phil Agre | (aka )
Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Index Home About

**A correction (amendment.)**

I found some emails from 1987 that show John Maxson and Henry Spencer
discussing Boisjoly (what a find!) So why do people that were there in the know
pretend that John Maxson was a "janitor" or is a kook? Here is my father being discussed
by Henry Spencer in 1987 as an example.

My intentions in the paragraph were to state that I found Henry Spencer discussing
John Maxson and Boisjoly back in 1987. John Maxson was being discussed he was not
part of the discussion. IOW, he does not have emails written there by him.

Also on this paragraph,

Lastly on Challenger, will someone go get my father John Thomas Maxson's testimony
in it's entirety (I am not going to pretend I am 100% clueless on Challenger)
and walk me through it please?

I am asking someone to post John Maxson's testimony (*listed in the PCR index.*)
Pretty simple requests (IMHO.)

Thanks,

Paul Maxson




"Paul Maxson" wrote in message ...
Dear group,

I have decided to broaden my horizons on what the consensus is concerning the
two space shuttles in the subject title. I will start off by giving my condolences
to the loved ones of the lost heroes. Loss of a loved ones life is something I know well.

I will also say I am a non aerospace engineer, space type expert either so my questions
will reflect that. Not everyone in the world has the engineering knowledge that this group
possesses but that (to me) should not disqualify someone from;
A. Being interested
B. Asking questions

So I am an interested non professional with a few questions. Mainly about video and imagery.

From everything I have read imagery is only taken on lift off, not landings. Is this true?
Is so why? I am not just talking about ground camera's and elevation here.

Mission 51-L (or STS 51-L as some refer to it) had at *least* 7 camera's on it at lift off
correct? Let's just assume I have most of the publicly available angles/videos for now.

Can someone here (someone who has offered website help in the past) upload E-207
on lift off date from NASA on Mission 51-L to their website and walk me through it step
by step and show me what is occurring? Frozen screen shots or the ability to pause would
be extremely helpful. What is the best software (besides WMV) to view E-207?
What is the best software to view (that is publicly available) MPEG II's?
I'm currently using a 15 day trial version of a program I dislike for MPEG II's.

I understand E-207 had a real good angle/view of the tragedy but I don't have it.
Will someone share and expound on it in a step by step fashion?

More on imagery;

In 1986 were our satellite camera's less capable than they are now? ( Please follow me
on this, please give me a little leeway.) Have the cameras ever been updated or do they
just upload new satellites with newer cameras? I honestly do not know. I know I have
seen very excellent imagery of weapons etc being moved in a very zoomed in fashion.

Lastly on Challenger, will someone go get my father John Thomas Maxson's testimony
in it's entirety (I am not going to pretend I am 100% clueless on Challenger)
and walk me through it please?

I found some emails from 1987 that show John Maxson and Henry Spencer
discussing Boisjoly (what a find!) So why do people that were there in the know
pretend that John Maxson was a "janitor" or is a kook? Here is my father being discussed
by Henry Spencer in 1987 as an example.

http://yarchive.net/space/shuttle/challenger.html

So let's all just play along and assume we know that one John Maxson "refused to share
the stage with Boisjoly." BTW, I don't think any janitors were up on stage that day.

So someone go get my fathers testimony to the PCR and upload it and let's all read
for *ourselves* what my father said then and compare it to what he is saying now.
Here is a cite as a source of reference.

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1appa.htm edit find Maxson

Did anything my father say in that testimony concern safety experts at the time?

And then to be fair to the group a page my father doesn't really agree 100% with (that I know of.)

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/5.62.html#subj11

So are people still at a doubt as to what role John Thomas Maxson played in Mission 51-L?

If so please walk me through the Roger's Report version to better understand. Civilly dispute
my fathers testimony there and slow mo E-207 for me. I will read and view it all with an open mind.
This could forever change the course of the rest of my life if done convincingly! Help me understand!

Secondly, on Columbia. There weren't any camera's on the *ground* that could view that
high upon it's reentry correct or not? On take off though they have video of a strike to the
wing! Knowing (and having seen this strike) would NASA had any *other* camera's
watching the reentry? What is the protocol for this scenario? FDO's expound please.
I have seen video and read emails that the launch wasn't normal so why not track it's decent?
Again, what is the protocol for this scenario ?

Satellites.

What is the ability of our satellites in 2003 in regards to space shuttles?
Were *any* of them trained on shuttles in 2003? ( I haven't finished reading the CAIB.)
If not then why? What are these camera's capabilities and would their imagery helped
in the investigation?

Is anything crucial as to the cause sealed (unavailable) on Columbia?

If so should it be unsealed, would it reveal anything we don't know?

Here is your chance to gain a new convert, convince me to believe by answering
my very simple layman's type questions and I will read them with an open mind.

Sincerely,

Paul Maxson



For posterity here are some UUnet posts from 1987 that reference John Maxson.

-----------------------------

Index Home About
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.risks
X-issue: 5.70
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 87 15:47:52 EST
From:
To:
Subject: Whistle-blowers who aren't

Maxson will share the stage with former Morton Thiokol engineer Roger
Boisjoly, who currently has a billion-dollar suit underway...

