Pre-crash Shuttle Columbia coverage:
[ It's pretty disheartening to read the news today. To start, I'm going to list some of the (sparse) coverage of the last Shuttle mission before it went wrong. My newspaper database shows the coverage tended to be greater where there was a local angle, e.g. Israel, India, and Milwaukee . Some articles, poignant in retrospect: ]
Shuttle Columbia Lifts Off After Two-Year Delay
The Washington Post; Washington, D.C.; Jan 17, 2003; William Harwood;
Two years behind schedule, the shuttle Columbia rocketed into space yesterday, kicking off a 16-day science mission featuring more than 80 experiments, a host of animal research subjects and the first Israeli astronaut.
With its three main engines at full throttle, Columbia's solid- fuel boosters ignited with a ground-shaking roar at 10:39 a.m., instantly pushing the spacecraft away from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.
Eight-and-a-half minutes later, the 120-ton shuttle slipped into orbit in the first of six shuttle missions planned for the year.
On the orbiter's flight deck were commander Rick Husband, pilot William McCool, flight engineer Kalpana Chawla and physician David Brown. Strapped in on Columbia's lower deck were physician Laurel Clark, payload commander Michael Anderson and Israeli air force Col. Ilan Ramon.
Also on board: 13 rats, eight garden orb weaver spiders, five silkworms and three cocoons, four Japanese Medaka fish eggs that will develop in space, three carpenter bees, 15 harvester ants and an assortment of fish.
The launch marked a welcome end to nearly two years of delays triggered by shuttle problems, higher-priority space station flights and major payload changes.
"We hope your wait for space was worth it," astronaut Charles Hobaugh radioed the crew from Houston. "We saw a flawless ascent for your now-veteran crew of astronauts, and especially a big welcome to Ilan, as you join the international community of human spaceflight."
Ramon's presence on the crew prompted increased concern about pre- launch security. More guards and armed SWAT team members were visible than usual, but there were no apparent changes in NASA's post-Sept. 11, 2001, security plan.
Fighter jets patrolled a no-fly zone extending 30 miles from the launch pad, powerful military radars scanned the sky in all directions and the Coast Guard stood by off shore.
Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon, who watched the launch, welcomed the protection, saying, "Unfortunately, after 9/11, it's quite evident we have to watch, that this is an element that has to be factored into almost any mission."
He added: "Terror has been striking all over, but in Israel especially. So anything that can take the mind off [such problems], even momentarily, for great and beautiful things is very much appreciated."
Columbia is packed with more than 80 experiments, most of which will be carried out by the astronauts inside a commercially built Spacehab research module mounted in the shuttle's cargo bay.
It is the kind of research that will be carried out on the international space station once it is fully operational. If all goes well, Columbia will return to Earth on Feb. 1.
Shuttle Columbia Heads Skyward With Israeli Astronaut On Board; Security is the tightest in NASA's history. All goes smoothly as 16-day mission begins.
The Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif.; Jan 17, 2003;
In the most heavily guarded space shot in NASA history, the shuttle Columbia thundered into orbit on a scientific research mission with Israel's first astronaut Thursday.
Fighter jets patrolled overhead in the moments before the midmorning liftoff. Aboard the shuttle were six U.S. astronauts and Ilan Ramon, a colonel in Israel's air force and a combat pilot.
"We had deep, beautiful, blue skies and then with this smoke coming in huge bursts, it was very, very moving," said the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Danny Ayalon. "You know, these are our national colors."
Ayalon noted that Ramon is the son of a Holocaust survivor and has with him a drawing by a 14-year-old Jewish boy who perished at Auschwitz.
"In two generations, we're moving from the lowest ebb, the darkest point of our history, to a very great moment of excellence and achievement," the ambassador said.
It is the first time in three years that a space shuttle is not bound for the international space station or the Hubble Space Telescope.
Columbia's 16-day mission features more than 80 experiments from around the world. A pair of Israeli cameras will measure desert dust in the atmosphere. Also on board: spiders, ants, silkworms, mealworms, carpenter bees, fish embryos and rats.
