STS-75 Tether Incident - Mystery solved! Breaking News!

Nice finds WFA & Zorgon!

I would be reading the material also, if it wasn't for my children being sick....

Stars!

reply to post by Balez

If it is from the waste system, it should have been pushed away by the force of the ejection of the system, now i dont see how these things could have changed their trajectory to follow the shuttle after that, and ontop of that, they would have to increase their speed to over take the shuttle, and place themself as a cloud around the shuttle....

Ice particles don't come back again after you see them floating across the field of view, they are replaced by new particles from one of the many leaks. The cloud expands. What looks like high speed is actually very slow. Remember we are looking at very small particles, very close to the camera, through a telelens.

[edit on 2008-4-1 by nablator]

Originally posted by nablator
reply to post by Balez

 

If it is from the waste system, it should have been pushed away by the force of the ejection of the system, now i dont see how these things could have changed their trajectory to follow the shuttle after that, and ontop of that, they would have to increase their speed to over take the shuttle, and place themself as a cloud around the shuttle....

Ice particles don't come back again after you see them floating across the field of view, they are replaced by new particles from one of the many leaks. The cloud expands. What looks like high speed is actually very slow. Remember we are looking at very small particles, very close to the camera, through a telelens.

[edit on 2008-4-1 by nablator]

That is the whole point of my argument, they should not come back, since they are on another trajectory than the shuttle itself, which means they should not even be near the shuttle, remember the speed, 4,1 mps.
After one second, the shuttle is 4,1 miles away from the ejection point.
I could have understood it, if they had been seen for a few seconds, not several minutes, not for 45 minutes.

Here is a few pics show the spray of released dump water:
Water Spray Dump
There is clearly a force behind that ejection.
You can clearly see here, that the trajectory takes the ice particles away from the shuttle.

Even if they start a thruster close to the venting area, that will not make the ice particles come back, it will only increase their speed, away from the shuttle.

reply to post by Balez


Excellent find! It explains the ice particles perfectly.

As this water is released, the individual droplets freeze almost instantly into ice particles rather like snowflakes. They scatter all over, bumping into each other like billiard balls, and even bounce off the Shuttle and Station components.

See? The droplets scatter. At the edge of the spray the speed is certainly much slower. We are not looking at the whole water stream in the STS-75 video, only at a few of those particles, slow enough to stay near the shuttle for a few seconds in front of the camera.

The speed of the space shuttle relative to the ground does not matter at all. I don't know why you keep mentioning it.

[edit on 2008-4-1 by nablator]

reply to post by Balez


You certainly have a point, at the speed of ejection shown in the web page you link the ice particles should quickly disappear, but keep in mind:
- not all of them do, the slowest even bounce off the Station and Shuttle,
- there are other sources of particles, that are not ejected violently, and stay around much longer.

reply to post by Balez

The web site you linked, Project P.R.O.V.E., is advertising the UFO documentary "Secret Space - What Is NASA Hiding". The owner of the web site, Jeff Challender, is smart enough to filter out the obvious ice particles videos and keep the more interesting cases such as this one.

reply to post by nablator

As this water is released, the individual droplets freeze almost instantly into ice particles rather like snowflakes. They scatter all over, bumping into each other like billiard balls, and even bounce off the Shuttle and Station components.

Actually, that analogy of billiard balls is a bit faulty
And bouncing is an incorrect term to describe the the event that happens when two objects in space colides.

The collision when that occurs will not look like when you have two balls that colide into eachother, here there will be fragmentation of particles, however, the trajectory change that occurs from a collision like this, depending on the size of each object, will not 'bounce' an object back from where it came, what happen is that when one of the objects colide with the other, and here i will use the water spray as an example; in this case with the water spray, there might be a difference in speed, and one object will over take another one, pushing into it, depending on where the collision will be on the other object, it will change both of the objects trajectory.

None of the objects will change their trajectory into a 180 degree turn, for that to happen there have to be an object comming from the opposite direction of the other object, even there, it's not sure there will be a 180 degree change on trajectory.

The speed of the space shuttle relative to the ground does not matter at all. I don't know why you keep mentioning it.

Because it is very much relevant.
This speed is also relevant when the shuttle aproach a satellite, ISS.
Why? Because NASA have to calculate when and where the shuttle will fire their thrusters so there will not be a collision on a satellite, or on ISS.
So the speed is an important factor in this.