Maybe I am just being picky about this, but it still makes me see red when
I see Boisjoly described as a "whistle-blower". Boisjoly is the man who
could have blown the whistle BUT DIDN'T, and seven astronauts died as a
result. Boisjoly was the engineer who told MT management "don't launch",
was told "put on your management hat", did so, and changed his expert
professional opinion 180 degrees to match his hat color. In a just world,
I cannot help but think that he (and, certainly, his management) would be
facing criminal charges. Boisjoly did not blow the whistle; he merely
turned "state's evidence" after the fact.

Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry


Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 2 Dec 87 15:48:00 EST
From:
To:
Subject: Space Shuttle Whistle-Blowers Sound Alarm Again (reprint)

... new and improved shuttle escape mechanisms. Lot's of
money is being spent, but whether reported or not, upon (close) examination
none of these mechanisms would prevent the death of astronauts in a
Challenger type disaster. I wonder just how much additional engineering
is happening for purely public relations purposes...

The escape work is not being done for purely public relations purposes; it
merely, for the most part, does not address situations as severe as the
Challenger disaster. There is in fact some attention being given to such
situations, but the thorough re-examination of shuttle safety issues turned
up other cases where modest effort would yield a much higher probability
of survival. The reason why most escape-system work is not addressing the
Challenger scenario is that it is very difficult to get the crew out
of such a situation reliably! There are also tradeoffs to be considered:
regardless of managerial idiots blithering about safety being an absolute
priority, the only way to make the shuttles completely safe is to put them
in museums and never fly them again. In practice, there is no way to avoid
some level of compromise between safety and utility, since adding any type
of escape system reduces payload. There are also safety-vs-safety tradeoffs
to be made, since even simple ejection seats can and do fire accidentally,
often with fatal consequences.

Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.risks
X-issue: 5.78
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 87 04:41:38 EST
From:
To:
Subject: Roger Boisjoly and Ethical Behavior

There has been a fair bit of back-and-forth over Roger Boisjoly et al. in
private mail [subsequent to RISKS-5.63,70,71], most of which is pretty
peripheral to Risks. Herewith a straight chronology of verifiable events.
One or two personal notes are in brackets []. Numbers in brackets are page
numbers in the Rogers report, "Report of the Presidential Commission on the
Space Shuttle Challenger Accident". (Any library with any pretensions to
quality should have this; it is not an obscure technical report, but a
widely-distributed and not overly expensive book that is basic to real
understanding of the disaster.) Quotes in single quotes are approximate,
double quotes are literal.

Dramatis Personae:

B = Roger Boisjoly, Morton-Thiokol engineer
L = Bob Lund, M-T VP engineering
H = George Hardy, NASA manager
M = Larry Mulloy, NASA manager
K = Joe Kilminster, M-T VP boosters
R = Stan Reinartz, NASA manager

The scene: a teleconference between M-T Utah and two NASA centers, called
to discuss the issue of cold vs. SRBs [107].

1. B: 'Don't launch.' [89] L: 'Don't launch.' [90]

2. H: 'Argh. But if contractor says don't launch, we won't.' [Note NASA
willingness to at least talk about not launching.] [90]

3. K: 'If the engineers say no, M-T says no.' [90]

4. M&H: 'Argh. We think it's not that bad. We're impatient to launch.' [91-2]

5. K: 'We want a recess to talk about it.' Done. [92]

6. Much discussion. L told to put on his management hat. [93]

7. Teleconference resumes, same participants [including B]. [108]

8. K: 'Go ahead and launch.' [93] B comments later in testimony: "I did
not agree with some of the statements that were being made to
support the decision." [93] [Note: not just 'decision wrong' but
'supporting arguments are lies'.]

9. R asks whether anyone in the teleconference has a different position or
further comments. [96,100]

10. --- SILENCE --- [96,100] In particular, B is silent. [93]

11. Teleconference concludes. B is unhappy but does nothing. [93]

12. Next morning: manned space program in shambles, seven astronauts dead.

13. Later, in testimony, B: "I felt I really did all I could to stop the
launch." [93]


The reader will have to form his own opinions on whether Boisjoly was, in
these events, a heroic whistleblower risking his job for his principles,
or a dutiful company man who shut up when his management told him to shut up.
He clearly did become a whistleblower later... after the damage was done.

Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.risks
X-issue: 6.59
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 88 14:57:31 EDT
From:
Subject: What happened to personal responsibility?

... To sit in a 30mph steam train was not only a joy, you placed
your life in the hands of engineers who were ultimately accountable. To
sit in a 125mph bullet train or a high-speed local subway is no longer
quite so joyful. You *still* place you life in the hands of the company,
but is it the Engineers, software or otherwise that carry the can?

Why, nobody, of course.

If you want a good example of what I'm talking about, consider the Challenger
disaster. I think there is little doubt that specific people could plausibly
be held responsible for it, although there might be some debate about exactly
who. Now, look at the aftermath. How many people have been arrested on
criminal charges as a result? None. How many people have been fired in
disgrace as a result? None. (A few have run into trouble for talking too
much about the incident, but not for causing it!) How many companies have
been disbarred from government business as a result? None. What penalties
were assessed against Morton Thiokol? Well, after a long debate it was
agreed that ten million dollars would be deducted from payments on their
SRB contracts. (Note that (a) the replacement value of a shuttle orbiter
is approximately two *billion* dollars, (b) both NASA and its customers
have been hard-hit by the long hiatus in spaceflight and other side effects
of the disaster, (c) Morton Thiokol has received many millions of dollars in
fix-the-SRBs contracts, and (d) the issue of an alternate source for SRBs,
a major worry to M-T, has been postponed for some years.)

