Jim Oberg's "99 FAQs About Space UFO Videos"

[JimO]

......i would not think it wise to start dumping water (dont they recycle every drop?) when approaching a 14 mile charged tether, that would be irresponsible at best.
But hey, this is NASA we're talking about
.....

I wrote the 99 FAQs for you. So much of what we correctly take for granted on Earth no longer apply -- and even counter-apply -- under space conditions that applying time-tested earthside intuitions and criteria wind up misleading people, often badly.

Sometimes it even leads to embarrassing displays of planetary chauvinism regarding how good old common sense makes one's ideas superior to smarty-pants rocket scientists, as in your good-natured ribbing. Learn better. Read the 99 FAQs. You need it.

Your comment on water recycling was a good stab, if a miss. Water was always surplus on shuttles since it was a 'waste product' of the fuel cells used for electrical power. On space stations, using solar power, water is expended so needs to be conserved and recycled. So ISS rarely dumps water, while shuttles did frequently.

[deuem]

From the fence: As far as I remember there were at least 2 vids or shots of the teather. The one shown here when it broke and another when they met up with it later and showed it more from the side. By that time the 12 miles looked more like 6 or less. With most of the coiling or spring at the broken end.

Anyways, there is no way any one could see that tiny wire from earth unless it was glowing like Fukashima. If a 747 at 35k feet was trailing this wire could we see it. To just see the wire, not glowing or reflecting would be impossible with the eyes.Even the ISS is just a little dot in the sky.

But I do wish you guys would figure this out! But I might ask, If such a simple dull object can produce a sunlight reflection that can be see from earth then the ISS must be able to be seen from mars. Also when an object curls up at all and the sun light hits it, the reflected light always bounces more in one direction not 360 degrees. At every curl there would also be a break in the reflection also unless there were many suns out that day.

Most of the critters I've seen look to me to be in the very high end of visible light an UV A, then moving past the camera into UV B an above. If the video camera could catch UV A with no problem then they could film critters also. It does not look like any of them are injesting the power from the teather. Just looked to me that they all got excited and dropped over for a look at the new toy.

Can I get a list of exactly what you all think these things are, so I can do some testing against other standards? If that is possible?

[JimO]

...
Shuttle orbit was about 9 hours if i'm not mistaken, so if the tether broke when out of sight, it must have been no less than 5-6 hours before.
...

Player, you've got to ask, who out there likes to exploit your mistaken guesses by promoting UFO versions, and who wants to help you recognize and avoid consequences of these mistakes?

The tether did not break while 'out of sight', it was live on camera from the shuttle. And the shuttle orbit, which doesn't need guessing since the info is all over the Internet, is about 90 minutes per circuit of Earth.

This environment is so new and unearthly that extreme care is needed not to let guesses and convenient assumptions slip into our thought processes. When it happens to NASA officials, as it has from time to time, bad decisions lead to disaster and death.

[JimO]

We can see that the whole tether is turning into a coil, not just the lower end.

Sorry, I can't see that. Nor would I expect it, the vertical length of the tether would induce enough pull to keep most of it pretty straight.

In fact, a coiled (not tangled) tether would show a slightly smaller area, as some of the area would not be visible from any side at any time, but isn't a 10 x 10 metres object easier seen than a 10000 x 0.01 one?

Some small area would be lost because of eclipsing of one line segment by the line in front of it, but essentially the same number of photons would be reflected in similar directions. Please read the satobs.org discussion posts on the trickiness of estimating magnitude of an extended versus point source.

This is a new type of 'celestial object' for observation and even those with direct experience with observing them are still working out standards. I consider the TSS-1R tether observations I made to be among the fingers-on-one hand most awesomely neck-hair-raising observations in my life.

People who have never seen them yet rely on 'common sense' to proclaim what they OUGHT to look like are even more clueless. The display on such sincere and defiant cluelessness hereabouts has been disappointing but not all that surprising.

