It's not all about pretty pictures

[Ian]

well, not in case an serious as this. This was posted to QCUIAG list.

From: "rclayramsey <rcramsey@email.msn.com>" <rcramsey@email.msn.com>
To: QCUIAG@yahoogroups.com
Reply-To: QCUIAG@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [QCUIAG] Shuttle Columbia video analysis using K3CCD
Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2003 22:27:53 -0000
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For my day job, I work at the Kennedy Space Center on Space Shuttle
Launch Commit Criteria.  As you may imagine, since the loss of
Columbia, we have been busy gathering data hoping to eventually piece
together the details of what caused it's breakup.  

As I'm sure you've heard, there was a debonding of some ET
thermal foam in the area of the Bipod Strut attach point which struck
the left wing of the Orbiter during ascent.  It's possible that this
caused damage which may have lead to the heating seen in the left
wing area.

Unfortunately, of all the cameras that were employed to record the
launch, the only camera that was able to view the underside of the
left wing at the moment of debris impact was a relatively low
resolution video camera which yielded relatively low resolution
images.  

On the Monday after the launch, I began to do some image processing
on these images using K3CCD and had considerable success.  Now with
even more demanding images of the last moments available, these too
are being enhanced, and again, much progress is being made.  I
thought you all, and especially Peter, would be interested to here
that.

Clay Ramsey