Re: First Report of the Columbia Accident on Usenet

Other than the fact that NASA later found that they could have
reasonably launched a rescue mission using Atlantis before the  
Columbia's crew ran out of consumables- if they had known about the
severity of the wing damage:
http://www.floridatoday.com/columbia/columbiastory2A53150A.htm

Pat

Well, the astronauts were dead the moment the foam hit the
leading edge, they just didn't know it at the time. At the
moment the foam hit the leading edge the shuttle lost its
ability to make a survivable re-entry, so the only difference
between knowing or not knowing about the damage was that
the astronaut's last days weren't spent dying of asphyxiation
in a crippled shuttle stuck in LEO.

Your statement was completely and totally pointless and
without merit.

JazzMan

I spent a little time looking at Usenet posting from Jan 16, 2003 thru Feb
1, 2003 looking for posting on Columbia during the flight. Here is what I
found.

The Award goes to James Oberg, for being first to mention the Columbia
Accident on Usenet way back on January 22, 2003 in the following thread.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sci.space.shuttle/browse_frm/thread/11d24a2a
c85661fe/7d4996f29ad4acb6

6:00 a.m.

Mr. Oberg seems concerned, maybe even agitated, in his initial three
sentence posting at 6:00 a.m. on Jan 22. The Subject Line: "Who are the
STS-107 EVA crewmen, and do they have SAFRs along on this flight?", is
also the only relevant line in the posting followed by a cryptic lawyer
during a trial statement, "I will establish relevance, judge, please allow
this line of questioning."

To me this posting appears to be an attempt to figure out how to view the
damage to Columbia's wing, or even possibly repair it.

7:48 a.m. Jacques van Oene, "If my information is right, Anderson and
Brown are the STS-107 EVA crew ... I do not know about safer..."

9:43 a.m. James Oberg, "I've been informed there are no SAFRs on 107."

2:53 p.m. Eddie Lyons, "If you have identified an issue, do tell! 8-)"

5:51 p.m. James Oberg, "There was some initial concern over ET insulation
impacting a wing during ascent, but that seems to now be evaluated as
essentially harmless."

To me it looks like Mr. Oberg may have been working on a story, possibly
one that included "actually" looking at, and inspecting, the damage to
Columbia's wing. A story, that would have been very public, prior to the
Columbia Disaster. But, over a 12 hr period, he was reassured and or
persuaded, that it really wasn't a story after all.

The scoop of a lifetime that quite possibly would have saved Columbia's
Astronauts had slipped through his fingers in under 12 hours.

Craig Fink