Love the Drake

love the drake...gotta love the drake

Thank you for posting this. It was better than the n3etworks

Just found out about your site via an article in the NY Times. I am 59 years old, a Graduate of City College of NY (Chemical Engineer). Have long missed the special bond that engineers and scientists hold, and never realized this. Glad I found your site. Hopefully I will be inspired by the commentary and find new stimuli for my somewhat bored mind.

Thank you for posting the images. Perhaps heads-up applications of diverse data like this will somehow lead to ideas for root cause ID and thus prevention of repeat. Years ago I worked in this area (Monroe La.) starting up an ammonia plant. The thought of the debris coming down on those quiet bucolic fields is shockingly sad.

Thanks for posting this. I think you get a better look from Shreveport radar. Don't know if the data are still available.

Thanks for the images. The New York Times now has an animated doppler radar track of the debris as it neared the ground, pushed eastward by prevailing wind.

It also reports the risks: 2 failures in 113 flights, about 98 percent success rate, which is deemed acceptable -- or, at any rate, realistic -- for space flight. We have come to take astronauts for granted. They are extraordinarily valiant, the bravest of the brave.

Even better loop here:

http://www.weathermatrix.net/archive/stormreports/0004.shtml

I am confused by the lack of correspondence between the image you posted on February 1 at 01:42 p.m. and the images published the New York Times, Feb.2, page (A) 18. Your image was taken from NOAA; the image in the Times was taken from
the National Weather Service. Please explain to ensure that there was no confusio between "normal ground clutter" and the reflected images of the falling debris.

All the best. Morris

Thanks for the posting. With all of the many "theories" flying around, it is good to have some facts.

Morris,

The radar images from the NY Times is from the Shreveport, LA radar. My images are the radar based at Granger, TX.

Both radars are from the National Weather Service, which is a subsidary of NOAA.

The ground clutter in the radar image above is the blob in the center.

I heard over radio that NASA has told AP that there were no radioactive sources on board the Columbia--but that they also have been telling officials to notify them immediately should such sources be found among the debris. Meanwhile, I'm told, a rancher has been told to evacuate her ranch. Can anyone out there help answer this question on radioactive sources on board?

From the Hutchinson News - Hutchinson,Kansas

By MARCIA DUNN
____________________________________________
AP Aerospace Writer
SPACE CENTER, Houston - The investigation into what caused Columbia to fall to pieces is leading NASA back to two things that have worried engineers almost from Day One of the shuttle program: foam and tiles.
One of the landing therories in the accident investigation is that a 2½-pound, 20-inch chunk of foam insulation broke off from the shuttle's big external fuel tank during liftoff and damaged the heat protection tiles on the left wing, setting off a chain of events that killed the seven astronauts. <<< Why would the story specifically say the piece of foam was 2½-pounds and 20-inches?

I had a discussion with a friend on the on-board fuel for the hydraulic power units - He thought that the motive electric power for the hydraulic pumps was produced by miniature turbines and I thought, because of what I heard someone say on TV, that they were poweredy hydrazine fed fuel cells - It is of academic interest only but I would like to know the answer - or the identity of a source from whence I may obtain same.
I tried to calculate, in megaWatts derived from Btu, the amount of energy Olympia had to dissipate to de decelerated from orbital speed to 12,500 mph I got an answer and it seems too huge to be practical - I need to check it

I was in Houston that day and hours later, the news showed Doppler radar showing something moving from the Gulf of Mexico to the exact location of the Columbia, and at the exact second of breakup. They only showed it once but u can clearly see something moving, faster than u can ever imagine, toward the Columbia. I figure they found out soemthing they werent supposed to show the public, and only showed it once, but I saw it and alot of people in Houston saw it, has anyone else?

Kevin

Oh, my world. It is ok

Oh, my world. It is ok