To avoid a repetition of the Challenger disaster, people need an incentive
to avoid one. For the lawyers and MBAs who run most aerospace companies,
that means a financial incentive. Only if technical disaster translates
into financial disaster will the bean-counters see to it that the whole
company has a firm commitment to avoiding it. Only then will a "no" from
the engineers be backed up by the management, even if it hurts. So how much
of a financial disaster has Morton Thiokol undergone? None!

Look at the results, not the rhetoric. Who was responsible for Challenger?

Nobody.

Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.risks
X-issue: 6.69
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 88 10:45:56 EDT
From:
Subject: Accountability

... more indicative of a social failure than a true RISK ... because it's
about the failure of a chain of command to control the situation.

I would diagnose it differently, unless you mean this in the broadest possible
sense. The problem is not that the people on top are not properly in charge;
the problem is that the people on top do not *WANT* to be held responsible
for results (or lack thereof). The more complex the organization, the
easier it is to point fingers at someone (anyone) else, until responsibility
is so diffused that nobody is ever really to blame when something goes wrong.

Particularly in that sort of setup, it is important to supply incentives
for doing it right that affect the whole organization rather than specific
individuals. (Note that I am addressing pragmatic tactics here, not right
versus wrong. I believe very strongly in individual responsibility, but
when dealing with, say, Morton Thiokol, it's not an easy notion to enforce.)
Major reductions in cash flow tend to get everyone's attention.

-That cash is the only effective incentive for producing results is the
ultimate disaster of our times...

While I agree that it's an undesirable situation, I feel compelled to point
out that it's not a problem of "our times"; historically, life has always
been cheap. Society has, on the whole, become considerably *more* humane
in recent times.

Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry
Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: Henry Spencer
Subject: Challenger Disaster
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 06:25:40 GMT

In article Gerhard Wisnewski writes:
1. US-Senator Ernest Hollings was sure, that the government
forced NASA to launch Challenger on January 28, 1986 because of
an important speech of Pres. Reagan ...

Richard Feynman, easily the most skeptical and most independent member of
the Rogers commission, went looking for evidence of this, and found none.
His conclusion, as I recall, was that too many people would have to know
-- the secret couldn't have been kept. (This is a common failing of such
theories: they assume that a government which couldn't keep Iranscam
secret could hide much nastier secrets. A much simpler way to explain it
is that the "secret" is entirely someone's overactive imagination.)

2. Richard Cook, a former financial expert of NASA, wrote in an
1986-issue of "Washington Monthly", the Rogers commission failed
to ask, WHY Challenger was forced to start on this morning...

It wasn't. There was pressure to get things moving because the launch
had already slipped repeatedly, NASA leaned on Thiokol, and Thiokol
gave in. "Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained
by stupidity."

Does somebody know something about the schedule and purposes
behind this PR-event? Why was McAuliffe aboard and which plans
hat Reagan with her? What about the purposes of the teachers in
space-program? Hope, somebody can help... Many thanks,G.Wisnewski

The teacher-in-space flight was the first Citizens In Space flight.
C.I.S. was intended to eventually fly a wide variety of observers --
journalists, artists, etc. -- as a sort of proxy for the shuttle's
inability to fly ordinary people in quantity. It had been widely
expected that a journalist would be first, but when Reagan officially
announced the program, he specified that a teacher would be first.

There is no evidence that Reagan had any special plans for this
flight. It happened to be on the same day as his State Of The Union
address... but that was entirely accidental, the result of repeated
schedule slips. It wasn't scheduled for that day.
--
Look, look, see Windows 95. Buy, lemmings, buy! | Henry Spencer
Pay no attention to that cliff ahead... |

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: Henry Spencer
Subject: Shuttle carrying explosives?
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 02:08:28 GMT

From what I heard, the explosion was caused, not by explosives, but by
the failure of an "o-ring" which was supposed to flex during liftoff...

Basically correct (as Ken H. has already elaborated on). The fact that
the SRBs both surived the breakup indicated that *their* destruct charges
weren't involved. There was, however, considerable suspicion about the ET
destruct charges. The salvage effort made a considerable effort to find
them or their remains, and succeeded: they were recovered, intact, unfired.
(You can find pictures of them in the Rogers commission report, in fact.)
This finally exonerated the destruct charges of any responsibility.
--
Look, look, see Windows 95. Buy, lemmings, buy! | Henry Spencer
Pay no attention to that cliff ahead... |

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: Henry Spencer
Subject: Challenger, a major malfunction?
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 20:07:51 GMT

In article (Randy Kielich) writes:
Should the Challenger have flown that day or should they have
*never* even thought about a launch that damn cold day? ...

It was, unfortunately, a judgement call. The hard, cold fact is that
perfect safety is impossible, and it's always necessary to fly with
less than complete assurance that everything is right. The trick is
to draw the line between "we'd better look at this" and "this doesn't
look important" in the right place. You can't avoid having to draw it.

