New Analysis Video of the STS-75 Tether Incident

Originally posted by spacefan
day 8 thursday 29/2

this was the day the second footage began to be shot.
Columbia and the Tethered Satellite will pass within about 51 nautical
miles of each other at 11:17 p.m. central time today (approximately
7/08:59 MET), providing the astronauts a chance to glimpse the errant
spacecraft since it separated from the orbiter Sunday night.

Day 9 Friday 1/3

Columbia's astronauts had a clear view of the Tethered Satellite as
the two spacecraft passed within about 46 nautical miles
overnight. The closest approach occurred at 11:17 central time last
night (approximately 7/08:59 MET), and was captured on videotape as
the satellite and its 12-mile tether came into view.

day 10 saturday 2/3

another waste water dump/flush.connected to the tops fes experiment.

On Saturday, March 2, 1996, 8 a.m. CST
The FES core flush procedure was identical to one carried out on the last Shuttle flight to melt ice and recover use of the subsystem which is designed as a subtle method for dumping excess water overboard without disrupting the experiments on board. The FES also cools the freon used to keep orbiter and payload electronics at operating temperatures.


day 11 sunday 3/3
day 12 monday 4/3


day 13 tuesday 5/3

another waste water dump/flush as it broke down and iced up again

The flash evaporator system core flush procedure was identical to the one carried out on Saturday to melt ice and recover use of the subsystem which is designed as a subtle method for dumping excess water overboard without disrupting the experiments on board.

Despite the intermittent freeze-up of the FES, the orbiter continues to provide a stable environment for USMP operations. Columbia is in an orbit 181 by 173 statute miles

also it was filmed for 3rd and last time

Lighting precluded a viewing opportunity during the point of closest
approach between the two spacecraft, but one orbit later the crew saw
and filmed TSS from a distance of about 450 nautical miles.


day 14 wednesday 6/3
day 15 thursday 7/3
day 16 friday 8/3
day 17 thursday 9/3

has anyone else got anything for the timeline please

Originally posted by spacefan
yes thats the next stage jim go str8 to my credibility.

Not my post, spacefan.

Originally posted by spacefan
but i feel nothing but utter contempt for you and your colleges.

Would that include Ohio Wesleyan, Northwestern, and the U of New Mexico?

The back and forth personal jibes are going to stop now. Any further comments regarding another poster that is deemed off topic will be subject to action.

Thank you. I now return you to your originally scheduled thread topic, "New Analysis Video of the STS-75 Tether Incident".

reply to post by depthoffield

well, it says there exactly about particles from water dump entering on FOV, no matter the water dump was ejected on a opposite side.

This contradicts you understanding of physics on spaceflight, this was my point.

And my point was, I've read it and it changes nothing in my understanding of the physics involved.

If you read the doc. carefully you will see that they made another manoeuvre shortly after the dump.
This did have an affect on the particles in several different ways.
By this they changed the outcome of how the particles would move with out interference.
They forced the particles to float over the bay using the atmospheric drag.
This was probably done to see how much later experiments would/could be affected visually.

When I wrote my first assessment of that video about ten years ago (the one posted on rense dot com), I had obtained the documentation that laid out the detailed activities of the day the video was made (four days after the tether break). It's called the 'Execute Package', and one is develped for every day in flight.

It's the document where I saw the scheduled water dump shortly before the video of the passing tether.

Since about STS-115, these documents are online, and will be tremendous help in finding context of later videos. But the earlier ones have to be requested, usually through FOIA to the JSC press office. They don't keep copies either, they have to ask the originating Mission Control console, the Flight Activities Officer (FAO).

As to where my box with the ten-year-old research materials is, that's a lot of melted ice over the dam, so I've started a fresh inquiry at NASA.

Anybody else can, too, especially those who might be predisposed to not want to believe the kind of investigative results that I come up with.

reply to post by JimOberg


I think that is a good idea.

I dont live in the states so me asking something from NASA will probably be taken as espionage... And i'll get to share cell with... crap, forgot his name, he who connected to a few NASA servers and other secret places (they called it hacking....)

Will you get the docs on disc or paper?

Originally posted by Balez
Will you get the docs on disc or paper?

Yes.

I intend to elaborate on the material posted on my own home page, with a lot more of the source documentation scanned and posted.

Lots of primo arguments and ideas for explaining many of their weird-looking videos have been posted on ATS, and i'd be honored to host those essays as well for specific 'space cases'.

Folks can contact me via u2u or my home page for specifics.