If you want, you can do some calculations by yourself and see why i dont think that the water spray particles should not have been anywhere near the shuttle.
Just dont forget that the speed of the particles is not relative to the speed of the shuttle.

The web site you linked, Project P.R.O.V.E., is advertising the UFO documentary "Secret Space - What Is NASA Hiding". The owner of the web site, Jeff Challender, is smart enough to filter out the obvious ice particles videos and keep the more interesting cases such as this one.

Yes it is a good page, alot of information on it

Remember that i have not denied that there will be particles around the shuttle? As you yourself mentioned, there are alot of things on the shuttle that generate particles by itself.
However, if these particles are from what i consider to be the constant particles (been on board since launch) they would, almost certinly show up on every footage.
NASA themself say that this occurence is not unusual, i dont deny that, what is unusual is the STS-75 footage.

I'll stop rambling now

reply to post by Balez

So the speed is an important factor in this.

OK, the speed of the Shuttle relative to the ISS is relevant for an orbital rendez-vous. Why is the speed of the Shuttle relative to the ground relevant in the way the water spray behaves? If the Shuttle was in a higher orbit, would the ice particles behave differently? I don't think so.

If you want, you can do some calculations by yourself and see why i dont think that the water spray particles should not have been anywhere near the shuttle.

I remember, from when I studied Hydraulics, that the speed curve in a tube full of liquid is bell shaped and has a zero value at the points where the liquid is in contact with the tube. So you see, unless the ejection tube is frictionless, there will always be some amount of liquid with near zero speed. Maybe NASA should invest in a garden spray nozzle to reduce the amount of randomly moving ice.

Probably a conspiracy there: NASA pollutes the Shuttle's environment on purpose, to keep the UFO buffs discussing the stupid ice crystals 12 years later and have some fun reading ATS.

(edit: spelling)

[edit on 2008-4-1 by nablator]

reply to post by nablator

OK, the speed of the Shuttle relative to the ISS is relevant for an orbital rendez-vous. Why is the speed of the Shuttle relative to the ground relevant in the way the water spray behaves? If the Shuttle was in a higher orbit, would the ice particles behave differently? I don't think so.

Because the shuttle is travelling on a trajectory, with momentum, which means it is moving in one direction.
Anything that is travelling with the shuttle or close to with the same momentum will be parallel to the shuttle, but there will be no noticeable speed like this.
That is why i used a comparance with satellites and the ISS, aproaching them they will notice the speed because they are not on parallel speed or trajectory

But when the water gets ejected/sprayed out from the shuttle, you give the particles from that spray momentum which they did not have, now this mometum will not be in a constant with the shuttle since the trajectory is not constant with the shuttles trajectory and the speed is no longer consistent with the shuttles speed.
As long as there is a force that acts on the particles, it will break the constant they had with the shuttle.

It is the same when the shuttle deploys a satellite, they have to 'push' it out of the constant* (*the shuttle) it is in to put it in the correct orbit.
Now all this when deploying a satellite there are very exact calculations involved, so the shuttle has the right trajectory, speed and MG have to be calculated into it, then it has to be calculated when, where and type of trajectory and force involved for the satellite to put it in GSO.

I remember, from when I studied Hydraulics, that the speed curve in a tube full of liquid is bell shaped and has a zero value at the points where the liquid is in contact with the tube. So you see, unless the ejection tube is frictionless, there will always be some amount of liquid with near zero speed. Maybe NASA should invest in a garden spray nozzle to reduce the amount of randomly moving ice.

Yes agreed on that.
However, and in a hose in space, you will always have momentum, no matter what the actual speed is.
That is why i am saying that the water is in a constant with the shuttle, but only till it leaves the shuttle when the force of preasure is released.
It is the same with a water hose.
Lets use this as an example:

You are going to water you flowers outside, you decide to bring out the waterhose.
And you set the nozzle so you will have very fine spray.
You are standing there watering the flowers and you decide to start walking sideways, but still having the nozzle directed straightforward from yourself.

Then you start walking sideways and the hose follows you, now you are moving the water with your momentum, and still the water has it's own momentum from preasure.
And as you walk you see that this nice dust like water spray stays in the air for a bit, but it does not follow you and your momentum.