The Challenger managers had legitimate concerns: the flight was already
running late, and NASA had an ambitious schedule for that year, including
some flights with narrow launch windows that could not be postponed. It
was quite reasonable for them to ask Thiokol "are you sure that the low
temperatures are really a problem?".

Of course, if the managers had been doing their jobs and keeping an eye on
safety-related engineering problems (which lower echelons know about but
hadn't succeeded in communicating), they wouldn't have pushed Thiokol so
hard about it. There *was* real reason for concern. But even so, it
wasn't self-evident that a launch in cold weather would lead to disaster,
only that it would reduce an important safety margin whose exact size was
somewhat uncertain.

Mind you, the mere fact of that uncertainty would have been a red flag in
a rationally-run program. The aircraft people have known for a long time
that the only way to be sure an aircraft will work in low temperatures is
to test it in low temperatures. Unfortunately, the shuttle program wasn't
very well run, and didn't believe in thorough flight testing.

The *real* problem came when (a) Thiokol management decided to overrule
its engineers and (b) the Thiokol engineers sat still for it. The
Thiokol engineers were the only people to whom it was clear that the
launch was a serious mistake, and they dutifully shut up when told to.

In short... given the context, it wasn't an unreasonable judgement call
on the NASA side. The problem on the NASA side was that the context
should have been different. The failure of the NASA managers was in
program management, not in that day's decision. Had the program been
better run, it would have been clear that launching that day was a bad
idea; as it was, that wasn't obvious. The only people who really knew
how worrisome the situation was, weren't talking.
--
The Earth is our mother. | Henry Spencer
Our nine months are up... |

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: Henry Spencer
Subject: Did the Challenger crew survive the explosion, prior to falling to the ocean?
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 04:20:31 GMT

In article CLAUDE BARIL writes:
Did the Challenger crew survive the explosion, prior to
falling to the ocean? No way,they we're to high (75'000feet)
they had no air,and they we're probably kill at the explosion
the steel didn't take it ,imagine the body...

Human bodies are pretty tough, and the orbiter isn't made of steel.
The Kerwin medical/forensic report concluded that the breakup (there
was no explosion, by the way) was not violent enough to have much
chance of killing the crew, and that the air used from some of the
emergency air packs indicated fairly conclusively that at least some
of the crew were alive until water impact. There is no chance that
they would have stayed *conscious* unless the cabin held pressure,
which is extremely unlikely, but nothing before the water impact is
at all likely to have killed them.
--
Space will not be opened by always | Henry Spencer
leaving it to another generation. --Bill Gaubatz |

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: (George Herbert)
Newsgroups: sci.space.policy,rec.arts.sf.science,rec.aviation. homebuilt,rec.models.rockets
Subject: SpaceCub FAQ
Date: 19 Mar 1996 23:38:16 -0800

In article , wrote:
So... would the Challenger astronauts have survived a 1/1000th strength
explosion? If you're the size of an ant, then a newt is just as fatal as
a T Rex.

The answer is undoubtedly yes, they would have survived a 1/1000th strength
explosion. They might have survived a 10 times larger explosion.
They *did* survive the "explosion" when Challenger let go. That is not
the right question, however, as there basically was no explosion
when Challenger's SRB burned through.

What is commonly referred to as "the explosion" was not an explosion.
It was a fire or a fireball. Neither of the SRBs exploded, as you can
see from looking at the video, as they are both intact after the fireball.
The SRB that failed leaked a jet of hot gas or flame from inside onto
the surface of the rear of the external tank, in front of where the aft
SRB attach point is located. That caused the tank to suffer a structural
failure in that region, which let the hydrogen out and caused the SRB to
pivot around its forwards attach point until it ruptured the oxygen tank.
The tank came apart on its own and shortly thereafter the LOX and hydrogen
mixed and fireballed. A pressure wave from the fireball in combination
with the now highly disrupted airflow (the orbiter started to come loose
and pitched up into the airstream, if I remember right) caused the orbiter
to suffer a catastrophic structural failure. It did not get blown to
bits; it broke into large pieces (the crew compartment, the engines and
tail section, the wings all came off intact, with the center section
being broken into smaller pieces) as the loads exceeded the strength.

A 1/1000th as strong explosion would mean something akin to the tank
fails but the end result is the shuttle flying free not attached to
the tank. It might well be sufficiently stable to survive that,
though I wouldn't want to know. I was told early on in the shuttle
program that they had simulated dropping the shuttle off the stack
early as an abort sequence, though several people within the program
have since denied that it is a known or safe procedure (some vehemently...).
Your mileage may vary.

In any case, the "explosion" didn't kill anyone, probably. The nose of
the Shuttle was intact as it came out of the low pressure fireball as
the propellants mixed and burned.

-george william herbert
Retro Aerospace




Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Henry Spencer
Newsgroups: sci.space.tech
Subject: Space Shuttle
Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 16:41:14 GMT

In article (Anonymouse) writes:
Out of curiosity, how much was recorded after the well-known "Roger, go
at throttle-up" (roughly quoted)? Was it ever determined how long the
astronauts survived after the explosion? And one more question: would
the currently-employed crew-escape system be of use in a
challenger-type disaster? I don't know much about it.