I am dismayed by the amount of wasted brainpower by young space and science enthusiasts who get swept up in this UFO myth and spend precious energy and time so helplessly and hopelessly trying to make sense of all the nonsense promoted around them. The genuine mysteries -- and genuine value -- of proper UFO research (into the stimuli that ARE extraordinary, but are camouflaged on purpose) remain largely untouched.

I suspect there are some humans on this planet who are pleased with that apparently incurable confusion, and are taking advantage of it.

Added to above -- I want to prepare and post a 'background on the spaceflight environment' section that explains the unearthly features of space videos. Suggestions as to what common misunderstandings to clear up, would also be appreciated.

reply to post by JimOberg


Sounds like a good idea.

Hmm not sure if you have understood this yet....
I do not think those are a mile wide UFO's....
But still, the ufo 'pro's' on this inccident will not take anything as 'proof' that they are wrong when it comes to this.

This is the site I talked about on a previous post.

It's the personal site of Umberto Guidoni, one of the astronauts on the STS-75 mission, and it's a diary of his mission, from his point of view.

It's in Italian, but Google can give a rough idea of what is said, and for a more "real" translation we can always ask the help of one of the Italian-speaking volunteers from the The UFO-Alien Applied Linguistics Registry.

Originally posted by spacefan
however your colleges killing the links to edit them will thinking about it, make MY job easier as i have originals to compare them to when they re-appear and will be only to eager to see what is not there anymore as i have no doubt i missed some other very valid points.

Those links are not working for two years or more, the first time I decided to investigate this case.

And you can read what they had using the Wayback Machine, it's easy to use and was the source for the video of the tether breaking away that I posted on YouTube and that gave me some copyright troubles (and no, it was not NASA the one who complained).

Originally posted by JimOberg

I intend to elaborate on the material posted on my own home page, with a lot more of the source documentation scanned and posted.


Lots of primo arguments and ideas for explaining many of their weird-looking videos have been posted on ATS, and i'd be honored to host those essays as well for specific 'space cases'.

Folks can contact me via u2u or my home page for specifics.

I am dismayed by the amount of wasted brainpower by young space and science enthusiasts who get swept up in this UFO myth and spend precious energy and time so helplessly and hopelessly trying to make sense of all the nonsense promoted around them. The genuine mysteries -- and genuine value -- of proper UFO research (into the stimuli that ARE extraordinary, but are camouflaged on purpose) remain largely untouched.

ATS members BEWARE! Jim is off topic all of a sudden...because he has come out & exposed his true purpose at ATS. So many of you (like me) have posted "puzzlement" as to why Jim Oberg is spending so much time here...in fact , any time here?..Now we know.

He says to come over to his tent....leave this uniformed sight & join him debating on his sight...He sees us as helpless & hopeless here...he disses ATS debate as a place where "all the nonsense promoted", causes us to try & make sense of things!

Earth to Jim...that's the point of ATS! ...he thinks ATS is a house of cards & he is dismayed!...

...so beware of this fake humble routine...Jim's church (skeptic tank) only preaches to the converted, recruits new blood...& ATS is ripe for picking.... He thinks...I know better!

On an earlier post, someone re-edited my STS-75 "ice Crystal" clip with a water dump at the start...then the NASA clip follows... misleading... 1st. I will address this so-called water/ice crystal clip & then move to the waste dump/tether UFO war of facts & fiction...

I know that some are discussing water dumps as a cause of this STS-75 UFO swarm, which I think is crazy...but let me clear this posted clip up...my original research "team", included David Sereda, who is like minded on this NASA evidence, a risk taker.. & my friend. We teamed up to produce the 2 part DVD & book "Evidence:the case for NASA UFOs."...so I did a 'wayback' to the notes & here is our published take...(& remember that skeptics have as their premise that UFOs DO NOT EXIST, rendering their opinions as weak at best.)
... David was our best writer & we harmonized through his words...
(I asked him to join this ATS discussion but he has moved on to alternate energy, a new state to call home & is 'quietly' re-imaging the STS-75 with a big surprise coming..he sent me a 1st look & this discussion will soon take on a new direction if he succeeds...)

..."this is a relatively simple part (the ice crystal sequence) of the video to observe. It is too simple & that is what is peculiar about it. We are told by NASA control in Huntsville, Alabama that, "there seems to be a lot of moonlight reflecting off the water. Is that a real picture, or are we getting some video fuzz?"

