Shooting a UFO, STS mission (video)

Seems you've been vaccinated against any fact-based explanation -- else you would have made reference to explanatory material linked in some of my earlier posts. Until you show indications you've read and tried to understand even a small portion of that, you are demanding the impossible. And your 'questions' are tricks because they presuppose facts-not-in-evidence, or even fantasies.

Mr.Oberg, I haven't been vaccinated against anything. I see what I see and I'm eager to hear your personal opinion about this particular video here on ATS. I always read your posts attentively and understand the key-points of your arguments. But here we've got another video and thus your previous comments cannot be automatically applied to this one because it looks different, doesn't it. I am not an extrasensory individual to make connections of your thoughts so please feel free to answer my questions I asked and don't call them tricks If you cannot answer them, why bother posting at all ? Don't get me wrong, I'm not rude in any way but I really want to discuss what I see, not my fantasies.
OK, you may answer only my last question but don't ask me whether I know the date and time of this video so you can ask the person who was responsible for zooming in on the objects to find out why he did this. I am sure you know the chronology of this event very well.



[edit on 29-8-2006 by Leevi]

... But here we've got another video and thus your previous comments cannot be automatically applied to this one because it looks different, doesn't it.

Why keep running to a NEW video before we've satisifed ourselves we've increased our understanding of the video first touted here -- STS-48? Let's stick to that event and consider the evidence around THAT event.

...but don't ask me whether I know the date and time of this video so you can ask the person who was responsible for zooming in on the objects to find out why he did this. I am sure you know the chronology of this event very well.

That is about the weakest dodge I've seen in a long, long time. How come it's MY responsibility to provide the alleged documentation that YOU claim supports YOUR point of view?

If you don't KNOW the data, and have NO clue how to even find it, at least admit it.

And then answer me this -- if the original presenter of the video withholds from you information critical to performing an independent verification that it is authentic, does this make you in the slightest suspicious?

Or does the presenter's apparent attitude that his target audience will believe anything WITHOUT verifiable proof, and that his intended readers have no idea how to determine what is real and what is baloney -- does that evaluation fit your own case?

I don't need to (and do not mean to) insult your intelligence with MY words. I just let YOUR words suggest a conclusion.

Leevi, I checked out your link at
cp.people.overclockers.ru...
which is in Russian (nyet nikakikh problem u menya) but

suddenly pops up a box that says 'accept download?' and asks
for a YES from me to download software (from a Russian site).

Now, who is assuming WHO is stupid?

Of course I'm not going to do that. Did you?

Originally posted by JimO
Leevi, I checked out your link at
cp.people.overclockers.ru...
which is in Russian (nyet nikakikh problem u menya) but

suddenly pops up a box that says 'accept download?' and asks
for a YES from me to download software (from a Russian site).

Now, who is assuming WHO is stupid?

Of course I'm not going to do that. Did you?

This is a trusted and one of the most popular computer forums in Russia. I've been a member of it since 2004 and I know there is nothing what you would avoid there. You're downloading the video from my personal page and I assure you that there is nothing besides a second link to a video there, which is an absolutely normal practice around internet. I haven't got a slightest idea what software download you are talking about but I strongly recommend you to download the latest updates for your operating system and enhance its security by installing an antivirus and firewall. What you see could easily be a troyan or adware which is enjoying itself on your computer. This is not a UDO (unidentified downloadable object). See ?
You must be banned for desinformation and confusing other ATS-members.

I don't need to (and do not mean to) insult your intelligence with MY words. I just let YOUR words suggest a conclusion.

Your using of capital letters makes me think you're a bit nervous. Take it easy.
My level of intelligence allows me to ask questions which cannot be answered. By you, for example. And I must admit one doesn't have to be so intelligent to ask them. Everyone can do that. I am only interested in what I see, and that is why I'm asking such prosaic questions. If you have debunked this particular piece of video earlier, please provide a link to the corresponding material. I would be very greatful to you, true

[edit on 29-8-2006 by Leevi]

I don't play the 'But-what-about-THIS-one?' game.

That's just a dodge to run away from evidence and reasoning that seems to be leading in an unwanted direction.

The discussion started with STS-48. Let's finish that before wandering away.

Well, I did accept your word for it, and trusted you -- and downloaded the software to watch the video.

