Colombia

[Muad dib]

This morning, the space shuttle Columbia was torn appart in the landing prosses. This is the 2nd shuttle that blew up. Chalanger was the one that exploded on take off and this one was in the landing. Is this a sine of something bigger to come, or is it just human mistake that we over look? What is your views on this?

[Dude_Doc]

I think it's really strange that this happened whith the first Israeli austronaut onboard. I also read that some of the austronauts "didn't want to come back", quote before end of contact: "Do we really have to come back?". I don't really know...

God bless them.

[VigilVirus]

It exploded over Palestine, Texas.

[Muad dib]

God bless their familys and God rest their soles. And your right, since the first Israeli astronaunt was on bord, something might sturr up with them over there. This could get even worse because of all the wars and they could blame us with his death.

[Andrew]

yes but i dont think we forced that Israeli onto the space ship although im sure the us wanted that to look good at Israel. but they lost astronauts and big $$$ on that ship.(not to mention hazardous stuff).

[ordos45]

Glad to see our friendly neighbors in Canada are sharing the pain. The Columbia is the second space shuttle in my lifetime, and ever, to blow apart. The first was Challenger.

The US lost money, yes, the US lost a good spacecraft, yes, the US lost six good people who risked their life every time they went into orbit, yes. The first Israeli astronaut (one in a long list of first astronauts from other countries to travel on our shuttles) is also dead.

*sighs*

This is a very bad day. A very bad day indeed.

*Edit*

Countries who have sent astronauts up on US Shuttles:

Belgium

Canada

France

Germany

Israel

Italy

Japan

Mexico

The Netherlands

Russia (Many cosmonauts on US Shuttles.)

Saudi Arabia

Spain

Switzerland

Ukraine

[rogue1896]

I think it's really strange that this happened whith the first Israeli austronaut onboard. I also read that some of the austronauts "didn't want to come back", quote before end of contact: "Do we really have to come back?". I don't really know...

God bless them.

it's not fair to say that it might have happened because of a suicide attempt or something because they didn't like how things were turning up on Earth. that quote is probably a little joke that one of the members made because he/she liked the zero G so much. the loss of columbia is horrible. i've been hearing stuff on it all day long. i even heard that an arm and a hand fell a little while ago. and the sad part is that knowing bush he'll end up using this in someway to try to gain support. it was a horrible tragedy and they should all be remembered.

and you also must understand, the Columbia was like 21 years old and has seen multiple lift offs and landings. it was just a matter of time before something happened to it. it's a shame it had to happen during reentry and not during testing on ground or somehting. :-

[Muad dib]

If this is going to be like all of the other crashes (except for 911), Bush will talk and yap away about anything and everything the people would want to hear. After thats done, it will be minable news by tomarrow (What I think).

[leo]

):

Ow god

I'm israeli. it feels so sad for all these austronauts.

what a tragedy! i so hoped that everything will be allright for them.

But i don't understand why does u guys start flaming cause an israeli austronaut was on the shuttle?

I think that instead of falming u should blame the engineers who worked on the shuttle.

God bless them ):

[Muad dib]

I just heard that this might put NASA in a huge slump, and it could be in debt so far, it might CLOSE. Thats not good for that spacestation. But before all of this, NASA was in the prosses of making a new shuttle. I hope that will help.

[ExSPlug]

Is it possible that the heat shield board(or whatever, I'm translating from chinese...) that fell of while lifting off in 15 th Jan, even though the engineers said that it doesn't matter.

[VigilVirus]

I just heard that this might put NASA in a huge slump, and it could be in debt so far, it might CLOSE.

Impossible. This has happened before (Challenger) and it didn't.

[Mahdi]

Enough of the conspiracy theories guys. Sometimes things just happen.

It's a sad thing.

[stilgar]

Human error happens everyday the happenings to day had to be a miss happ that could not have been avoided in time

[Terror]

well it is quite certain that it is no terrorist attack, and frankly it doesn't sound very realistic either.

Probably during the takeoff, when the shuttle was a bit damaged by it's own fuel containers a few heatshields were torn off the hull and when the shuttle returned to orbit, and faced incredible heat, the heat came through the places where the heat shields were ripped off and because of this, more of them were falling of like a domino effect, eventually resulting in an explosion inside the shuttle and destroying the shuttle and it's crew

[TMA_1]

9 11 didnt make me cry. this did.

[Dude_Doc]

But I still think it's odd that this happened at the same time an Israeli citizen was on board... Why didn't happen the launch before? Or the comming launch? So much to be answered...

[leo]

man the israeli austrounaut has nothing to do with it

u should bale the engineers than the Israeli aust..

Human mistakes happen in unprictable time.. wthere there is an israeli or not!

[Tio_Holtzmann]

Hey guys, hang on, accidents sometimes happen. Remember how difficult landing through our atmosphere is? Too shallow, you bounce off, too steep, you fry. Personally I'd prefer to burn.

I think that NASA SHOULDN'T fold just yet. If nothing else, they need to keep Atlantis running in order to help the astronauts on the ISS survive.

Roll on foldspacing....

[VigilVirus]

NASA will not close. It was said so in Bush's speech. The spac program will still be funded.

[Inoculator9]

How could you possibly say that Isreal would use the death of their pilot in an accident as a pretense for war?

[Muad dib]

leo's right. Israeli had nothng to do with it. Sorry leo for all the flaming.

[Acriku]

This is indeed tragic, and it didn't blow up over Palestine, Texas, it blew up over Texas and passed overhead of Palestine, Texas. Please don't take a small thing into a big thing. This was an old ship, although that might not be the cause, it might have been a factor. Let us praise them for the heroes they are, like all the heroes who have risked their lives going up into space (over 400) and like all the heroes who have died while on a mission (17).

[Inoculator9]

Yeah, they made a sacrifice for the sake of furthering the ends of science. They were doing non stop research before they came down.

[IxianMace]

Yes it's really sad that the shuttle blew up. Apart from the astronauts that were killed in when the shuttle disintergrated, there were also some Orb Weaver spiders that some students from a Melbourne school had sent up. They wanted to see if the spiders could spin their webs in space. It must have come as a real shock to the students when they realized that the shuttle had exploded, a few moments from touching back down safely. I just hope that the deaths of the astronauts were not the result of some NASA official deciding that it was safe if there were a few 'minor' technical difficulties, such as a weakness in the left wing of the shuttle.