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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Nailed the booms… Okay, I’ve got the timeline and I will strongly bet the booms were off the varous bits. Here is the evidence:
“We were outside and my Dad said “there it is!” in one piece. Then a tiny, tiny piece came off and I was somewhat perplexed. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Then bigger pieces rained away from the main piece. It looked very similar to the video we saw of the Russian space station Mir reentering. Later, there was one loud boom and accompanied by smaller booms. Normally we hear two distinct sonic booms when shuttles pass over during entries.”
I think it is safe to assume there were numerous sonic booms due to the numerous bits of wreckage each having its’ own shock cone around it.
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My thoughts on the sound is the deceleration of the pieces of the event, each producing it’s own sonic boom. That might explain the continuous roar that observers were reporting. It sure doesn’t explain the discrepancy in the time of the visual breakup and the arrival of the sound. While watching Miles O’Brien stumble through some bad control room communications on CNN, they replayed the last communications from the NASA Select feed. It was a call about tire pressure. I would think this would be an odd time for that kind of call, unless they saw some kind of anomaly. Again, speculation, but perhaps what they were seeing was an increase in the nitrogen pressure in the tires due to heat? Or, even worse, the pressure going to zero? That lends itself to the burnthrough theory. I’m on the side of the launch damage cauing enough key tiles to be damaged that the “zipper effect” occured and ripped enough tiles off during reentry to cause a burnthrough.
One more item – the PAO on the Nasa feed also said the shuttle was in a 58 degree left roll. This would be part of the TAEM (the Terminal Approach Energy Management) maneuvers. After the tire pressure call was a series of “static” sounds on the comm – very similar to the static that was on the comm feed as Challenger broke-up.
Michael: I knew the first bank had already occured, but I had not yet seen whether they had begun the second. Thanks. There would be a bit of extra stress at that time since they have to tweak the ailerons on the wings themselves (as well as a bit of rudder) to do a coordinated turn.