As the in-your-face teacher's T-shirt says, "I can explain it for you but I can't understand it for you." But that's unfair. A really GOOD explainer could overcome the student's resolute clinging to obsolete models of reality.

Help me develop the more effective path to achieving this.

[PLAYSWITHMACHINES]

You mean they just dump water?
The best fuel there is, and they dump it?
My, how primitive, it's a good thing they retired it, i hear they have something faster

The tether did not break while 'out of sight', it was live on camera from the shuttle

Yes that's what i thought, i saw the films years ago, my memory is mostly good..
So what's the problem with the timeline? Was 'live' not live?

And my memory tlls me we went over this several times right here, somewhere, Z knows where

This environment is so new and unearthly that extreme care is needed not to let guesses and convenient assumptions slip into our thought processes.When it happens to NASA officials, as it has from time to time, bad decisions lead to disaster and death.

Exactly And any engineer worth his pay knows that a 100 dollar circuit breaker could have saved a 12 billion tether & satellite. Shame they were all 'learned' scientists and they forgot that fact.
Like they forgot to renew & check the seals on the challenger, THAT cost 7 lives.

I have seen millions go into useless projects, and when i opened my mouth i was told to shut up or leave.
If the pay is good, i shut up, if the company loses milions as a result of not listening, i normally have to leave anyway because they can no longer afford to pay me.
THAT's the way it works.

NASA does NOT need this chemical rocket and ISS tomfoolery, maybe they should ask the military for some tips.

[JimO]

A few more frames  showing multiple notches at random locations
.....

Random? Hardly.

The clocking of the notches appears to be a direct function of the object's position in the field of view, indicating quite clearly that it is an artifact of the camera system.

Check it out. Every object crossing the field of view, when passing through the same segment of the screen, will have the same notch-clocking.

You can do this at home.

How can it be explained OTHER than a camera-related artifact?

[JimO]

I'll take door number 2 please 

Not to give the impression I'm dodging this question, but I'm concentrating on questions of FACT related to the event.

[ArMaP]

This is the what I could find about the timeline of the events.

On Sunday, February 25, 1996, 9:30 p.m. CST, STS-75 MCC Status Report # 08 reports:
The tether on the Italian Tethered Satellite broke about 7:30 p.m. CST Sunday as the satellite was nearing the full extent of its deployment from the Shuttle. The satellite, which was nearing the end of its planned 12.8 mile distance, immediately began accelerating away from Columbia at a rapid rate as a result of normal orbital forces. TSS is separating from Columbia at a rate of 420 miles each 90 minute orbit.

Source

On Friday, March 1, 1996, 8 a.m. CST, STS-75 MCC Status Report # 17 reports:
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.

Source

On Tuesday, March 5, 1996, 4 p.m. CST, STS-75 MCC Status Report # 24 reports:
Columbia's astronauts had one last look at the Tethered Satellite late this morning telling flight controllers they could see both the satellite and the tether hanging beneath it.
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. The videotape was played back for flight controllers on the ground this afternoon. Today's pass of the satellite marks the final viewing opportunity for the seven astronauts on board Columbia.

Source

From the above, it looks like the famous video was made on the first occasion, not on the second, if those two were the only occasions Columbia's and TSS' orbits brought them closer to each other.

[JimO]

This is the what I could find about the timeline of the events.
...
From the above, it looks like the famous video was made on the first occasion, not on the second, if those two were the only occasions Columbia's and TSS' orbits brought them closer to each other.

Great, thanks. Math shows the sighting and video occurred four days plus several hours after the break. By that time the shuttle was back to normal on-orbit operations, including periodic water dumps. This is relevant to the question of the source of the thingies.

The relative motions were due  to the different altitudes of the shuttle and tether, caused when it broke and was flung into a higher slower orbit. During that four days the shuttle pulled ahead farther and farther until it 'lapped' the tether and approached it from behind. It gained the required 25,000 miles or so in 100 hours so the relative rate was 250 mph, which is equivalent to an altitude difference about 40 miles. 