Well the last words issued by nasa were "Uh-Oh" said by onzuka? ..

Actually, I believe the "uh-oh" was from Smith.

Nasa never said if there was more...

The "uh-oh" was the last thing on the tape, because the orbiter recorders
are not battery-powered and they lost power as the orbiter broke up.

They could have been concious for
200 seconds... If I remember correctly..

There are two possibilities, depending on whether the cabin held pressure.
If it didn't, they would have been unconscious within seconds due to lack
of oxygen (the accident took place at fairly high altitude), and would not
have regained consciousness before impact. If it did hold pressure, they
could have been conscious all the way down. Indirect evidence suggests
that they were unconscious -- for example, it is known that they were all
still in their seats at impact -- but even quite detailed investigation
could not resolve whether the cabin held pressure or not.

No The escape system would be worth jack crap...

The escape system itself is mostly designed to get the crew clear of the
orbiter if it is in controlled flight but unable to reach a runway. It's
simply irrelevant to an accident like Challenger's. (An escape system
which could get the crew clear of a Challenger-class accident is not
impossible, but it would be heavy enough to severely limit the shuttle's
usefulness, and it would add its own hazards. NASA has studied the
possibility repeatedly and each time has concluded that it is
impractical.)

The parachutes and pressure suits that were added at the same time are a
slightly different story. The suits would have kept the crew conscious,
and the parachutes would have offered a way of landing safely. The hard
part would have been getting out of, and clear of, the cabin.
--
If we feared danger, mankind would never | Henry Spencer
go to space. --Ellison S. Onizuka |


Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: Henry Spencer
Subject: Challenger Shuttle ?
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 16:28:54 GMT

In article (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
: Nasa conducted a very aggressive investigation of anyone found to have
: "collected" debris from the accident, some people will sell anything...

What is the status of such debris uder maritime law?

Contrary to popular belief, the basis of maritime salvage law is *not*
"finders keepers". Debris of identifiable origin belongs to the original
owner, except in certain unusual situations.

Now mind you, if you recover such debris, and if it's still of value, the
original owner may owe you a salvage fee. And if he doesn't pay, the
obvious response is to put a lien on the debris, which may end up with
you owning the debris instead of the fee.

However, I expect the bottom line in this particular case is that the sea
bottom immediately off the Cape is considered government property, and
private diving there is forbidden. Generic maritime law can be overruled
by any number of such local issues until you get out into international
waters.

(Caution: I am not a lawyer. Consult an expert before making investments.)

To what end did NASA conduct the "very aggressive investigation"?

To find anyone who was misappropriating government property for private
gain.
--
...the truly fundamental discoveries seldom | Henry Spencer
occur where we have decided to look. --B. Forman |


Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Where are Challenger wreckage?
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 03:12:04 GMT

In article ,
Kim Keller wrote:
The Challenger wreckage is stored in an old Minuteman missile launch silo on
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. As remaining wreckage washes in from the
ocean, it is added to the collection.

Incidentally, it's not a question of just dumping all the wreckage down a
hole. Missile silos in general, and the Cape test silos in particular,
have assorted underground rooms attached to them, for support equipment
and such. It's a place which is out of public view and secure against
thieves, doesn't require spending a bunch of money on construction or
maintenance, and provides reasonable protection against the elements in
case there's ever some reason to take another look at the wreckage (or use
bits of it in test programs and the like -- this has been done for one or
two items of hardware).
--
The good old days | Henry Spencer
weren't. | (aka )
Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Off-Earth fatalities.
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 20:18:15 GMT

In article ,
Karl D. Dodenhoff, RN wrote:
The Challenger crew did not have suits. Assuming that the cabin lost
pressure -- which appears likely but could not be conclusively proved --
they were alive but unconscious at impact.

At least one of the crew's emergency oxygen packs had been activated,
which means that, whoever did the activating had to be conscious, I
would think.

Emergency air packs, not oxygen packs. And yes, several of the packs had
been activated, indicating that at least some of the crew were conscious
*briefly* after things went sour. However, this merely proves what was
already almost certain: the crew survived the orbiter's breakup.

(In fact, one strong argument
that the cabin *did* lose pressure is that there *is* conclusive proof,
from the damage to seat-support structures, that all seven were still in
their seats and strapped in at impact.)

Where else would they go? There was no system to bail out of the
orbiter back then...

So? These are resourceful people, trained to *cope* with an emergency as
best they can, not to sit there like sheep waiting for divine intervention
to save them. It is ridiculous that of seven people with that kind of
training, not one would have so much as gotten out of his seat.

No matter how poor your chances are in a long free-fall into water,
they've got to be better than your chances inside a multi-ton cabin.
There wasn't an organized *system* for bailing out, but there were escape
hatches, intended for use on the ground. Get the side hatch or the
overhead escape hatch open, maybe try to grab a spare coverall or
something to slow you down even a little bit, and get out! (Actually,
hold off on the hatch opening until reasonably low altitude, since you
don't want to depressurize the cabin too early... but that gives you more
time to get people organized and ready, collect spare coveralls, etc.)
Above all, try *something* -- it's got to be better than doing nothing!

The situation wasn't good and the odds were poor, but they would have been
*trying*. The only plausible reason for them still being in their seats
was that they became unconscious within seconds and stayed that way until
impact.

