Qwikshot
02-03-2003, 04:20 PM
What were the final moments like?
Jon Snyder / Daily News graphic
What's it like to fly at 12,000 mph, 39 miles high, at 3,000 degrees?
No one has ever died before under such extreme conditions.
The Columbia was moving at 12,500 miles per hour - 16 times the speed of sound.
It was gliding at 200,000 feet - about four times higher than the Concorde's cruising altitude.
The outside temperature was about 135 degrees below zero - cold enough to freeze the mercury in your thermometer.
At lower elevations, there's a chance of momentary survival.
In airline explosions at 25,000 feet, for example, some airline passengers likely survive the initial blast, experts believe. Initially, the victims pass out due to lack of oxygen. But as they fall to 15,000 feet, they may re-awaken, only to find themselves strapped into a plummeting airline seat.
Higher up, the calamity is unimaginable.
Atmospheric pressure is almost negligible. Once the craft's hull is breached, it would explode in an instant, ripping everything apart.
If the astronaut was still conscious after the initial burst, he would hear nothing, because sound doesn't travel in a vacuum.
A space suit might protect him from the cold. But unless it was properly pressurized, his blood would boil and his lungs would blow up.
In 1959, when jet pilot Lt. Col. William H. Rankin was forced to bail out of his F8U Crusader jet at 50,000 feet in summer-weight flight clothes, he said his body became "a freezing, expanding mass of pain."
If an astronaut were to survive all that, he'd pray he'd be spared the fall to earth.
Sky-divers with failed parachutists have been known to survive a fall at up to 120 mph. But the astronauts were plummeting far faster.
In 1960, Col. Joseph W. Kittinger Jr. set the high-altitude parachute jump world record at 102,800 feet. Before he pulled his chute at 18,000 feet, he reached an estimated 614 mph - just under the speed of sound.
At 200,000 feet, an astronaut would drop even faster - maybe 1,100 miles an hour, before slowing somewhat in the lower atmosphere.
At that speed, the end would come in a matter of 3 or 4 minutes.
- Don Russell
Jon Snyder / Daily News graphic
What's it like to fly at 12,000 mph, 39 miles high, at 3,000 degrees?
No one has ever died before under such extreme conditions.
The Columbia was moving at 12,500 miles per hour - 16 times the speed of sound.
It was gliding at 200,000 feet - about four times higher than the Concorde's cruising altitude.
The outside temperature was about 135 degrees below zero - cold enough to freeze the mercury in your thermometer.
At lower elevations, there's a chance of momentary survival.
In airline explosions at 25,000 feet, for example, some airline passengers likely survive the initial blast, experts believe. Initially, the victims pass out due to lack of oxygen. But as they fall to 15,000 feet, they may re-awaken, only to find themselves strapped into a plummeting airline seat.
Higher up, the calamity is unimaginable.
Atmospheric pressure is almost negligible. Once the craft's hull is breached, it would explode in an instant, ripping everything apart.
If the astronaut was still conscious after the initial burst, he would hear nothing, because sound doesn't travel in a vacuum.
A space suit might protect him from the cold. But unless it was properly pressurized, his blood would boil and his lungs would blow up.
In 1959, when jet pilot Lt. Col. William H. Rankin was forced to bail out of his F8U Crusader jet at 50,000 feet in summer-weight flight clothes, he said his body became "a freezing, expanding mass of pain."
If an astronaut were to survive all that, he'd pray he'd be spared the fall to earth.
Sky-divers with failed parachutists have been known to survive a fall at up to 120 mph. But the astronauts were plummeting far faster.
In 1960, Col. Joseph W. Kittinger Jr. set the high-altitude parachute jump world record at 102,800 feet. Before he pulled his chute at 18,000 feet, he reached an estimated 614 mph - just under the speed of sound.
At 200,000 feet, an astronaut would drop even faster - maybe 1,100 miles an hour, before slowing somewhat in the lower atmosphere.
At that speed, the end would come in a matter of 3 or 4 minutes.
- Don Russell