I agree with Stephen Bolton and others that it is time to move the debate about human vs robotic space exploration elsewhere. It is an interesting and important topic, but there are many other suitable forums. Discussion of the loss of Columbia may continue for now. I am particularly interested in the early signs of break-up, west of Texas. Several people obtained video showing one or more objects leave Columbia and rapidly fall behind. Rick Baldridge's video has an accurate time track. (I imagine that accurate times will determined for the other videos, as long as their owners have not messed with their clocks.) Could the detached objects' rate of deceleration help determine either what they could have been or could not have been? Do we know enough about the environment they were in to accurately estimate their drag co-efficients? Can we estimate their size from their brightness? Was the shuttle in eclipse when the objects detached? If so, could the rate at which they faded in brightness help reveal what they could or could not have been? We have all seen the demonstrations in which glowing tiles rapidly cool after removal of the heat source. Ted Molczan Admin, SeeSat-L ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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