Regarding the lights moving across the field-of-view, any discussion of their origin needs to know a basic feature of the event: is it daylight or darkness? In other words, is the sun out?

Please answer me that and we can proceed, once we've satisfied ourselves with the STS-48 video as well.

As to the text on the screen that "estimated size of UFO 1.5 miles diameter", that's really cute -- something that size in orbit 300 miles up would be about half a degree in angular size, as big as the Moon. so -- millions of people down there on the ground, what did THEY report when they saw a moon-sized UFO drifting across their sky? What corroborating independent visual sightings are on record?

Lastly, what did the space shuttle crew say about these lights? They were the on-the-scene primary witnesses, after all.

These are simple questions. It's silly to even TRY to figure out this video without knowing the answers, wouldn't you agree?

JimO,

Welcome to ATS.

Can you elaborate on the physics of the RCS Jet fires? You talked about 10,000 fps as the velocity of the gas exiting the Jets. I'm interested in understanding the dynamics of the gas after it exits the Jet and what force that would exert on an Ice particle.

Another question I have is about sublimation of Ice , my understanding is that the Shuttle should be relatively ice free after 36-48 hours in orbit. I understand water dumps take place but that water is vented away from the Shuttle via heated nozzles and the ice plume that results also sublimates quickly. So the source of Ice is rather problematic isn't it?

Originally posted by Leevi
jritzmann, are the orbs on this tape also close proximity debris ? Ice particles ? Optical illusions ?

cp.people.overclockers.ru...

If so (any variant):
1) Why are they pulsating ?

I have not read Jim's explaination of the tape so I'll tell you what I see. Why are they pulsing? Theyre not, theyre tumbling as space debris often does. When they exhibit more surface area for reflected light to hit, from viewpoint of the camera, they appear to get brighter *to* the camera.

Originally posted by Leevi
2) How do they manage to close in on each other and form a triangle all together ?

If there's 3, it's automatically a triangle, which I dont see your point in. Put 3 balls in a swimming pool...triangle. Likewise the "triangle" as you call it is only from the vantage point of the camera...they could be quite far from eachother, and from other angles not resemble a triangle whatsoever. I liken this to the "dropa stones" discs that always seem to be facing the camera with it's best side. Nope. It's just viewpoint.

Originally posted by Leevi
3) Why does the operator zoom at these objects ? Why such a great interest ?

They dont, they zoom into the lightning storm. At the end of the video the "lights" as you call them arent even all in frame.

Originally posted by Leevi
To me the first orb appears from the atmosphere exactly like in STS-48 video.
Convince me that it is a piece of debris

Thats a pretty absurd statement, seeing as you've clearly "made up your mind", so convincing you isnt my job. It's your job to understand how video works, with all it's artifacts and quirks including download compression, transmission and digital transfer.

Do you understand the video is trying only to represent thru a CCD chip what it "sees"? Youre basing your stance on innaccuracies, because you're interpreting the data to suit your view. This is about as accurate as Jim Dilettoso's "spectral analysis" on videotape (which is 100% impossible, the images on video have little to do with the actual "lights", this is how Jim says he negated flares in the Phoenix case...sheesh.). You can interpret data any way you want, and even conduct "science" on videotape to suit your needs, be it belief or any other reason.

The first orb? If I had to hazard a guess it'd be that it's again some sort of debris which angles due to tumble, that reflects more light towards the camera. It does not remain a consistent shape, nor luminosity.

Again these "glowing" objects dont exactly accurately convey the view as if you were right there watching it. It's a cam's interpretation. Thats where the misconceptions come from.

[edit on 29-8-2006 by jritzmann]

Can you elaborate on the physics of the RCS Jet fires? You talked about 10,000 fps as the velocity of the gas exiting the Jets. I'm interested in understanding the dynamics of the gas after it exits the Jet and what force that would exert on an Ice particle.

The exhaust velocty is just 'specific impulse' (Isp) times 'g' (32.2 fps), and is basically ballistic expulsion of combustion products. The plume is remarkably wide (not constrained by air pressure around it), maybe 30 degrees wide at pretty high flow density, and lesser densities as the angle-off increases -- even at 90 and 100 degrees off centerline there is some plume flow. Also, there is plume random (non-specular) reflection from orbiter structure that is impinged. There is enough particle-particle collisions for some molecules to move off at very large angles from the centerline. So it's not like the plume from a blowtorch or jet engine, or the spray from a hose in earthside experience. And the energy transport is dominated by mechanical collision forces, unless you get really close -- like, stick your glove right in front of an RCS jet.