Even if there had been, a vehicle plummeting down
through the atmosphere is impossible to bail out of.

Utter nonsense. Plenty of WW2 aircrew bailed out of falling pieces of
aircraft. Many, even most, who tried it didn't make it, but some did.
By the way, a few of the ones who did it *without parachutes* survived.

The current system
requires that it be in stable, controlled flight for the crew to escape.

No, the current system requires that it be in stable controlled flight
for the crew to *reliably* escape. There's a big difference.

BTW - I believe that the first few shuttle flights had ejection seats.
But, they were removed after the shuttle was deemed "operational".

Yes, seats for the two test pilots. They were intended primarily for
situations in which the orbiter was in stable controlled flight but unable
to reach a runway. The chances of such a situation developing were
(correctly) assessed as being low in operational service. Removing the
seats was a reasonable decision: they are heavy and dangerous, of very
limited use, and couldn't straightforwardly be provided to the whole crew.
--
Being the last man on the Moon is a | Henry Spencer
very dubious honor. -- Gene Cernan | (aka )

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Off-Earth fatalities.
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 03:15:39 GMT

In article ,
James A Davis wrote:
...But Karl's point I believe is the difficulty of
exiting an intact cabin that is tumbling out of control. WW2 experience
is relevant here also. It is next to impossible to overcome the
centrifugal forces inside an out of control, tumbling bomber.

Note key words he "difficulty", "next to impossible". In other words,
while the odds of getting out are slim, the chance is there, and sensible
people -- if conscious -- will try.

...Unless the cabin was stabilized
in descent somehow they would have had no chance to reach a hatch and
exit on their own...

Actually, it appears to have been stabilized to some degree by trailing
cables and plumbing. It's hard to say how well.

Again, though, my original point: the key thing to notice is not that
nobody got out, but that nobody was trying. That means they were dead
(but other evidence indicates otherwise) or unconscious.
--
Being the last man on the Moon is a | Henry Spencer
very dubious honor. -- Gene Cernan | (aka )

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Off-Earth fatalities.
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 22:37:32 GMT

In article ,
Karl D. Dodenhoff, RN wrote:
I can't even believe this. There is just no comparison to being in a
WWII bomber getting shot up and what Challenger went through. NOBODY
can remain calm, cool, and collected in such a situation. It was just
too mind-numbingly horrific.

So they just sat there, paralyzed with fear, until they hit? (Remember,
not only did nobody get out, but nobody was trying.)

Maybe you would. Perhaps (although I'm skeptical) two payload specialists
would. But five career astronauts wouldn't, especially not the three with
military flight-crew training. Nobody's calm and cool in such situations,
but collectedness is something people can be, and are, trained for. You
deal with the situation *first*, and change into dry pants *later*, when
you get the chance. (I'm not kidding one little bit.)

In fact, what little evidence we have of any crew action after the breakup
supports this. Judy Resnik turned on not only her own air pack, but also
Mike Smith's -- they were stowed on the back of Smith's seat and he
couldn't easily have reached his own. Not that it helped much in the end,
but it was worth trying, and so she did.

Actually, this is the way a lot of human beings behave. Folklore greatly
exaggerates the extent to which disaster paralyzes people. Some just
break down into quivering uselessness, but many others do what they can to
cope. And training improves the odds still more.

If you want to know how astronauts would behave in a crunch, the best
illustration I know is still from a press conference a little while before
Apollo 11. Somebody asked Armstrong and Aldrin what they would do if the
ascent engine didn't light, and they were stranded on the Moon with only a
few hours of oxygen left -- what would they do in those hours? I believe
it was Aldrin who responded "I think we'd spend most of them trying to fix
the engine..."
--
Being the last man on the Moon is a | Henry Spencer
very dubious honor. -- Gene Cernan | (aka )

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: (JamesOberg)
Newsgroups: sci.space.policy
Subject: NASA Keeps Subsidizing Mir Operations
Date: 3 Sep 1998 12:38:25 GMT

Pat: I merely wanted to point out that Jim has firsthand knowledge of self
delusion in action.

Of course, Pat has no such insights into what I felt, or saw, or thought, but
that doesn't stop him from proclaiming that he did.

In 1985, however, there were lots of signs of growing sloppiness in space
operations, and although I was working that year in flight design activities,
not mission operations, I recall vividly the case in which the "Pointer"
console sent a wrong data load to the Orbiter when it was supposed to point its
middeck window towards a ground site to measure an IR laser through its
optically flat high-transparency window (the flight deck windows are coated for
crew protection). The data load used feet instead of nautical miles for the
altitude of the site, on a Hawaiian mountain peak, the value was 11,000 feet,
so the Orbiter turned its window to view a spot 11,000 miles above Hawaii. It
was embarrassing, but it also was the result of inadequate ground checks and an
arrogant attitude to outside reviews (one young designer had actually warned
the Pointer office that their values were wrong, two months before flight, but
they ignored him). Equally objectionable to me, the flight control team laughed
off the mistake later, even though it was symptomatic (in my view) of wrong
attitudes. I recall writing up the incident for my own team and circulating the
memo higher up as an alert to this sort of problem.

