[FPSPACE] Columbia crew

[mattwriter at aol.com]

Large parts (identifiable) of several bodies were found before the service on the ground in Nagodoches County, TX.  Now whether NASA changed the date of that service at any point, I don't know. NASA was saying all bodies were ID'd by March. A quick glance at the CAIB report, Chapter Two, refers to only one object being found in Toledo Bend reservoir despite a lot of search effort.  All bodies were found on land. Less than half of the crew cabin was recovered - again, on land - by the time of the CAIB report.  It's possible significant pieces were missed in bodies of water despite NASA's efforts. (An example of a late find on land - Window #8 from the crew compartment turned up in September 2004 in Angelina County, TX.) 

Matt


-----Original Message-----
From: E.P. Grondine <epgrondine at hotmail.com>
To: mattwriter at aol.com; fpspace at friends-partners.org
Sent: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 8:50 am
Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] Columbia crew


Hi Matt - 

"Several bodies", or one body, with the rest DNA remains?

And wasn't the memorial service intended to be the end of it, until the discovery at the reservoir?

And wasn't most of the crew compartment found at the bottom of the reservoir?

It's entirely too easy just to collapse the timeline to "a couple weeks", when one important timeline runs in milliseconds.

E.P.

To: epgrondine at hotmail.com
Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] Columbia crew
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 18:19:44 -0500
From: mattwriter at aol.com

NASA held a memorial service on 4 Feb 03, not a funeral - individ
ual funerals were later in accordance with each family's wishes.  
And "crew compartment with the bodies found at the bottom of a reservoir" ?  Several bodies had already been found - ON LAND - before the 4 Feb memorial service.  All remains were recovered within a couple of weeks of the accident. 

Matt




ce at friends-partners.org
Sent: Thu, 1 Jan 2009 10:26 pm
Subject: [FPSPACE] Columbia crew


Hi all - 

With my stroke, I have trouble remembering things anymore, so perhaps someone here may be able to help with some details concerning Columbia....

If memory serves, in addition to Columbia's crew, two pilots were lost in the Columbia debris recovery effort. I can't find a link to their names, but IMO NASA's incompetence in handling the Columbia emergency killed them as surely as it killed Columbia's crew. Perhaps someone here might remember what they're names were, and know something about the friends and family they left behind.  Those men deserve more than to be forgotten.

And of course, we had the bizarre spectacle of NASA wanting to put their blunders in dealing with Columbia behind them so rapidly that they had the crew's funerals, a nd THEN discovered the crew compartment at the bottom of the resevoir with the crew's remains inside. My memory's more than a little fuzzy, but it seems to me that one of the recovery divers or support staff was lost there as well. That would raise the count from nine to ten.

Then there's astronaut Lisa Novak, and I seem to r
ecall that the stress of losing a close friend in Columbia and then rehearsing shuttle failures every day for months on end laid the foundation for her later problems.

Right now, we're being told about a hypersonic flat spin, and that the crew compartment separated as Columbia disintegrated. Three weeks to go, and then say about two or three months more. 

I'd like to close this note by stating that I have complete confidence in Wayne Hale
as director of shuttle operations, and its really too bad that he did not arrive at Kennedy just a week or two sooner.

E.P.
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