About 300 Israelis traveled to Cape Canaveral for the launch along with a number of American Jews, almost all of whom carried Israeli flags.
The astronauts were surrounded by SWAT teams and helicopter patrols as they made their way to the pad. Air Force fighter jets patrolled the 35-mile no-fly zone. Boats were ordered to stay away.
Many of the security measures had been put in place after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but were augmented because of fears that Ramon would be an inviting target to terrorists.
The 48-year-old Ramon was among the Israeli pilots who bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, according to a senior Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The countdown proved uneventful. NASA spokesman Kyle Herring said he was unaware of any credible threats against the shuttle.
At a heavily guarded Israeli reception Wednesday evening, Ramon's wife, Rona, admitted to some nervousness but added: "The most calm and relaxed person is Ilan."
Ayalon said the shuttle flight is a welcome distraction for Israelis amid the terrorist bloodshed in their country. The launch was broadcast live by Israeli TV and radio stations.
"This will take away, even for a short while, their worries and I think we are very grateful for that," he said.
Columbia's flight initially was targeted for 2001 but was repeatedly delayed. The most recent reason was the grounding of the entire space shuttle fleet last summer.
The shuttle will return to Earth on Feb. 1. NASA said security will be just as heavy for the landing.
Racine astronaut takes off with family close by
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; Milwaukee, Wis.; Jan 17, 2003; PHILIP CHIEN;
Cape Canaveral, Fla. -- After a delay of a year and a half, Racine astronaut Laurel Clark is in space.
And a very anxious family can now rest a little easier.
The shuttle Columbia carrying Clark and six other astronauts roared into space at 9:39 a.m. CST Thursday. Clark, 41, a 1979 graduate of Racine Horlick High School, got her bachelor of science degree in zoology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1983 and her doctorate in medicine from there in 1987.
After the launch, Clark's mother, Marge Brown, said: "It was very nice. I hope all of it goes as well as it did today."
Brown along with Clark's brothers and sister, Jon, Dan and Lynne Salton, got to spend a little time with Clark a couple of days before launch at an exclusive party that the astronauts hold for their closest family members.
The party was one of only a few relaxing moments for the family over the last few days.
Family members said Thursday that the first few minutes of the launch had them extremely nervous.
"Anyone who has watched (video of the) Challenger (accident) can't even hardly bear going through" the point where the Challenger exploded, Jon Salton said. "After that point you can relax."
Lynne Salton said, "When we saw the solid rocket boosters drop away, everything was still fine, my heart lifted a little, and then they got to 'main engine cutoff.' "
Dan Salton said, "It seemed after the launch it hit me -- I was holding my breath for 10 minutes."
A symbolic mission
Jerusalem Post; Jerusalem; Jan 17, 2003;
'For Israel and for the Jewish community, it's something beyond being in space, it's a very symbolic mission." So said IAF Col. Ilan Ramon, summing up the importance of his mission as Israel's first astronaut aboard the US space shuttle Columbia.
Ramon couldn't have been more right, and the symbolism of his mission came just when we needed it most.
The US decided to invite Israel to attach an astronaut to the space shuttle back 1997 during the heady days of the Clinton administration. Those were different times.
The stock market was soaring, hi-tech and dot coms were the new messiahs. New immigrants were streaming in. Syria was three years away from turning down peace, Arafat was three and a half years from going to war. The future seemed boundless and filled with hope and excitement. So when Binyamin Netanyahu announced that one of ours would be looking down at us from space, we filed the good news away with the rest of the good news and moved on, feeling very good as usual.
But since September 2000 our mood has changed. The markets are way down, as is immigration. We are fighting boycotts and threats of boycotts in Europe and threats of divestment on US university campuses. Anti-Semitism worldwide is at a peak unseen since the 1930s. And of course there is the war. There are 768 fewer of us today than there were in 1997.
So yes, the mood has changed. We are depressed and often hopeless. Our leaders, particularly now before elections, spend too much time spreading around blame for our problems and too little time addressing them.