The objects referred to as "moonlight reflecting off the water" are clearly objects that are between the shuttle & the Earth down below. There are a large number of these amorphously shaped objects & they shimmer & pulse like diamonds. There is a long pause before anyone of the crew members answer NASA control which is very suspicious.

The answer finally comes, "those are the ice crystals we were dumping out earlier." NASA control answers, "that's a nice combination of the moonlight reflecting off the water (oceans) & the ice crystals."...judging by the enormity of ice that NASA allegedly says was "dumped out earlier," one would have to question where the space shuttle produces so much ice.

Is it a giant snow cone machine in space that dumps huge ice crystals several times each day? You need water to make ice. Where did the shuttle carry so much water (weight) & why does it make ice out of its water supply (presumably for drinking, bathing & experiments) & dump it all out?...it seemed like an awful waste of water considering how much energy it takes for the space shuttle to carry all this water out into space just so that the astronauts can make snow cones & then throw them out the window.

David found a space shuttle manual on NASA's website with a section on "supply & waste water", & he found it very peculiar...."first of all there are 4 supply water tanks on the shuttle & one waste water tank, each of which have a capacity of 160 pounds of water. Each tank is 35.5 inches in length & 15.5 inches in diameter. The small sizes of these 4 tanks show us how heavy water is equal to its mass storage space.

If all 4 of the supply water tanks were dumped overboard, we would expect to see 4 water balls 35.5 by 15.5 inches in size each... when the water made in the fuel cell power plant is too hydrogen rich (H2O), the excess hydrogen is separated from the water...the hydrogen is dumped overboard through a vacuum vent. So we know that hydrogen gas can get dumped overboard. Hydrogen gas is very volatile & must dissolve or burn up very quickly under the influence of intense radiation from the sun...

...water is only dumped in case of an emergency as the manual further states, "The EMU dump will be used only if an EVA is required". Of course the astronauts on the shuttle don't make a habit of dumping out water just for fun. If they did, they would be out of their own water supply very quickly.

As to where the shuttle produces "ice crystals" that we were told by the astronauts on these missions, "were being dumped out" of the shuttle, where are they manufactured?...it is so cold up there in space (-273 degrees C), who needs an ice machine.

...space is a dichotomy with regards to its temperature. Space is cold, but as soon as any gas, liquid or solid object is exposed to bare space, the intense radiation from the sun quickly causes heat to be formed & very fast nuclear & chemical reactions take place.

...The question about alleged "ice crystals" is that we know that pieces of ice (even a few meters in diameter) could not survive the intense radiation from the sun & stars in space for very long. In fact what we were told by the astronauts on these missions was that the alleged ice crystals we were seeing were being dumped out of the shuttle when in truth, they rarely dump out water. Water is not ice. If the ice or water were dumped from the shuttle in an emergency water release situation, it should dissolve very quickly, yet these alleged ice crystals did not."

In my next post (don't stay up waiting!) I will move specifically to the "tether UFOs" water dumps...but as I found out reading all that has been said so far...I need a bit of time to gather our tether DATA & check it with all the posted DATA on this thread.

...I'm certain Rev. Jim will keep us entertained in the meantime ...

Originally posted by secretnasaman

[1]..."...We are told by NASA control in Huntsville, Alabama that, "there seems to be a lot of moonlight reflecting off the water. Is that a real picture, or are we getting some video fuzz?"

[2]...judging by the enormity of ice that NASA allegedly says was "dumped out earlier," one would have to question where the space shuttle produces so much ice.

[3] Is it a giant snow cone machine in space that dumps huge ice crystals several times each day? You need water to make ice. Where did the shuttle carry so much water (weight) & why does it make ice out of its water supply (presumably for drinking, bathing & experiments) & dump it all out?...it seemed like an awful waste of water considering how much energy it takes for the space shuttle to carry all this water out into space just so that the astronauts can make snow cones & then throw them out the window.

[4] ... So we know that hydrogen gas can get dumped overboard. Hydrogen gas is very volatile & must dissolve or burn up very quickly under the influence of intense radiation from the sun...

[5] ...water is only dumped in case of an emergency as the manual further states, "The EMU dump will be used only if an EVA is required". Of course the astronauts on the shuttle don't make a habit of dumping out water just for fun. If they did, they would be out of their own water supply very quickly.

[6] ...space is a dichotomy with regards to its temperature. Space is cold, but as soon as any gas, liquid or solid object is exposed to bare space, the intense radiation from the sun quickly causes heat to be formed & very fast nuclear & chemical reactions take place.