You can see the effects of plume deflection in the famous video of the HST arrays that were jettisoned after disposal -- and got hit by a burst out about 100 meters or so. There's a famous video from Skylab-3 where the Apollo's jets are whipping the deployed sun-shield around. You can also see plume-induced motion from the LM engine, both descent and ascent, on the moon dust and for ascent on the dust and the flag and other mylar stuff left on the surface.

Another question I have is about sublimation of Ice , my understanding is that the Shuttle should be relatively ice free after 36-48 hours in orbit. I understand water dumps take place but that water is vented away from the Shuttle via heated nozzles and the ice plume that results also sublimates quickly. So the source of Ice is rather problematic isn't it?

No, ice is formed when water collects in a cool place, and sometimes it does so on the open payload bay door that is folded down in front of the vent, even though the vent orifice is heated [there are several water dump ports, as well as a cabin air and airlock air dump ports that can entrain humidity in them]. Ice around the main engines does shake loose and drift away within a few days.

But I think the main source of 'ice' is hydrazine, one of the two hypergolic propellants for the OMS and RCS engines. This ice forms around RCS thrusters (there are 43 of them) through seepage, it flash-freezes because of evaporative cooling, and can be blown loose by a firing, or shaken loose by a firing of a nearby thruster. This stuff is generated for the duration of the mission and if an RCS thruster seal ingests a contaminate particle or just gets creased by a hard-start, it can develop a healthy leak rate leading to a virtual blizzard of ice (spectacular video of such snowstorms are also available).

The APUs also vent hydrazine (at the base of the tail), and can generate ice.

There's nothing problematic about this at all.

Originally posted by JimO

To me the first orb appears from the atmosphere exactly like in STS-48 video. Convince me that it is a piece of debris.
[edit on 29-8-2006 by Leevi]

Seems you've been vaccinated against any fact-based explanation -- else you would have made reference to explanatory material linked in some of my earlier posts. Until you show indications you've read and tried to understand even a small portion of that, you are demanding the impossible. And your 'questions' are tricks because they presuppose facts-not-in-evidence, or even fantasies.

Yawn..! Annother agent.

Your explanation is correct too? You were there? you have a ship and travel around and know?

Maybe you have a need to explain it the way you do but that DOES NOT MEAN you know either.

Just up the road from me is a large university that has private research companies operating on its property.. one houses a very powerful laser that you can see on certain nights shining from the ground directly into space.

What is it for? why build such a device if it is not for academic reasons? They are not astronomers either.

Yawn..! Annother agent. Your explanation is correct too? You were there? you have a ship and travel around and know? Maybe you have a need to explain it the way you do but that DOES NOT MEAN you know either.

Actually, yes, I was there in Mission Control during the STS-48 mission.

And I have the 'Rocket Scientist' T-shirt (as well as the much harder-to-get MCC console operator certifications)!

And actually, yes, I talked to STS-48 crewmen (do you know any other 'researchers' or 'promoters' of the STS-48 'UFO video' who have done so?)..

JimO,

Are you saying hydrazine flash freezes inside the RCS nozzles and then subsequently is shaken loose by the inevitable subsequent firings of the RCS?

If thats true then shouldn't the particles have ballistic trajectories that can be traced back to the individual RCS nozzles?

Wouldn't those particles be propelled at a relatively high velocity away from the Shuttle Orbiter in a direction consistent with the ballistic trajectory extending away from the nozzle of origin after factoring in the Mechanical expansive force of the plume you talked about?



[edit on 29-8-2006 by lost_shaman]

Are you saying hydrazine flash freezes inside the RCS nozzles and then subsequently is shaken loose by the inevitable subsequent firings of the RCS?

Nothing 'inevitable', since the thrusters are triple or quad redundent, and some thrusters never fire at all on any given flight. But yes, otherwise -- hydrazine freezes, and not because I say so, but because engineers and operators have observed it happening on space missions since the 1960s.

