Talk:STS-51-L
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Consider using this image of ice on the launch complex (http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/iams/images/pao/STS51L/10062408.htm). Ke4roh 13:43, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- That would now be this image of ice on the launch complex (http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/luceneweb/caption_direct.jsp?photoId=STS51L-10151). (NASA has re-jiggered their image archive and no longer uses the 8-digit photo ID.) --Chris Lawson 09:13, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Rmhermann- I think that its more accurate to say that clear hydrogen flames enveloped the orbiter, rather than smoke. Whats your rationalee for changing it?
Theon 14:44, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
- Hydrogen flames are pale and are not shown in the picture. What we see in the picture is smoke. Rmhermen 14:46, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
- It might be more accurate to say smoke and steam, since the invisible/blue-white hydrogen flame produces mostly steam. Then again, many other things (including impurities in the atmosphere) are burning and producing smoke. -- Ke4roh 18:56, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Politics Accident connection
This may be a stresh, but can actually turn to be very important trigger for further research in future. Some people seem to think that the lanch of STS-51-l in such a cold day was politically driven. See this comment [1] (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137008&cid=11447897)
- I've heard this claim many, many times; it's not generally accepted to have any validity, and I've yet to hear of plausible evidence being presented for it. Reagan was aware of the program, and interested in it - IIRC he knew what launch it was when told of the accident, which says something - but he doesn't seem to have ever personally poked around with it, nor has there ever been much other than assertions regarding the plans for the State of the Union address.
- There was pressure, internal pressure within NASA (a lot of it silent, but certainly there) to keep up the launch schedule; gven the speeds they were trying to manage that year, this isn't surprising. It's probably defensible to call this political pressure, but it certainly wasn't external political pressure for the launch. (If nothing else - if it was vitally important she launch in time, why not push the day before, when there was a scrub? Why this one specifically?) Vaughan's The Challenger Launch Decision goes into this in some detail.
- It's also a fairly silly article - yes, NASA has postponed launches for things much less dangerous than ice. This is because they are now, understandably, a little more paranoid about the resiliency of the system post-Challenger. Also, without meaning to sound too cynical, Slashdot's validity as a source of space history is, ah, disputable. I've read a statement there presented as fact that Buran was all a carefully-planned Soviet hoax... Shimgray 15:08, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
John G. Magee
Reagan's famous speech quotes the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr., maybe this should be mentioned.
Time of impact
Hello. Maybe someone can find out the time of impact of the crew cabin and add that to the article. All the best, Wile E. Heresiarch 20:40, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)