As for the pressure to launch Challenger, I've always felt it was due to the
unslippable Jupiter launch windows in May 1986, and the near-panic over the
overambitious plans for two Centaur launches six days apart. Maybe if a former
General Dynamics official (they built Centaur) hadn't been head of NASA
somebody would have had the nerve to say we couldn't do it, we had to step back
from a "Can Do" obsession, and aim for lower targets -- one Centaur only, or
perhaps none until a year later.

That experience, and the post-hoc validity of my impressions at the time, made
a big impression on me.
Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.policy
From: (Henry Spencer)
Subject: MPL lies
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 03:00:32 GMT

In article ,
rk wrote:
Oops, left off one part of my post, a good url:
Roger Boisjoly: Fulfilling an Engineer's Responsibility for Safety
http://onlineethics.org/moral/boisjoly/RB-intro.html

A small note of caution he Boisjoly speaks about this from the
viewpoint of someone who abdicated that responsibility on the one occasion
when it really mattered. Thiokol management told him to shut up; he did.
("I had my say, and I never take [away] any management right to take the
input of an engineer and then make a decision based upon that input... so
there was no point in me doing anything any further...") When Stanley
Reinartz (shuttle project manager) concluded the infamous teleconference
by asking if there were any further comments, Boisjoly said nothing.
--
Microsoft shouldn't be broken up. | Henry Spencer
It should be shut down. -- Phil Agre | (aka )

Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Surviving a Challenger Disater
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 08:45:10 GMT

In article ,
David Sander wrote:
Wouldn't the TPS offer *some* form of protection from the SRB exhaust? Or are
we talking gas ejection velocities and temperatures substantially greater than
atmospheric re-entry velocity / temperature levels?

Reentry takes place mostly in very thin air. The *density* of the SRB
exhaust is literally orders of magnitude higher... and it's full of
abrasive aluminum-oxide particles too. The TPS wouldn't help noticeably.

I was under the impression Challenger was blown to bits rather than
incinerated...

Neither, really -- it broke up because it was thrown violently out of
control at high supersonic speed. (Which is why the crew survived,
probably until water impact.) Not even a jet fighter, far more strongly
built than a shuttle orbiter, can survive trying to fly sideways at
supersonic speeds. For example, the F-100's yaw limit at maximum
aerodynamic pressure was 8 degrees, which one commentator (discussing
an infamous accident where that limit had been grossly exceeded due to
unexpected problems) described as "indicative of impressive strength".
--
Microsoft shouldn't be broken up. | Henry Spencer
It should be shut down. -- Phil Agre | (aka )
Search for Google's copy of this article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Index Home About

On Tue, 02 Sep 2003 20:06:52 +0000, Jon Berndt wrote:

"Paul Maxson" wrote :

Let's read John Maxson's testimony together as a group.

Been there done that.

Isn't that the endless spew JTM poured out when folks _were_ mostly
ignoring him? "My PC deposition etc"...?

As I recall:

1) JTM was never called to testify before the Rogers commission; he
only tried to run his spew of crap past someone sent out to his
area to take depositions.

2) In spite of JTM's impassioned pleas of "enflamed blowby" the
Commission very obviously did not consider his deposition worth
anything... as the only reminder of it is JTM's name being listed
in an obscure back page of the Rogers Report. Which is simply a
confirmation the deposition was indeed taken.

Aside from that little notatation JTM's spew is _nowhere_ to be
found or represented in the Rogers Commission Report... obviously
they didn't find it any more believable than I did.

3) This same batch of spew was when JTM publicized that he'd been
given a choice to either seek mental help or be walked off his job
site... and chose to walk. Not too long after that he was indeed
terminated.

And Paul wants to review all this...

It would seem that after recently having its assertions dealt
crippling blows here in the group, by myself and others, that the
Collective is resorting to its instinctive, indeed its primal
defensive characteristic... it's going to attempt to blather the
group to death

I'm going to have to use more advanced filter options to deal with
their babble from now on, I think...

--
Chuck Stewart
"Anime-style catgirls: Threat? Menace? Or just studying algebra?"

"Paul Maxson" wrote in message ...
"Paul Maxson" wrote in message
...

No takers?

Read this:

http://home.houston.rr.com/fancijon/conspiracy.pdf

That ought to do it.

I have 1 minute 55 seconds of E-207 raw boresite video and 5 other angles
(almost 700 MB's total.) I can frame by frame and even pause/still the
frames now.

Once again here is the link for my other request.

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1appa.htm edit find Maxson

Let's read John Maxson's testimony together as a group.

Been there done that.

PM

"Jon Berndt" wrote in message om...
"Paul Maxson" wrote in message

Can someone here (someone who has offered website help in the past) upload E-207
on lift off date from NASA on Mission 51-L to their website and walk me through it step
by step and show me what is occurring? Frozen screen shots or the ability to pause would
be extremely helpful. What is the best software (besides WMV) to view E-207?
What is the best software to view (that is publicly available) MPEG II's?
I'm currently using a 15 day trial version of a program I dislike for MPEG II's.


Ask your brother to burn and send you a copy of what I sent him this
morning. He ought to get it by Friday or so. Use Quicktime (Free! or
better yet, Quicktime Pro - not free) to view the movies. You can
step frame-by-frame using Quicktime.

