NASA STS-63 UFO Footage Discussion

reply to post by RFBurns


Greetings RFBurns & Majorion,

I have been trying to locate a video of this incident filmed with one of the Camera's on-board Mir - to no avail.

Interestingly, I have been able to locate several photos that were taken during the 'rendezvous' period, and have been unable to discern any of amount of debris or particulate in the vicinity - although there may be some, it is certainly minimal and difficult to detect.

There are clearly large amounts of objects/debris visible in Majorion's video - but not in any of the pictures that are filming in the human visual range.

This disparity perplexes me. Given the size of the 'debris', one would assume that it should be quite prominent in the regular photographs - but it is not. Only the shuttle ir/uv camera films the debris to the extent that it is shown in Majorion's video.

How would you account for this RFBurns? Critters maybe?

*here is a link to some of the photos that I mention:
spaceflight.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by Exuberant1
There are clearly large amounts of objects/debris visible in Majorion's video - but not in any of the pictures that are filming in the human visual range.
This disparity perplexes me. Given the size of the 'debris', one would assume that it should be quite prominent in the regular photographs - but it is not. Only the shuttle ir/uv camera films the debris to the extent that it is shown in Majorion's video.
How would you account for this RFBurns? Critters maybe?

Let me offer this explanation, for your consideration.

You see small dim dots in the video from the B&W visible light payload bay cameras (there is no evidence that these cameras -- the ones used to downlink the most famous scenes -- have UV/IR capabilities, you're just making that up) because the gain control is maxed out due to the dark Earth background and lack of sunlit (bright) shuttle structure in the field of view.

Pictures that include sunlit objects such as space stations and shuttles are 'stopped' way down to accomodate the much, MUCH brighter objects in the FOV. Stuff originally dim to begin with drops in detectability below the response threshhold of the system (this is another proof, BTW, that the objects are NOT 'very big and very far away', as some proponents advocate).

It's like why there are no stars in the Apollo lunar surface excursion photographs. Or why you don't see stars in the sky over any sports page photographs of night games (at least, those games palyed under artificial lighting). Go watch the night baseball scenes in 'Field of Dreams'.

If you approach it with consideration of lighting and the dynamic range of the imaging systems, suddenly there's no mystery, no need for magic critters or 'invisible' UFOs. Your misleading assumptions are based on closing your mind and eyes to some everyday realities of the photographic imaging art and science, in my interpretation.

Originally posted by JimOberg
Your misleading assumptions are based on closing your mind and eyes to some everyday realities of the photographic imaging art and science, in my interpretation.

That post was directed to RFBurns and did not contain my own hypothesis.

I just asked RFburns couple of questions.

Don't be jealous ;-P

Anyhow, since you've brought it up - I believe that much of what we are seeing in the video is leaked propellant:

science.ksc.nasa.gov...

"On Friday, Feb 3, 1995 at 6:30 a.m. CST, STS-63 MCC Status Report # 1 reports that flight controllers were troubleshooting a problem with AFT RCS thruster R1U which has a slow leak of 2-3lbs/hr"

"On Friday, Feb 3, 1995 at 1:15 p.m. CST, STS-63 MCC Status Report # 2 states: The leaking RCS thruster is losing between 1-2 pounds of propellant every hour, a manageable loss according to mission managers."

"On Sunday, Feb 5, 1995 at 7:30 a.m. CST, the Mission Update status briefing reported that the problem with forward RCS thruster F1F is now resolved. Previously it was leaking at the rate of 3-5lbs per hour...
...This same procedure was repeated on the leaking AFT R1U thruster to no avail."

As all of this leakage was occurring, the shuttle was moving ever closer to Mir - both were in the same orbit.

However, unlike Mir; the shuttle was leaking propellant. I believe that the difference in temperature of the propellant and surrounding space is largely responsible for much of what is seen in Majorions IR/UV video.

That is alot of propellant Jimbo.

The Russians were not fully aware of the extent of the leak and they did not have the sort of camera which provided us our wonderful footage...

...Footage, which I posit is evidence of negligence on the part of NASA, who valued a payload and a political objective ahead of the lives of men and women(?) on board those two spacecraft and who neglected to provide the Russians with accurate data about the fuel leak that Discovery was experiencing.