But here comes Ramon in a space suit and tells us that there is no horizon too distant to cross and no height too high for us to reach. We Israelis can go anywhere. When we set our mind to it, he reminds us, we can make the desert bloom and build modern cities on sand dunes. And we can reach for the stars.
Columbia Completes 12 Days In Space
The Statesman; New Delhi; Jan 29, 2003;
Press Trust of India WASHINGTON, Jan. 28. A wide range of experiments devoted to medicine, biology, physics and earth observation onboard space shuttle Columbia have run their course as the research mission completed 12 days in space. India-born astronaut Ms Kalpana Chawla and first time Israeli astronaut Mr Ilan Ramon successfully completed over 39 trials of the Structure of Flame Balls experiment using 15 different fuel mixtures. In all, tiny fires continued to burn for over six hours with the longest flame burning for nearly 80 minutes. The experiment uses the least amount of fuel to burn fires for longer duration of time and is aimed at developing fuel-efficient car engines, NASA said. Ms Chawla was also responsible for the Mechanics of Granular Materials test that completed its 10th and final run. The test will help scientists understand how granules behave under microgravity and develop new techniques to build stronger houses in areas prone to quakes and landslides. Other experiments that were completed include the ones dealing with the growth of yeast and bacteria in zero gravity, and the study of the reaction of bone cells to weightlessness. The spacefarers aboard Columbia and the International Space Station took time out from their observations to have a chat via radio about their families and work schedules. Were really excited to be able to talk to you guys, one space lab to another big old space lab on that beautiful station of yours, Columbia commander Mr Rick Husband told the Space Station crew.
Challenger, Apollo heroes recalled
Houston Chronicle; Houston, Tex.; Jan 29, 2003;
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Space shuttle Columbia's astronauts joined Mission Control in a moment of silence Tuesday at the exact time 17 years ago that Challenger exploded in the sky.
NASA's work force, in orbit and on Earth, remembered not only the seven astronauts who died on Jan. 28, 1986, but also the three who were killed by a fire in their Apollo spacecraft at the pad on Jan. 27, 1967.
At the launch site Tuesday, flags flew at half staff for the second day in a row.
The two tragedies, separated by 19 years and a single day, represent NASA's darkest hours.
"It is today that we remember and honor the crews of Apollo 1 and Challenger. They made the ultimate sacrifice, giving their lives and service to their country and for all mankind," Columbia commander Rick Husband radioed a few minutes before the airwaves went silent.
"Their dedication and devotion to the exploration of space was an inspiration to each of us and still motivates people around the world to achieve great things and service to others."
The six Americans and one Israeli aboard Columbia marked their 12th day in space Tuesday.
Their round-the-clock laboratory research mission, featuring more than 80 experiments, is due to end with a landing at Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, Day 16.
The mission has been considered a success by both NASA and scientists, many of whom have obtained data that exceeded their expectations.
Thomas Goodwin, project scientist on a study of the interplay of prostate cancer and bone cells, said Tuesday that the experiment had produced a golf-ball size piece of tumor that he called the "largest piece of tumor tissue grown in microgravity."
Goodwin said tissue grown in microgravity closely resembles tumors that grow in the body, offering scientists a lifelike model for further research.
Goodwin said the tissue still growing on the shuttle will be harvested live when the shuttle lands and used in experiments of gene therapy for cancer.
On the international space station, the two American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut also paused to remember, and the airwaves fell silent there, too.
Challenger erupted in a fireball at 11:39 a.m., 73 seconds after liftoff, over Cape Canaveral.
The moment of silence Tuesday ended with 10 bell chimes at Johnson Space Center in Houston, one for each of the 10 astronauts killed.
The Challenger crew included Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire teacher who had hoped to give lessons from space.
Last week, NASA announced it will hire three to six teachers for its next astronaut class.
McAuliffe's backup, Barbara Morgan, will be on Columbia's next flight, to the international space station in November.
Morgan quit her Idaho teaching job in 1998 to become a full- fledged astronaut.