Note that the next 'lapping' occurred after a slightly longer period, 4 days and maybe 10 hours -- the longer period consistent with the tether's rapid decay into a lower orbit [it would decay completely in three weeks] that diminished the relative speed with the shuttle so took longer to complete one full 'lap'.

The math let's you get a realistic grasp on when/how the tether was observed and videoed from the shuttle.

[JimO]

You mean they just dump water?
The best fuel there is, and they dump it?
My, how primitive, it's a good thing they retired it, i hear they have something faster

What you THINK you know is getting in the way of what you NEED to know to accurately evaluate this event. Please take advantage of somebody professionally involved in this bizarre new arena of human activity, to clear your mind of obsolete [in space, at least] mental images, however comforting and smug they make you feel. In space, I've seen that all-too-human reflex wind up killing people, including some friends of mine. 

[JimO]

In 1988, while serving in the rendezvous office in Mission Control, I wrote the book on "Flight Crew Procedures" for rendezvous, and one chapter described upcoming tether operations. It provides a lot of valuable background in understanding what happened on STS-75. 

http://www.jamesoberg.com/fph-Tethered_ops.PDF 

[PLAYSWITHMACHINES]

What you THINK you know is getting in the way of what you NEED to know to accurately evaluate this event. Please take advantage of somebody professionally involved in this bizarre new arena of human activity, to clear your mind of obsolete [in space, at least] mental images, however comforting and smug they make you feel. In space, I've seen that all-too-human reflex wind up killing people, including some friends of mine.

no, what i know is, my work involves taking other peoples ideas & making them reality. I am a Master Machine Builder by trade.
I have worked in the most extreme & dangerous environments you can think of (on earth at least) and there are plenty. That's why i have to carry my VCA logbook with me at all times.
You're saying that false assumptions cost lives? Of course it does, but those assumptions are ALWAYS made by the higher-ups, not the guys in the field.
Now i'm not an astronomer, mathematician, or any other of what you would call a 'real' scientist. I am one of the poor souls who actually has to get it to work.

And while we are on the subject, can we discuss radiation here, like beyond the van allen belt, and closer to earth maybe?

I have no 'mental images' of space, only the ones NASA supplies........

[zorgon]

So.....  your 'evidence' consists of Hollywood SFX?  Wow, are you sure you want us to believe THAT?  Where is Dick Gordon's visual description documented in the world of reality? It could be, I'd like to believe it, but criminy. A TV show?

Don't be silly Jim...  since we don't have NASA footage showing the discharge, a Hollywood version is acceptable to ILLUSTRATE a point. People get a better idea of what is being said when you have an image.

Just just grasping at straws here. NASA itself uses Hollywood to illustrate a point. Disney made the Mars Rover IMAX film

so stop being so silly... your not fooling anyone here

[JimO]

....I have no 'mental images' of space, only the ones NASA supplies........

We are all surrounded by such images, from Hollywood and video games and NASA publicity flacks and by analogies with earthside experience, where our perceptual processes have been finely honed.

Don't go into reflexive ego defense. You obviously know how to learn new systems and their functioning and malfunctioning. I'm suggesting that you, just like me, entered the consideration of spaceflight issues with a mental framework unsuitable to the unearthly environment.

I'm trying to share what I learned the hard way. Please don't feel insulted.


[ex] You mean they just dump water?
The best fuel there is, and they dump it? [/ex]

Yes, on shuttle flights, and properly so. We're not in Kansas any more.

[zorgon]

Preserving that misimpression may be why other posters here have refused to answer the repeated question.

I seem to recall answering that many times... that we don't have that data.

As to people avoiding stuff, it is the same as you avoiding explaining how your water droplets achieve all those different (including curved) trajectories.

If there was air out there you could make a case for debris fluttering about like moths to a light... but it is supposed to be a vacuum, so earth based motions do not work out there