From the video, it is quite clear that ground control did not bother to inform the cosmonauts the extent of the leak, or the danger that it posed - our astronauts knew, NASA knew - the Russians didn't.

NASA decided the risk was minimal, and pressed ahead without informing or obtaining the fully-informed consent of the Cosmonauts and Russian Space program - who were both 'left out of the loop'.

All talk of the fuel-leak was omitted, it was left out of the dialogue between the astronauts and the ground, as is evident from the video. At the very least, the extent of the leak was not conveyed to the Russians living on Mir...

If it were not for the logs released after the mission (and the testimony/reports by our astronauts) - no one apart from NASA would have been aware of the full extent of the leak.



*Do you have proof that the cosmonauts on-board Mir were fully aware of the extent of the leak on the shuttle with which it was to do a practice 'rendezvous' ?

*How do these numbers correlate to the numbers we have Discovery recording on the dates and times that I have cited?
(with regards to the pound-per-hour fuel loss, obviously)

Please post this data if you have it - as a comparison of these sets of numbers/measurements/readings would put to rest some of my suspicions.

(Please link directly to the data, or post it here. Thanks in advance!)

[edit on 17-3-2009 by Exuberant1]

Originally posted by Exuberant1

NASA dcided the risk was minimal, and pressed ahead without informing or obtaing the fully-informed consent of the Cosmonauts and Russian Space program - who were both 'left out of the loop'.

All talk of the fuel-leak was omitted, it was left out of the dialogue between the astronauts and the ground, as is evident from the video. At the very least, the extent of the leak was not conveyed to the Russians living on Mir...

If it were not for the logs released after the mission (and the testimony/reports by our astronauts) - no one apart from NASA would have been aware of the full extent of the leak.

Nonsense:

The Russians didn’t want Discovery to come within 1,000 feet of Mir. But NASA flight controllers and the Discovery crew "worked the problem," at times rolling the Orbiter to warm the thrusters in the Sun. As Reeves tells the story, the Russian engineers were "very sharp and astute … and asked all the right questions." They changed the minimum separation to 400 feet, still not close enough for meaningful data.

history.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by Exuberant1
...Footage, which I posit is evidence of negligence on the part of NASA, who valued a payload and a political objective ahead of the lives of men and women(?) on board those two spacecraft and who neglected to provide the Russians with accurate data about the fuel leak that Discovery was experiencing.

Exubie, the leak was all over the news media and the messages being exchanged between Houston and Moscow. As for clearing up your suspicions about yet another sin of NASA's, no, I don't think I ever can, I figure it's a waste of time to try. What value would it be for the effort -- what attitude of yours would it modify?

reply to post by Exuberant1


www.independent.co.uk...

www.highbeam.com...

tech.mit.edu...


[edit on 3/17/2009 by Phage]

Originally posted by Exuberant1
reply to post by RFBurns

 

Greetings RFBurns & Majorion,

I have been trying to locate a video of this incident filmed with one of the Camera's on-board Mir - to no avail.

Interestingly, I have been able to locate several photos that were taken during the 'rendezvous' period, and have been unable to discern any of amount of debris or particulate in the vicinity - although there may be some, it is certainly minimal and difficult to detect.

There are clearly large amounts of objects/debris visible in Majorion's video - but not in any of the pictures that are filming in the human visual range.

This disparity perplexes me. Given the size of the 'debris', one would assume that it should be quite prominent in the regular photographs - but it is not. Only the shuttle ir/uv camera films the debris to the extent that it is shown in Majorion's video.

How would you account for this RFBurns? Critters maybe?

*here is a link to some of the photos that I mention:
spaceflight.nasa.gov...

Out of the 6 pages of photos of Discovery near the MIR station, only one says the shuttle's "jets" are firing. In that photo, there is slight "hints" of tiny particles, and very very few at that.

Granted a camera maxed out in gain will cause things to brighten up, but that cannot compensate for a tiny particle to be seen at a considerable distance no matter how much gain that camera has, or how much sunshine is lighting up the sky.

One only need to test this is by simply driving down a straight run of highway and note how dim headlights are on vehicles comming the other direction at a considerable distance. The light source is also very small compared to when the light source is right in front of you, and considerably brighter as well.