Space Shuttle Crew Completes Israeli Dust and Cloud Studies
By WARREN E. LEARY nytimes.com
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 — The Israeli experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia has accomplished its goals of studying the effects of dust storms on weather and recording electrical phenomena atop storm clouds, scientists said today.
Researchers from Tel Aviv University said their Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment had gathered solid information on the plumes of dust and other aerosol particles blown from deserts by storms before being carried worldwide by high winds. The particles affect rain production in clouds, deposit minerals in the ocean and scatter sunlight that affects global warming, the scientists said.
"The experiment has worked without a hitch," Dr. Joachim Joseph, a principal investigator, told a briefing at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. "We have very good data, very unique data."
A twin-camera multispectral instrument in the payload bay of the shuttle has been scanning desert particles whipped into the atmosphere and, at night, making images of the tops of some of the thousands of thunderstorms that rumble through the atmosphere every hour.
The shuttle, nearing the end of a 16-day mission, is to return to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Saturday with its crew of seven, including the first Israeli astronaut, Col. Ilan Ramon, a combat pilot in the Israeli Air Force.
The flight, which had been delayed almost two years, finally went into orbit at a time when storms in the Sahara that push dust into the Mediterranean Sea are infrequent. But researchers said luck was with them and they were able to obtain images of dust plumes. The first was made on Sunday, blowing from the western coast of Africa into the Atlantic. The big payoff was on Monday, on the last scheduled pass over the Mideast.
"On the last orbit over the Mediterranean," Dr. Joseph said, "we got a nice dust storm over Israel. "We just lucked out."
Israeli scientists said they had clear images of cloud-to-space lightning, called sprites, and the first scientific pictures recorded from space that show an elf, a luminous doughnut-shape electrical glow above a thunderstorm that lasts less than a millisecond.
Aside from the successful science, the mission is important to Dr. Joseph because Colonel Ramon is carrying a keepsake, a small Torah scroll used at Dr. Joseph's bar mitzvah almost 60 years ago while he was in a concentration camp in Germany. The elderly rabbi performing the ceremony, who died soon afterward in the camp, gave the Torah to the boy and told him to tell people what had occurred there.
Dr. Joseph said Colonel Ramon saw the Torah when visiting his house and was so moved by the history that he asked to take it into space as a tribute. In an interview from space last week with Israeli officials, the astronaut displayed the Torah.
"This represents more than anything the ability of the Jewish people to survive despite everything from horrible periods, black days, to reach periods of hope and belief in the future," the colonel said.
Because of the gesture from space, Dr. Joseph said, he feels he has finally fulfilled his promise to the rabbi.
Astronaut Captures Rare Images Of Red Luminosities in the Skies
New York Times; New York, N.Y.; Jan 21, 2003;
Sprites and elves dancing on thunder clouds that were captured by cameras on the space shuttle Columbia could help scientists crack the mystery of recently discovered electrical phenomena that are usually invisible to the naked eye.
The sprites, which are red flashes of electricity shooting up from thunderclouds 13 miles into the ionosphere, and elves, which are glowing red doughnut shapes radiating 190 miles, were photographed on Sunday by Capt. David M. Brown of the Navy.
The shuttle and its crew of seven, including the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, are on a 16-day science mission that began on Thursday. The study of sprites is part of an Israeli experiment called the Mediterranean-Israeli dust experiment, or Meidex.
This was the first time anyone had taken such images with a calibrated instrument from the shuttle, said Yoav Yair, project coordinator for Israeli experiments on the Columbia mission, ''and it's causing really great excitement.''
Mr. Yair said Captain Brown did not see the luminosities or know he had captured their images until scientists on the ground downloaded the pictures and analyzed them.
''One has to be extremely lucky to catch because it lasts only 0.1 milliseconds -- less than a thousandth of a second,'' Mr. Yair said. ''Luckily, God was on our side this time, and we caught one.''
The discovery of sprites in 1989 and elves in 1994 has opened up a new area of study in the field of upper atmospheric physics. Until now, images of them have been limited to those taken from the ground or airplanes.
The shuttle cameras that captured the flashes are onboard primarily to help Meidex, which is designed to study the impact of dust particles on global climate. |