[7] ...The question about alleged "ice crystals" is that we know that pieces of ice (even a few meters in diameter) could not survive the intense radiation from the sun & stars in space for very long. In fact what we were told by the astronauts on these missions was that the alleged ice crystals we were seeing were being dumped out of the shuttle when in truth, they rarely dump out water. Water is not ice. If the ice or water were dumped from the shuttle in an emergency water release situation, it should dissolve very quickly, yet these alleged ice crystals did not."

[8] ...I'm certain Rev. Jim will keep us entertained in the meantime ...

Discussing #8 first, I find the only reason to read Martyn's stuff is for pure entertainment purposes, and the items 1-7 provide evidence for that.

#1 -- When I worked there, Mission Control was in Houston, Texas, and by all credible accounts, it still is. There's a payloads office in Huntsville (formerly known, in dubious honor of all the German scientists there, as 'Hunsville') but they have nothing to do with the operational aspects of the shuttle (or its payload bay cameras).

#2 -- The majority of the water dumped is a waste product of the fuel cells, which 'burn' o2 and h2 to create the electrical power that feeds the shuttle. That has been explained in many places including the Weekly Reader. When docked to a space station, that water is bagged and then transferred into the station for long-term use, which is why such dumps aren't needed as often during docked operations.

#3 -- Didn't Martyn understand the explanation in the Weekly Reader?

#4 -- "Gas", already being a gas, can't be "volatile" -- eager to convert itself into a gas. And hydrogen can't burn in the vacuum of space -- no oxygen. Probably another missed issue of the Weekly Reader.

#5 -- The water dump referred to here as an 'emergency' involves an 'EMU', the backpack used during spacewalks. It has nothing to do with water dumps from the space shuttle itself. Water is slowly expended during spacewalks from a flash evaporator in the backpacks, to cool the suit.

#6 -- Heat does not involve chemical and nuclear reactions -- I know of no nuclear reactions induced by exposing matter to sunlight in space. Can anybody help, or is this more pure imagination at work?

#7 -- Here's where it all adds up. Shuttles "rarely" dump water, Martyn claims -- overlooking all of the scheduled water dumps on all of the regular missions. Ice dissolves quickly, he says, overlooking videotaped evidence of hunks of ice persisting on the shuttle's exterior for days -- and once, even through reentry and landing. And when astronauts say otherwise, Martyn warns us, they are lying -- it's that simple.

As I said, read his stuff for entertainment purposes only, certainly not in expectation of learning anything about reality.

Originally posted by secretnasaman

Where did the shuttle carry so much water (weight) & why does it make ice out of its water supply (presumably for drinking, bathing & experiments) & dump it all out?.

Good question, but you did a good job of answering it yourself:

David found a space shuttle manual on NASA's website with a section on "supply & waste water", & he found it very peculiar...."first of all there are 4 supply water tanks on the shuttle & one waste water tank, each of which have a capacity of 160 pounds of water.

So the waste water tank holds 160 pounds? Then it must have been pretty full when they dumped 150 pounds here:

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
www.universetoday.com...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c8483a0a0a11.jpg[/atsimg]

Pictured is space shuttle Discovery executing a water dump. The shuttle needed to get rid of excess waste water before landing the next day, and jettisoned it overboard via the waste water dump line, creating a spectacular visual effect as sunlight hit the spraying water.

NASA said this was an unusually large dump, about 150 pounds (68 kg), because new regulations say no shuttle water dumps can take place while docked to the ISS, so as not to contaminate the outdoor experiments on the Kibo lab.

So normally it's a smaller dump from the waste water tank if 150 pounds is the largest dump they've done.

In fact what we were told by the astronauts on these missions was that the alleged ice crystals we were seeing were being dumped out of the shuttle when in truth, they rarely dump out water. Water is not ice.

You say they rarely dump out water. Actually what they usually dump out is the waste water from the waste water tank, not the water from the water tanks you mentioned. It would be unusual to dump out water rather than waste water, so if that's your point, then I agree with you, but to be honest I'm having a hard time understanding exactly what your point is, because you ask a lot of questions and then seem to answer all of them yourself. You're right that the waste water turns to ice then the ice sublimates, but as the photo shows it doesn't happen instantaneously, and the larger the ice particle, and the more it's shaded from the sun, the longer it will take.

If you want to know how "rarely" the waste water is dumped out, you can look at the execute packages for each mission since STS-115 online and see exactly how often the waste water dumps are scheduled in those, it's no secret.

