Mon, Feb 03, 2003
Viewed from California
NASA investigators probing the disintegration of
the shuttle Challenger interviewed an Australian astronomer working
in California over the weekend, saying he may have significant
insight into the tragedy.
Anthony Beasley was monitoring the shuttle's decent from an
observatory near Los Angeles Saturday when he claims to have seen
several thermal tiles apparenlty trailing from Columbia.
"I started to wonder whether or not things were happening how
they should."
Shuttle Mission Director Ron Dittemore told
reporters at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Sunday NASA
investigators interviewed Beasley after they heard him tell his
story to ABC-TV Newsman Peter Jennings Saturday. After obtaining a
written statement, invesigators turned the information over to
Houston, where Dittemore said it would be compared to the timeline
of known events in what might prove to be a crucial study.
"After the first few flashes I thought to myself that I knew the
shuttle lost tiles as it re-entered and quite possibly that was
what was going on," Beasley said on ABC. "I think that after the
particularly bright event I started to wonder whether or not things
were happening how they should."
Beasley said one especially bright flash from the Columbia
caught his eye as the orbiter streaked across the Western United
States. "I think that after the particularly bright event I started
to wonder whether or not things were happening how they
should."
Former NASA engineer, Jim Oberg, described Beasley's eyewitness
report as "an extraordinary account".
"If the left wing is losing tiles you then not only have
overheating in that wing but you have extra drag and it's like
flying along and having your wing run into something," Oberg
said.
"It could violently turn, twist the nose of the ship to the left
and that would be it. That would be the point where it would be
torn apart."
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