Also, is the recording of the mission control ground loops available anywhere?
To me it seems the sound starts as soon as the bottom of the LH2 tank fails and then gets louder when the flash is seen between the ET and the orbiter.
Quote from: spacecane on 01/26/2014 03:44 amAlso, is the recording of the mission control ground loops available anywhere?no
Quote from: Jim on 01/26/2014 10:43 amQuote from: spacecane on 01/26/2014 03:44 amAlso, is the recording of the mission control ground loops available anywhere?noActually, if by "mission control ground loops" he means either the Flight Director's loop, or the PAO loop, they are available on YouTube (just search under "Challenger"). If he actually meant to say the "orbiter voice recordings", then the answer is no, of course.
Quote from: brad2007a on 01/26/2014 06:21 pmQuote from: Jim on 01/26/2014 10:43 amQuote from: spacecane on 01/26/2014 03:44 amAlso, is the recording of the mission control ground loops available anywhere?noActually, if by "mission control ground loops" he means either the Flight Director's loop, or the PAO loop, they are available on YouTube (just search under "Challenger"). If he actually meant to say the "orbiter voice recordings", then the answer is no, of course.I meant the Flight Director's loop or similar from mission control. I was just curious to hear how the controllers handled the recognition of the event. I'd never want to hear the orbiter voice recordings. The only thing I've ever been curious about is to know what video frame matches the "uh-oh" in the transcript.
IF a scenario such as what happened was envisioned as a possibility, could the RCS have been used to keep the orbiter pointing into the slipstream during the stack breakup (assuming an out of control SRB didn't crash into it)? Could doing this have allowed the orbiter to stay intact and allowed the crew to perform a controlled ditching and had a chance to survive?
Something new I read on the Wikipedia page of Mike Smith:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_J._Smith_(astronaut)" It has been claimed that his last words were, "Uh,oh". This is a false claim, based on a confused hearing of an in-studio analyst uttering these words at the time of explosion."That's new to me. I always thought that "uh, oh", were his last words on the voice recorder.
Although I'm not an expert, I don't think there is any chance that the Orbiter would have had the aerodynamic authority to maneuver from vertical to horizontal at low speed. I'm not sure a fighter jet could take off, climb vertically, shut off the engine at 2500 feet and make a horizontal landing.The only way I can see that there may have been a different outcome for the crew is for something to have happened very close to the ground so that the only issues to deal with were the fire and SRB exhaust and self destruct and not the impact force of the crash.
Residual thrust from the SSMEs should push the tail of the orbiter forward, pitching the nose down. Whether that force could be overcome by the ET deflagration (although most of its contents were pouring down, rather than radially), or if there were any conditions under which it wouldn't lead to an uncontrollable pitch or other non-recoverable situations, is something I don't have a clue about, but probably someone in these forums has a good idea of what could be expectable.