But that is a light source, not some tiny particle reflecting light, to which the tiny particle that could reflect so much sunlight in a maxed out camera sensitivity piece of video, the entire scene should be littered with these tiny mist particles to a point where the shot would look like as if your seeing through thick fog.

We do not see that in any of the videos.

Considering also, that the shuttle was seriously leaking this propellant, and it was serious dispite what NASA officials want to call it, there should have been nothing but a white floating fog cloud up there in and around the shuttle and MIR.

But that is absent in the photographs.

We have see video examples of these shower mists that are clearly seen, but suddenly vanish from view at a short distance, even on zoomed in video. We do not see these mist trails in the other videos with the increased camera sensitivities where there should be if all those "dots" are from recent waste spray. Naturally the mist will seperate as it travels further away from the nozzles, but with all of the suggestion of recent waste sprays and claims that the "dots" are from these waste dump sprays, it should look like massive fog clouds out there from all that waste spray and leaked propellant.

Curious.


Cheers!!!!

reply to post by Phage


Phage!

Thanks for proving that the objectives were political and deemed worth the risk'.

I always enjoy when you've got my back.

*Then you go on to further corroborate my assertions that NASA did not give the Russians accurate data:

"Russian engineers were "very sharp and astute � and asked all the right questions." They changed the minimum separation to 400 feet, still not close enough for meaningful data."


*Here is another quote from the link you provided, which also substantiates my hypothesis about the propellant:

"Early in the flight the propellant spewed in a conical pattern, "like a snowstorm for five miles up into space," according to Commander Jim Wetherbee."


Now, please post the data that was given to the Russians about the leak, at the time of the practice rendezvous....

Oh wait; according to your own link, no "meaningful" data was exchanged at that time and only NASA knew the full extent of the leak ;-)

Thanks phage!



[edit on 17-3-2009 by Exuberant1]

Originally posted by RFBurns
Curious.

Indeed, it is curious how you argue your case by conjuring up false 'requirements' for some consequence, and then you debunk these irrelevant 'requirements', concluding you have disproven the consequent.

There's actually a time-honored name for this logical fallacy, in all standard books of 'argumentation and debate'. It is a common practice, often based on honest but wooly thinking, sometimes based on deliberate desire to force one's views by any means.

But it doesn't hold water OR ice, on Earth or in space.

Originally posted by JimOberg

Indeed, it is curious how you argue your case by conjuring up false 'requirements' for some consequence, and then you debunk these irrelevant 'requirements', concluding you have disproven the consequent.

To the contrary.

RFBurn's statements on ATS have been quite inconclusatory.

It's annoying ;-P

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by RFBurns
Curious.

Indeed, it is curious how you argue your case by conjuring up false 'requirements' for some consequence, and then you debunk these irrelevant 'requirements', concluding you have disproven the consequent.

There's actually a time-honored name for this logical fallacy, in all standard books of 'argumentation and debate'. It is a common practice, often based on honest but wooly thinking, sometimes based on deliberate desire to force one's views by any means.

But it doesn't hold water OR ice, on Earth or in space.

Whats the matter there Jim? Am I hitting too close to home for the comfort zone?

Does my explanations hit it on the mark so exactly to account for all that propellant leak that in fact it WILL create such a fog like cloud trailing the shuttle and accumilating around it and MIR?

Hmm....well dont know what to say...cept the example given is testable and verifiable. How about we do a little history lesson.

Apollo 13..when that O2 tank blew its top and tore half of the side out from the command module.

What did the astronaut say to Houston about a mist cloud being sprayed out into space???

I cant remember the exact words, but according to the report, that leaking O2 tank spewed out enough particles that the astronaut commented on leaving a trail of white shower.

It means that astronaut could clearly see the trail being left behind.

So...why is this missing in the new issue brought into this thread about the leaky propellant on Discovery heading towards MIR while dropping this stuff for over several miles of flight and we dont see a spec of it in the photos????

Airbrushed...perhaps?

Dang...Nasty Anomaly Scene Airbrush dudes....they did it again!!!


Cheers!!!!

[edit on 17-3-2009 by RFBurns]

Originally posted by RFBurns
Hmm....well dont know what to say...cept the example given is testable and verifiable. How about we do a little history lesson.

Apollo 13..when that O2 tank blew its top and tore half of the side out from the command module.