If thats true then shouldn't the particles have ballistic trajectories that can be traced back to the individual RCS nozzles?

No.

Not to try to be cute -- but here's why not. Particles come out of their points of origins (and I forgot to mention, above, another source of water ice -- the flash evaporator, also located near the base of the tail) and can be hit by a plume even if they're far from the thruster. Depending on their distance off the thruster centerline and the duration of the burn, the amount of energy picked up can be very slight, or an awful lot.

To make things complicated, some RCS thrusters -- particularly the down-firing aft ones, both primary and vernier -- have significant impact on Orbiter structure such as the body flap, main engine bells, and even inboard elevons -- so much so that they lose a LOT of effective force (maybe 20-30% I recall without looking it up -- but I wrote the book on these operations for Mission Control and for astronaut training back in the early 1980's) due to plume structural impingement and bounce-back. This is inefficient -- but if you are going to put all the thrusters in only two pods, the Orbiter tail is such a complex structure that at least one axis would suffer a lot of impingement -- see shuttle drawings of the tail area.

Anyhow, the net result of this is that downfiring jets also lead to a small fraction of the effluent bouncing off the wing trailing edges, back upwards over the inboard wings. You can see this in the 'flicker' of the STS-48 video. It's the hot combustion products from the "L5D" thruster.

Wouldn't those particles be propelled at a relatively high velocity away from the Shuttle Orbiter in a direction consistent with the ballistic trajectory extending away from the nozzle of origin after factoring in the Mechanical expansive force of the plume you talked about?

Except for the exception noted above, yes, with the proviso that their end velocity would be the vector sum of their pre-plumed velocity vector and the delta-V from the plume effect. So if they are drifting crosswise to the plume, they will retain a crosswise component after being plumed, and you cannot expect their post-plume track to aim backwards directly to the source of the plume (the thruster, usually, but with down-firing jets, ALSO the bounce-back areas). It took me awhile to figure this out, too.

These bounce-back effects are unearthly because they are non-earthly -- such effects hardly ever are sensed down here in the atmosphere. They don't seem to be 'common sense' results of a thruster expulsion of combustion residue. So they lead to puzzling motions of entrained particles.

The challenge is -- go figure out how things work in space, and do not be misled by false earth-side experience and analogies.

Posted by JimO

So if they are drifting crosswise to the plume, they will retain a crosswise component after being plumed, and you cannot expect their post-plume track to aim backwards directly to the source of the plume (the thruster, usually, but with down-firing jets, ALSO the bounce-back areas).

So the object in the video that we can see moving from right to left before the RCS fire must have experienced enough mechanical force from the plume to cancel it's apparent crosswise motion and send it flying backwards as seen from the Camera POV right?

Here is what I'm getting at, don't you need to have the RCS jets firing on the right side of the Shuttle first in order to get the "shaking" that dislodges the "hydrazine" particles that would result in a "particle" moving crosswise to the Camera's POV in order for another RCS jet to fire and cancel that "particle's" motion and send it flying back against it's original trajectory as seen on the video?

Otherwise it would be very hard to explain a particle moving right to left that originated in front of the Shuttle would it not?

The particle moving right to left has to come from the front of the Shuttle dislodged from one of it's RCS Nozzles in order to be an Ice crystal from the Shuttle and it had to have been dislodged only a mater of seconds from the front of the Shuttle or it would have been out of frame considering it's speed from right to left.








[edit on 29-8-2006 by lost_shaman]

More details when I get more time, but don't forget the apparent reversal of course may be an artifact of 3-D motion seen only in azimuth/elevation. The actual course change need only have been 10 or 20 degrees if you were viewing an object receding from the shuttle (as most debris is doing). Try out a few experiments with a wire with a small kink, observed from near one end. The zig-zag is much more pronounced when seen in only two dimensions. There are other reasons to believe that may be the actual 3-D geometry, but I'll need more time to type in the explanation.

Still, good questions. Thanks.

It's of interest to look at the excuses the pro-UFO experts give for avoiding talking with the actual witnesses. Kasher, for example, said it was for scientific reasons so that their views did not color his mathematical purity.