The STS-75 execute package is not a secret either but as with all the missions prior to STS-115, the information is just less accessible and we have to request it, since it's not online.

@Jim Oberg, regarding all the energy of intelligent UFO enthusiasts spent on this topic, I tend to agree that there are more compelling cases where our energy could be better spent. But if we learn something about orbital mechanics and how physics sometimes manifests itself differently in space than it does on Earth, then perhaps this hasn't been a total waste. I personally didn't know when I started reading this thread that diverging orbits tended to re-converge and it sounds incredible to someone like me who was at first unfamiliar with orbital mechanics, but after studying it further, I was fascinated to learn that this apparently paradoxical claim is indeed true, not only from watching the simulation that depthoffield ran but from researching this topic further myself and understanding how the laws of physics dictate this.

So is it an interesting UFO case? Probably not, and certainly there are much better ones. But is it a total waste of time? Maybe so if the objective is to find real UFOs but if the objective is to learn something, it wasn't a total waste, at least not for me, because I've learned quite a few things from this thread.

[edit on 6-11-2009 by Arbitrageur]

By no means has this been a waste of time.

First, i do meet interesting and admirable people who make original, constructive contributions.

second, it helps me understand how to better present my arguments, especially when unconscious assumptions can get in the way at both ends of the comm link.

Third, it places give-and-take debates onto the WWW where search engines can lead all future interested parties, so they can see there are two or more sides to these cases, and not accept any single-source claim from anybody.

reply to post by Balez


I'm still wondering about a few things, we have allot of 'experts' here on ATS, so this should by all means be an easy one.

It's funny isn't it?

We have the more or less accepted theory by Jim Oberg.
Then we have the even more less accepted theory by the believers that what we are seeing is a mile (or more) wide ufo's floating around out there.

And what we have come down to is this.... It's all based on 'ice'... Ice to be or not to be.
I do understand the ice theory and close to the camera objects.
I can agree with Jim on this, the objects almost have to be small... They somehow get dimmed out by the tether and it's puny 2.54cm in diameter.
Explanation from the 'pro' ufo's on this please.

Something else i am curious about is this.....
Let's say we have a object (small object) close to the camera that is moving.
When we zoom in on that object, will it's actual speed look different from the unzoomed view?
If that is 'so' what would be the difference with a far away object that is moving and being zoomed in on?
If you noticed... I am not very good when it comes to cameras and their inner workings
Jim and all the other camera experts, please chime in on this

I'll be waiting

reply to post by JimOberg

#6 -- Heat does not involve chemical and nuclear reactions -- I know of no nuclear reactions induced by exposing matter to sunlight in space. Can anybody help, or is this more pure imagination at work?

Well, it's partly true.
The physics involved is quite difficult, but i'll do it as easy as possible.

The pressure in space is very low this combined with vacuum will boil fluids away completely.
But there is another ingredient in space that actually halts the sublimation process partly, and that is the low temperature.
Or if you wish, a loss of energy.
Water for instance when it hits the vacuum and the low pressure of space should boil away completely if the temperature was let's say -5celsius.
No ice, just vaporization.

But the temperature in space is quite extreme (to say the least) it will halt the boiling process and turn the water into ice (some of the water will boil away).

So when the sun hits these ice blocks, the process of sublimation starts over again.
And it is very quick!
Some comets can loose several tonnes of mass p/h.

Originally posted by Balez
Something else i am curious about is this.....
Let's say we have a object (small object) close to the camera that is moving.
When we zoom in on that object, will it's actual speed look different from the unzoomed view?
If that is 'so' what would be the difference with a far away object that is moving and being zoomed in on?
If you noticed... I am not very good when it comes to cameras and their inner workings
Jim and all the other camera experts, please chime in on this

I'll give you an example to see if it answers your question. Let's say that you're videotaping an object (like the objects in this STS-75 video) 20 feet away, and the zoom on the camera is set so the distance from the left edge of the screen to the right edge of the screen (on your videotape) is 8 feet, at that distance of 20 feet. If the object is traveling at 1 foot per second it will take 8 seconds to cover the entire field of view.

Now let's say you zoom in so the object 20 feet away only travels 4 feet to cover the width of your screen. It will cover the 4 feet in half the time (only 4 seconds) it took to travel 8 feet, so on your video it will have an apparent speed twice as fast, but in reality it's still only moving at 1 foot per second. Does that help?