Uh, check your memory....

Originally posted by RFBurns

Airbrushed...perhaps?

Dang...Nasty Anomaly Scene Airbrush dudes....they did it again!!!

Indeed.

The Russians could probably see the propellant leak, or at least were aware of it to the extent that they changed the 'rendezvous' distance from 37 to 400 feet.

Phage already made us aware of the fact that 'meaningful data' about the extent of the leak was not communicated to the Russians - who likely had to rely on other sources in order to access the situation, or even prior measurements/readings that may have been given to them.

Since the Russians increased the practice 'rendezvous' distance to ten-times what it originally was, one would not be wrong in assuming that they did not feel confident in NASA's data - which it turned out, was incomplete (when NASA bothered to provide it.)

reply to post by Exuberant1

Originally posted by Exuberant1

"Russian engineers were "very sharp and astute � and asked all the right questions." They changed the minimum separation to 400 feet, still not close enough for meaningful data."


Now, please post the data that was given to the Russians about the leak, at the time of the practice rendezvous....

Oh wait; according to your own link, no "meaningful" data was exchanged at that time and only NASA knew the full extent of the leak ;-)

Thanks phage!

[edit on 17-3-2009 by Exuberant1]

I originally posted the information about the leak very early in this thread.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

This was to be the first rendezvous with Mir. The "meaningful data" they were looking for had nothing to do with the leak.

But, the rendezvous with the Russian space station became STS-63’s primary mission and on the success of this rendezvous hinged the future of the Shuttle-Mir Program. Although the orbital physics of rendezvous were well understood, many techniques were undemonstrated and the stakes were high. Discovery had a mass of 87 tons; Mir weighed 103 tons; and each measured more than 100 feet long. Even a small human error or mechanical glitch could be magnified by the mass and momentum of the spacecraft, jeopardizing the nine lives aboard Discovery and Mir as well as the future of human spaceflight.

history.nasa.gov...

They wanted to get close enough to practice maneuvering for an actual docking. The "meaningful data" is data that they wanted to obtain during the rendezvous. 400 feet was not close enough to learn what they wanted to learn. Are you really that obtuse or are you just intentionally distorting the obvious? The Russians knew about the leak and were very concerned about it. Plenty information was exchanged. Enough so that when leak was brought under control, the Russians allowed Discovery to come within 35 feet.

The fact that problem with the leak was published in newspapers at the time shows that your claim it was a secret (and hidden from the Russians) is bogus.
www.independent.co.uk...
archive.deseretnews.com...
www.highbeam.com...
tech.mit.edu...

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by RFBurns
Hmm....well dont know what to say...cept the example given is testable and verifiable. How about we do a little history lesson.

Apollo 13..when that O2 tank blew its top and tore half of the side out from the command module.

Uh, check your memory....

What is there to check Jim? Do you deny now that the command module was leaking oxygen? Do you deny that they had to go live in the LEM for 3 days because the oxygen supply had all but run out in the command module?

Man..you sure do nit pick dont you. Trademark of desperation to the core.

Tsk tsk. I expected better than this.



Cheers!!!!

reply to post by Phage


You know the major problem with that Phage..is that NASA tries to make the task of docking with something up in space as if it was a totaly new thing for them.

Did NASA forget that they had practiced this type of manuver dozens of times prior to Apollo and during Apollo?

Does NASA want the people to believe that just because Discovery was docking with a Russian space station, that the well practiced procedure was something completely new that they needed to collect data????

PFFT!!!! What a load a bean gas!!!



Cheers!!!!

[edit on 17-3-2009 by RFBurns]

reply to post by RFBurns

The shuttle is quite a bit different than the Gemini and Apollo craft. Discovery's landing mass was about 105 tons. The ascent stage of Apollo (fueled) was 5 tons. The way 105 tons responds is quite a bit different than the way 5 tons responds.

This

responds quite a bit differently than this


No matter how experienced I was with the 5 ton boat, I would want to get some practice with the 105 tonner before I tried docking it. Easy to take out a pier with something that size. Orbital maneuvering is trickier than maneuvering a boat. With a boat it's only in two dimensions.

This was the first rendezvous of a shuttle with a manned space station. There was a lot to learn and a lot to be careful about.

