I would direct your attention to my Blimp Week chestnut, The Wreck of the Shenandoah and Blimp Week Followup Pt. III, in which the lyrics to a song commemorating the loss of the airship are reproduced.

I had just drawn a connection in my own mind with the loss of the Columbia to the loss of the Shenandoah when comments began to appear on the older story noting the parallels as well.

For now, I think the most interesting points are the relative similarity of the role of the great airships and space travel in the public imagination of the day, and the fact that both ships were named after mythological figures that also happen to be great American waterways.

I have also reverted to the former colorscheme here, as the black-themed one was intended as a mourning scheme. However, I believe the darker, more contrasty colors looked better than the current bright reds and expect to be experimenting wth additional color choices this week.

SHUTTLE INQUIRY UPDATES

Weekend news concerning the shuttle inquiry boils down to two developments: NASA had previously identified leading-edge wing failure as a potential cause of re-entry catastrophe, and on a previous shuttle mission, a wastewater vent located near the left wing’s leading edge had developed a basketball-sized lump of ice.

Subsequent to the ice-forming incident, the vents on the shuttles were fitted with heaters.

Some speculation emerged in the context of the leading-edge wing failure story concerning the possibility that Columbia might have collided with a particle of space junk, possibly as early as the second day in orbit.

Spacefllight Now: NASA studies telemetry for signs of orbital impact

NYT: Shuttle Testing Suggested Wings Were Vulnerable and an interactive with a nice graphic cutaway of the wing’s structure.

Oakland Tribune (AP story): Investigation focuses on possible ice chunk on vents (I saw this in the Seattle P-I, but they didn’t have on their website – silly paper!)

Air Force imagery confirms Columbia wing damaged is the topper today, at Spaceflight Now (an Aviation Week story).

The Chronicle is continuing to build on the purple-lighting-bolt story, including a detailed discussion on upper-atmosphere electricity discharges that’s interesting in its’ own right.

In the story iself, the image to the left of the headshot is a link to a larger graphic that includes photos of the sort of phenomena the reporter and scientist are exploring in the story.

UPDATE: NASA examines Air Force Photos of Shuttle, notes the NYT. The story includes a photo of the image on a large screen over the shoulder of a NASA official, and there appears to be an irregularity in the shape of the left wing (which appears on the lower side of the image).

However, it’s not at all conclusive, and more analysis of the photo is sure to be forthcoming.

UPDATE 2: Spaceflight Now has the image as a discrete graphic. Their article backs up my initial impression above. However, the NASA briefing photo seen at the Times appears to have some minor differences, probably reflective of the conditions the image was displayed under.

Interestingly, the NYT story cites the Aviation Week story seen at the top of this entry. The later story, also at Spaceflight Now, quotes James Dittemore, whom I beleive to be the official in the NYT photo.

He says, in part, “I’m aware there may be some of you who are saying this photo is revealing. We have looked at it, we had it during the week, and it’s not tremendously revealing to us yet. I’m not an expert at looking at these types of photos and so we’re asking experts to do an evaluation of the photo … to help us understand if there’s anything wrong with the left wing.”

Mysterious purple streak hitting Columbia 7 minutes before it disintegrated in unreproduced photo: SF Chronicle opens the floodgates.

The day that this story is published, it’s worth noting, NASA explicitly downplayed [NYT] the leading “tank foam debris” theory.

Sure will be interesting when this photo is finally published.

UPDATE: Rob Falk notes further coverage of the West Coast photographic evidence at the Chronicle.

Rob is an amateur astronomer and avid skygazer, I bet his insights will be helpful to me over the next few months on this matter.

(Click images for a 640 w px view of the clipping; click that view for a 1500 px view)

In 1981, the United States launched the first space shuttle into orbit. Named Columbia, she succeeded an earlier test model never intended for orbital flight named Enterprise, in a partial bow to a sustained fan campaign from the Star Trek camp.

In an earlier cross country flight aboard an absurdly modified 747, an issue had become apparent with respect to the intended first orbital shuttle’s myriad ceramic tiles. At airspeed aboard the back of the 747, Columbia had shed a large quantity of the ceramic tiles intended to safeguard her and her crew during re-entry.

Amid handwringing, a solution that addressed the wholesale tile shedding was implemented, and in April, 1981 the first orbtial space shuttle, Columbia, roared skyward, opening, it was thought, a new era in space travel, with up to 30 annual launches of a fleet of the new “space truck.”

Concern about the new shuttle’s tile performance was proved justified, as up to sixteen tiles were lost at liftoff. NASA apparently employed certain national security resources to examine the belly of the craft while in orbit.

After this examination, the determination was made to attempt a landing, and so it happened.

As the article notes, “millions” helped bring Columbia back. I recall our teacher in my freshman drawing class arranging to have a television brought in that we could watch. The images were strangely boring, which surprised me at the time. Of course, boring was what the space shuttle program was intended to be, and routine is what was hoped for.

As we all know, it didn’t quite work out that way. When Challenger exploded in 1986, the year prior had seen a record number of shuttle flights – nine or ten, if my non-rocket scientist memory serves. The program was never to approach the projected 30 annual round trips, and of course is even less likely to now, in light of Columbia‘s loss.

Embedded images are from, respectively, Time Magazine, the first page of the section in Columbia’s inaugural launch, in the issue dated April 20, 1981, and the Bloomington, Indiana Herald-Telephone, April 14, 1981, and April 16, 1981. I do not reproduce the entire Time Magazine article.