Why? When the water leaves the nozzle your own momentum means nothing, because the momentum of the spray is directed in another direction and the water does not inherit your momentum.
-
I know this was not a very good example, but it shows how different momentums react with eachother, and it also shows that two different forces dont decide the momentum how an object travells.
It's the force that the object carries with it, that decides that.

Probably a conspiracy there: NASA pollutes the Shuttle's environment on purpose, to keep the UFO buffs discussing the stupid ice crystals 12 years later and have some fun reading ATS.

With NASA you never know!

reply to post by Balez


Wow, awesome explanation Balez Even a non-technical peon like me could understand it!

I am constantly amazed by all the great technical wizards on this site...and, yes I want to believe...but not in ice crystals, if that's what it really is, but kudos Balez for explaining why it most likely IS not ice crystals.

What they were is still open, what they are most likely not? Isn't IMO.

reply to post by Balez

Then you start walking sideways and the hose follows you, now you are moving the water with your momentum, and still the water has it's own momentum from preasure.
And as you walk you see that this nice dust like water spray stays in the air for a bit, but it does not follow you and your momentum.

Why? When the water leaves the nozzle your own momentum means nothing, because the momentum of the spray is directed in another direction and the water does not inherit your momentum.

I understand the issue now. Sigh... are we discussing UFOs here or 16th century physics?

OK here goes. Sorry for polluting this thread with irrelevant minutiae, but it's a part of denying ignorance I guess.

The momentum of the water is a vector, it has two components, one in the direction of your movement, the other in the orthogonal direction, towards the garden. Any change in momentum requires a force. The rate of change in momentum is the force, actually. The water spray will trail behind because of air (wind generated by your movement), not because "your own momentum means nothing". The water spray does inherit your momentum.

Aristotle believed that a continuous force was required to keep an object in motion, and that the natural state of all objects is rest. This was a controversial issue in the 16th (or was it 17th?) century, when Galileo (I think it was him, maybe not) refuted Aristotle's assertion. The experiment IIRC was to drop a heavy object from a moving coach. According to Aristotle, it should fall to the ground at the vertical of the point where it was dropped. Of course it actually fell in a curved (parabolic) path, following the moving coach.

I'm delighted to hear discussion of electricity at work by you guys, hmmm... Do NASA still consider space to be electrically neutral? or, "yeah there's electricity in space but it doesn't do anything, the charges cancel each other out."
Rubbish, this is a secret they're not letting the people in on. The universe is electrically driven. Electromagnetism is the king outdoing gravity by a thousand billion, billion, billion, billion times.

Earlier in this thread I made this comment.

Originally posted by squiz
It may even be a natural plasma phenomena induced by the highly charged tether, similar to that of ball lightning.

Originally posted by ArMaP
3. There were observed some "space plasma phenomena and processes of interest".

Now this is interesting, if we can find out some details to this I believe we'd be on the right path.

With all the discussion on the dynamics in space I think you should take a look at this.
A Flame Ball Named Kelly

Onboard the space shuttle Columbia (STS-107), experimental flame balls have been doing some strange and wonderful things--e.g., flying in corkscrew patterns and beating like human hearts.

Sounds familiar doesn't it?

They're creatures of space: tiny flames that curl into balls and flit around like UFOs. They burn using almost no fuel at all, dim and often hard to see. Yet they have plenty of personality....

.....He had been filming the tiny flames for some time, watching them roam around their test chamber in a lifelike search of food (fuel),...

.....two flame balls flew around in a spiral pattern like DNA. "We called them Crick and Watson."

.....Crick and Watson are examples. Ronney says he has no idea what would make a flame ball fly around in a spiral. "Flame balls move for two reasons," he explains. "First, when they exhaust the fuel in their vicinity, they drift toward regions with more. They follow the fuel like a little organism. Second, they can drift due to slight accelerations of the shuttle." Neither of these effects would produce a corkscrew flight path.

Take a look at the link and you'll see some videos of the "flame balls" in action. Now there is some debate as to whether fire is a plasma, from what I can gather it can have a low amount of ionization, I'm not claiming they are flame balls as such but I think you can see what I'm getting at here.
Remember plasma was named so because of it's behavioral resemblance to living blood plasma.

Not many people touching on the spiral wave pattern in the objects, plasma vortex anyone?

I'll say it again, there's more to consider than debris or alien spaceships.
Well maybe they are plasma ships or plasma life forms.
I do like the critters idea, however there's just no reason to consider them alive yet.