Jon

I have E-207 raw boresite (1.55 seconds) and Sonic Player for Slo Mo and Pause/Still
(freeze frame and frame by frame.) I didn't know that AQT played MPEG II, if it does that is a bonus because
I don't like Sonic, but I think it just plays MPEG -I.

How long is your copy of E-207 Jon?

I have E-203,4,5,6 ,-07 on CDR. I have the Flight Ops Summary and Castglance too.

What did you mail out?

Do you have E-202 Jon? Will you mail me a copy? How long is your E-204?

Thanks,

PM

"Jon Berndt" wrote in message om...
"Paul Maxson" wrote in message ...
"Paul Maxson" wrote in message
...

No takers?

Read this:

http://home.houston.rr.com/fancijon/conspiracy.pdf

That ought to do it.

I have 1 minute 55 seconds of E-207 raw boresite video and 5 other angles
(almost 700 MB's total.) I can frame by frame and even pause/still the
frames now.

Once again here is the link for my other request.

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1appa.htm edit find Maxson

Let's read John Maxson's testimony together as a group.

Been there done that.

PM

You read my dad's testimony to the PCR Jon?

PM

"Paul Maxson" wrote in message


How long is your copy of E-207 Jon?

I have E-203,4,5,6 ,-07 on CDR. I have the Flight Ops Summary and Castglance too.

What did you mail out?

Ask Daniel.

Do you have E-202 Jon? Will you mail me a copy? How long is your E-204?

Don't believe I have seen E-202. I have E-204, -205, -207, -208, M-1
thru -4, etc.

However, we have been through this for over two years. You go over it
yourself and google the discussions. It is a pointless waste of time
to go over with you, because it is quite obvious you have your mind
made up. I gave you a link to my paper.

Jon

"Paul Maxson" wrote:

"Jon Berndt" wrote in message

"Paul Maxson" wrote in message

Once again here is the link for my other request.

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1appa.htm edit find Maxson

Let's read John Maxson's testimony together as a group.

Been there done that.

PM

You read my dad's testimony to the PCR Jon?

PM

I was referring to your directions to search the link for "Maxson" -
which I did. His name was there once. Was that supposed to prove
something?

Also, if you are referring to the testimony that your dad posted here
a year or so ago, then, yes, I have read that. Waste of time.

You need to go back and google the history. You missed a lot of what
you are asking us to rehash.

Jon

"Paul Maxson" wrote:
From everything I have read imagery is only taken on lift off, not
landings. Is this true?

No.

I understand E-207 had a real good angle/view of the tragedy but I don't
have it.
Will someone share and expound on it in a step by step fashion?

Jon recently provided digital copies to Daniel. Please contact Daniel.

In 1986 were our satellite camera's less capable than they are now?

If you're talking DoD assets, that's classified.

Lastly on Challenger, will someone go get my father John Thomas Maxson's
testimony
in it's entirety (I am not going to pretend I am 100% clueless on
Challenger)
and walk me through it please?

As pointed out, your father flooded this group with several presentations of
his "testimony". IIRC, there was little to no response to the posts he made
then... it was as if he were talking to himself.

If it has not already been discussed ad naseum here, it is most likely
because it is not given much, if any, credence here.

If you wish to find it and discuss it or ask questions about it, feel free.

To ask us to do this work for you is equivalent to asking us to go out and
find all the theories and positions of the "we never landed on the Moon"
crowd, present them to you, and walk you through them one-by-one.

It's not going to happen.

There have been websites that debunk the fake-lunar-landing theories...
there are a couple that do that to your father's theories:

http://home.austin.rr.com/sts51lvideo/
-and-
http://www.hal-pc.org/~jsb/conspiracy.html

Jon has also provided a summary PDF he
http://home.houston.rr.com/fancijon/conspiracy.pdf

So why do people that were there in the know
pretend that John Maxson was a "janitor" or is a kook?

I've mentioned before that *I* was the one that first brought this up...
(http://makeashorterlink.com/?E381219C5)

QUOTE
I will take "credit" for this one... to a point. I never *called* Mr.
Maxson (the elder) a custodian, but rather stated that the nebulous job
title he claimed was so vague as to be able to also contain the job
descriptions of a custodian. I was seeking further clarification.
/QUOTE

So are people still at a doubt as to what role John Thomas Maxson played
in Mission 51-L?

Quite.

In a Santa Barbara News-Press article (dated Sunday, January 28, 1996), the
following was written based on direct statements from your father:

QUOTE
On Dec. 6, 1985, seven weeks before the explosion, two engineers reported to
him that massive amounts of liquid hydrogen, a shuttle fuel that is
extremely flammable in air, were leaking from pipes at the shuttle's base.
He took a look, smelled the leaking hydrogen, and figured it would take 90
days to make the necessary repairs.
/QUOTE

Paul, even my 13-year-old son knows that hydrogen is an odorless gas.

What is the protocol for this scenario? FDO's expound please.

It's been discussed and documented in the CAIB report that imaging was
requested, but denied.

Satellites.

What is the ability of our satellites in 2003 in regards to space
shuttles?

Classified.

Roger
--
Roger Balettie
former Flight Dynamics Officer
Space Shuttle Mission Control
http://www.balettie.com/