Those within the space community were fully familiar with such visual phenomena and knew them to be prosaic features of routine space operations, exactly as NASA’s original letter had described. Part of the public’s confusion about these images seems to be associated with the curious fact that the proponents of non-prosaic hypotheses never actually interviewed the primary witnesses involved with this event.

STS-48 co-pilot Reightler, when asked, told me: “We saw a lot of this on STS-48 because we had a dump nozzle that was leaking.” This same nozzle leaked on the next ‘Discovery’ mission as well and “created the same shower of ice particles – but apparently this time no one misinterpreted them as UFOs.”

Mission specialist Mark Brown added: “When illuminated by sunlight they looked like small diamonds floating in space, disturbed only when the maneuvering rockets fired – the plumes from the rockets would hit them and send them off in different directions.”

The night-time camera views of Earth’s horizon, which included the scene in question, were undertaken as part of an experiment to observe lightning storms. The ‘Principal Investigator’ of that experiment was Otha (‘Skeet’) Vaughan, who reported he frequently saw such moving dots: “They’re an ordinary part of space flight... It’s obviously just more shuttle debris.”

Senior payloads officer James Bates, a veteran of control center support for manned space missions dating back to the Gemini program, also saw these scenes in ‘real time’: “I was a Flight Integration Manager for the Shuttle Program Office during those days and was manager of the Customer Support Room where most of the payloads and other tests were managed or run. I had also worked with Vaughan to get his lightning survey implemented, and was very familiar with all of the low-light TV ‘phenomena’ we watched for hours upon end during many of the flights. During STS-48 I was in the MCC watching the ‘snow’ or ice particles. For many flights during slow times when the crew was asleep (or awake) we would watch chunks of ice float away from main engine nozzles and ice fly out of RCS thrusters. AND we would watch the small ‘snow’ get blasted by the thruster plumes. If someone saw only a piece of such videos, yes, they could think they were UFOs.”

Jim, I haven't seen any mention of video quality yet. In your opinion, is some of this perhaps clearer if one were to order a copy of the relevant portion of original video from NASA for $10 or whatever as was mentioned in one of your previous links? It occurs to me that people here are looking at highly compressed poor quality low resolution video on the web which introduces it’s own artifacts into the equation in addition to those of camera itself as previously discussed.

Yes, it would be helpful if interested parties ordered the entire sequence, and specify that a time tag be superimposed, so they can see the night horizon scene, the arrival of sunrise AND the appearance of a few drifting dots, and a minute or so later the flash and the change-in-course of several of those dots, plus the streaker. Seeing low-quality excerpts gives, obviously, and incomplete picture.

Regarding ice, I checked my records and noted that
N2O4 freezes at –11 C, and MMH freezes at –52 C.
So nitrogen tetroxide would be more likely to freeze
sooner, but both of them will.

Kasher’s 1994 paper presented five “proofs” that the video could not be showing small close objects. Each one of the proofs can be shown to be erroneous.

Proof 1: During the approximately one second interval when the object’s horizontal motion is changing from leftwards to rightwards, it stops for a few tenths of a second before resuming the change in motion. It is two or three pixels off from where a smooth curve would have moved it. This, Kasher argues, must be deliberate and cannot be natural.

Disproof: Setting aside Kasher’s presumption that the object was able to deliberately align its stopping in precisely the vertical axis of the Orbiter TV camera’s field of view, the measurements of vertical screen position elsewhere on the chart show a random scatter of several pixels. By placing a properly-sized error bar on each raw reading, a smooth curve would easily pass through the sequence of points with no zero-motion except instantaneously. The ‘stopping’ is an illusion of over-accurate data points.

Kasher Proof 2: The two fast-moving particles must have been traveling directly away from the RCS thruster. Their motion is linear – “If a rocket did the firing, the lines MUST meet” – and Kasher claims they don’t. Kasher’s ‘Appendix J’ asserted that only the left-firing left pod vernier jet (L5L) could possible affect the particle motion – “This is crucial when we examine the trajectories of the objects more carefully.”

Disproof: Kasher misidentified the thruster responsible for the plume puff – it was actually L5D, the down-firing vernier jet, as shown by telemetry records. He was also unaware of the propensity of aft-mounted down-firing thrusters to generate plumes which significantly impinged on Orbiter structure and thus bounced back into the region the particles presumably were drifting.