Just a theory folks. keep up the good work.

One more thing to add, I heard a radio debate between David Sereda and James Oberg of NASA once, (had it on my hard drive for a while) Mr Oberg was quite confident in claiming the cameras were nothing special and could not view the UV spectrum, he's posted here before perhaps he could explain?

reply to post by nablator

The momentum of the water is a vector, it has two components, one in the direction of your movement, the other in the orthogonal direction, towards the garden. Any change in momentum requires a force.

Yes, that is true, for the water in the hose, not the water leaving the nozzle.
The water that has left the nozzle only have one momentum, and that is by the force of the spray.
Your momentum however, moves the water in the hose, because it is in a constant, with you, that movement does not have any impact on the water that has left the nozzle.

The rate of change in momentum is the force, actually. The water spray will trail behind because of air (wind generated by your movement), not because "your own momentum means nothing". The water spray does inherit your momentum.

Quite wrong actually, because there are only one momentum to count in to this, and that is the force pushing the water through the hose.
Your momentum only carries the water that is still in the hose, but when you walk you will leave that water trail where it exited the nozzle, it will not follow you around like a pet dog
The forces however that can and will affect the water spray is earthly in origin.

You are only moving the water when you walk with it, you are not giving it any momentum, for the water to go sideways like you when it has exited the nozzle it will need a force from that direction, it is the same with the astronauts onboard the shuttle, they have no momentum, untill something gives them a push, but the shuttle do have momentum, but the astronauts are not affected by it, they are inside the shuttle and in a constant with it.
Same goes with the water spray from the shuttle.

Aristotle believed that a continuous force was required to keep an object in motion, and that the natural state of all objects is rest. This was a controversial issue in the 16th (or was it 17th?) century, when Galileo (I think it was him, maybe not) refuted Aristotle's assertion. The experiment IIRC was to drop a heavy object from a moving coach. According to Aristotle, it should fall to the ground at the vertical of the point where it was dropped. Of course it actually fell in a curved (parabolic) path, following the moving coach.

Yes, and this proves me wrong somehow?
I wonder, do you think they would have gotten the same result with another force calculated into this?
Lets say they would have used a canon to propell this object, where do you think it would have made the impact then?

In their experiement they only used one moving force* (*couch) to drop their heavy object from.
The object was naturally affected by this since it had no momentum of it's own it relied completely on the couch.
With two forces however you have a completely other scenario.

And you can not compare an experiement that used one force with two forces involved, that is like saying that 1+1=3

Absolutely Balez!

Nablator, sorry to jump in here, and yes I share your sentiments that we now seem to be involved in a discussion about physics BUT I do appreciate everyone being willing to dig into the details in this case, I think they are important, and talking about it step by step is the best way to determine (short of an experiment onboard the shuttle) to come to a concensus on what we would expect from ice particles compared to what we see in the footage (I suppose the word contrast could be swapped for compare at this point, but I want to make sure we're inclusive pre-experiment).

I think that Balez just got to the heart of what I didn't quite know how to explain in that last post.

I'll try to explain now:

"Aristotle believed that a continuous force was required to keep an object in motion, and that the natural state of all objects is rest. This was a controversial issue in the 16th (or was it 17th?) century, when Galileo (I think it was him, maybe not) refuted Aristotle's assertion. The experiment IIRC was to drop a heavy object from a moving coach. According to Aristotle, it should fall to the ground at the vertical of the point where it was dropped. Of course it actually fell in a curved (parabolic) path, following the moving coach." - Nablator

This is absolutely true, and I'm glad we're sticking to known examples in physics!

However, let's substitute the 'canon' in Balez's reply for simply the rider 'throwing' the object with a trajectory and momentum. The same results will be found. Where in the first example we see gravity at work, in addition to the momentum of the 'heavy object' already travelling forward, we see in this second example a new force (the 'throwing' of the object). Since the new force is acting from the perspectve of momentum (the rider on the horse) this new force actually over-powers the established forces.

I'm pretty sure that this is how we fire bullets from planes that are moving faster than the bullet itself would move, because the initial velocity of the firing plane adds to the velocity of the bullet fired.

Anyway, I could be wrong about this point, but that's what occured to me as well. Thanks to both of you for ironing out the details. You guys are the best.

-WFA

In an attempt to clarify this situation about the relative velociteies of the shuttle and what may be eject from it I made the following drawings.