[edit on 3/17/2009 by Phage]

Originally posted by RFBurns

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by RFBurns
Hmm....well dont know what to say...cept the example given is testable and verifiable. How about we do a little history lesson.

Apollo 13..when that O2 tank blew its top and tore half of the side out from the command module.

Uh, check your memory....

What is there to check Jim? Do you deny now that the command module was leaking oxygen? .....
Man..you sure do nit pick dont you. Trademark of desperation to the core.

I deny that the Command Module was leaking oxygen.

I gave you a chance to back off your arrogant proclamatory style.

It's just unavoidable, I guess, that you should remember erroneous things so darned energetically.

Originally posted by RFBurns
reply to post by Phage

 

You know the major problem with that Phage..is that NASA tries to make the task of docking with something up in space as if it was a totaly new thing for them.

Did NASA forget that they had practiced this type of manuver dozens of times prior to Apollo and during Apollo?

Does NASA want the people to believe that just because Discovery was docking with a Russian space station, that the well practiced procedure was something completely new that they needed to collect data????

PFFT!!!! What a load a bean gas!!!

Since I was at the heart of the rendezvous team during this period, literally 'wrote the books' on crew procedures and MCC console procedures for rendezvous, and compiled the Mission Operations Directorate's history tome on the evolution of rendezvous procedures from prehistory to 1991, I feel qualified to offer an explanation for this.

RF, you are not entirely full of bean gas. Sadly, a lot of it has already leaked out onto these pages.

The shuttle rendezvous was different from Gemini-Apollo rendezvous because formerly the chaser vehicle could rely on a transponder in the target vehicle to provide hi-quality range/rate date from 200 miles on in to contact. Although shuttle rendezvous software retained the 'active' (transponder) mode, it was never used -- the targets, from the beginning, were 'passive', requiring an entirely new suite of rendezvous and proximity operations (docking and separation) instruments for range, angles, and range rate. Developing, testing, verifying, and fine tuning these sensors and the software that used them was an elaborate process.

For example, although skin-track radar was used for close-in readings, the concern with large targets such as Mir was that as the viewing angle changed, the target 'hot spot' would jump from one structural element to another, creating the false impression the target itself was juming around in space.

As a result, close in the shuttle actually used forward and aft payload bay TV cameras, pointed to a selected visual feature of the target and displaying their tilt angles, to allow a stereo (parallax) view of the target that was easily converted to a reliable range value. Hence, our console operators (myself included) were intimately familiar with the visual capabilities and operational characteristics of the TV cameras -- and how to control them, since we flew all of the rendezvous procedures and all imaginable variations of them in hi-fi simulators on the ground, in order to hone the procedures for the crew.

In addition, a very serious new issue for final approach arose with the thrusters on the shuttle. Since it was so much more massive than the Apollo CSM, the plumes it fired towards its target, as it slowed down for final close-range stationkeeping, were much more powerful and were capable of pushing a small target off course, or damaging flimsy equipment on a large target -- such as solar panels, radiators, etc., or contaminating window surfaces. So entirely new and gentler approach corridors had to be developed, as well as thruster firing techniques to minimize plume impingement on the nearby target. One of the cleverest techniques was the 'low-Z' mode of Z axis braking, that actually used the slight cant of forward and aft thrusters to fire such jets simo to generate a gentle braking force, but at great propellant expense.

The relevance to the dancing dots is that the shuttle thrusters were so much bigger than on earlier spaceships and created far more and wider effluent plumes to entrain nearby particles, than any other spacecraft ever.

The second relevance is that just because you are ignorant of a subject (no shame there -- it is a very esoteric and unearthly subject), you have no right to substitute your reality-independent imagination for actual facts, as you did in this message and have done dozens of times earlier on this discussion.

Originally posted by JimOberg
I deny that the Command Module was leaking oxygen.
I gave you a chance to back off your arrogant proclamatory style.

The point I'm raising is that it was the Service Module, not the Command Module, that was leaking oxygen, forcing the crew to take refuge in the 'LM' (not the 'LEM'). For a 'regular Joe', confusing the Apollo Command Module with the Service Module is no big deal. For somebody like RF, posing as a space expert (supposedly with unverifiable 'inside sources'), such a basic mix-up, even after being politely asked to double-check it, is a howler, and ought to be a credibility disallower.