Maybe these will help.

Originally posted by squiz
I'll say it again, there's more to consider than debris or alien spaceships.
Well maybe they are plasma ships or plasma life forms.

I do like the critters idea, however there's just no reason to consider them alive yet.

That is what I think the objects from the video with the lightning storm could be, some sort of plasma that was attracted to the the storm, and that is the reason I think we should try to find a way of knowing if these things from all videos are the same or not.

Originally posted by ArMaP
In an attempt to clarify this situation about the relative velociteies of the shuttle and what may be eject from it I made the following drawings.

Maybe these will help.

Very nice!
The first illustration is correct.

This one however is not....
An explanation is perhaps due to that.
You can not have an object subjected to two different velocities and two different straight line trajectories.
As a little example, lets look at it this way:
If we use this blue ball that you used in the seccond illustration to illustrate my example.
Let's push this ball so it gets some force behind it, there is not much needed really.
But this time we push it in the opposite direction of the shuttle trajectory.
When you have done this, will this ball then have the same speed leaving the shuttle as the shuttle itself and also the speed from the 'push' you gave it?
Now after this, if you stop the shuttle after two km, will this ball then overtake the shuttle and pass by it?
Do you see the dilemma you created with your seccond illustration?
If that was physically possible, the force that would be involved would break the object into small little pieces.

As in the first picture there is only one force and momentum involved.
What gave the ball momentum from the first is the shuttle, the ball got momentum from the shuttle as it was acting as a force on this ball.
However once it has done that, it is no longer putting the force on the ball because now the ball is at a constant with the shuttle.

If you after that put another force to work on this ball, which is not a constant with the shuttle you will change the momentum.
That means that you broke the constant it had with the shuttle.
And the shuttle can no longer affect this ball with it's force.

It will always be force that decides the objects trajectory and momentum.

reply to post by ArMaP


ArMaP. Every day your technique impresses me!

I actually tend to agree with Balez about the second drawing, MOSTLY, because the 'new' imposed force should overpower the initial velocity of moving along the shuttle (since even in motion it feels like a constant), but I too thought that the ball would keep some of the inertial velocity, even while being effected by the new force.

It makes logical sense to me either way, which is why I'd love to see an experiment to prove it one way or the other. Perhaps if I dig through some NASA video I can find an example of something affected by both the shuttle's velocity and then an external force in another direction. I'll look.

I just had to jump in again to give you some serious props for doing those drawings. Visually describing your arguments gives us all an exact representation of what it is you're trying to say, and it's VERY easy to keep everyone on the same page

Very nice work. I gave it a star.

-WFA

This is a more correct representation of the second drawing.

Maybe this will show better what I am trying to explain. The black arrows show the two velocities affecting the blue ball, one that the ball "inherited" from the shuttle and the other the result of the acceleration created by the applying of a force to the ball to make move away.



It does not mean that the ball moves in two directions, it is meant to show that the velocity of the blue ball is the sum of both velocities (both the result of some force), and while one of them makes the ball keep up with the shuttle, the other makes it move away. The result would be that from the shuttle the blue ball would be seen as keeping up with them but moving slowly away.

Originally posted by Balez
If we use this blue ball that you used in the seccond illustration to illustrate my example.
Let's push this ball so it gets some force behind it, there is not much needed really.
But this time we push it in the opposite direction of the shuttle trajectory.
When you have done this, will this ball then have the same speed leaving the shuttle as the shuttle itself and also the speed from the 'push' you gave it?

In that case the ball would have a slightly smaller velocity than the shuttle, because it would have a negative velocity (in direction, not in value) combined with the positive velocity of the shuttle.

If we give the blue ball the same velocity as that of the shuttle but in precisely the opposite direction then the ball would be left in that spot in space, both velocities negating the other.

reply to post by ArMaP


Absolutely, you've clarified the point brilliantly ArMaP. Thank you.

I would add one more factor in, however. Now we need to know the angle of the ejection point in relation to the shuttle. If we're firing 'into the wake' or 'out the rear'. This would determine how much of each force would be distributed on any particles coming out of the ejection stream.

This is one of the reasons earlier that I wanted to gather as much info on the mission itself as possible. I'll try to locate the 'dump point' on the shuttle for waste.

In the meantime, I've found something cool, which I'll share in a post in a minute.

-WFA