Re: Discrepencies in AS204 witness acounts.

From: Charleston (charleston1_at_coxthedotgoeshere.net)
Date: 07/09/04 

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 23:12:48 -0700

"Ami Silberman" <silber@mitre.org> wrote in message
news:ccju6s$e1t$1@newslocal.mitre.org...

> I've just finished reading the witness statements that Charleston put up,
> and I was quite frankly baffled by the statements by G. W. Probst and A.
R.
> Caswell (pg. 383-390), the two RCA techs who were working the monitors.

As was I. What this points out is that you are now in the position of the
juror if you will. You must weigh all of the evidence. It is normal for
evidence (if there is any significant quantity) to conflict. Of course
ferreting through it all and testing various hypotheses is what one does to
resolve the issue in a scientific inquiry. What weight you give to each
piece of evidence might be an important key to any conclusions you draw.
What if I decided not to include Probst and Caswell's statements on my web
page and no one here pointed that fact out? That would be severe bias on my
part. As you may recall, I advised LaDonna to use the witness statements in
ways that support her statements and conclusions knowing full well what was
in those statements. In this instance I would ask you to now go back and
reread the above testimony. This time though do it with a focus on the
similarities in their testimony to the other witnesses. What are the issues
that most if not all of the witnesses agree upon? After you do that then
you can use other known information to clarify factual discrepencies. For
instance, William H. Schick, was the only witness to write down
contemporaneous notes as the event unfolded because it was his job. He used
a clock to write down the time of the events (see page 375). What weight
does one give that fact? How do his notes compare with the witness
statements? There is not much in his log, but it is a unique piece to the
puzzle because it provides a time reference. No one here has yet accused
NASA of altering his log AFAIK. Schick's log confirms some of the
statements of fact made in **real-time**. It also conflicts with some of
those facts too.

http://www.challengerdisaster.info/stc_log_sheet_3_of_4.jpg

> According to them, it was several minutes between the start of the fire
and
> when the white room filled with smoke, and again, several minutes before
> anyone got to the hatch. (Am I correct that the white room directly
> surrounded the spacecraft, and that the A8 level contained that?)

The white room surrounded the immediate hatch area.

> Furthermore, they witnessed movement inside the craft, and Probst says
that
> it was about three minutes between the first call of fire and when smoke
> came out of the capsule.

Now I ask that you carefully consider Probst's time schedule and Caswell's
time schedule. How much do they differ or are they exactly the same? They
saw things the same way--via monitor.

> Every witness who was on level A8, however, recalls
> it being a matter of seconds between when the call of fire was made, the
> relief valve sound (if they heard it), and the rupture.

But then they tell you they did things. They moved around. Do their times
always make sense?

> How does one reconcile those accounts?

By collecting all available evidence. For instance NASA went and looked at
the Rate Gyro telemetry and was able to thus "see" the crew moving during
the fire.

> Did the two RCA techs have a
> sufficiently limited field of view through the camera that they couldn't
see
> anyone in the White Room other than someone directly in front of the
hatch?

There was a lot of smoke but eventually they could see people there in the
White Room.

> Was the smoke sufficiently light-colored initially that they were still
able
> to observe the astronauts clearly for the first two minutes of the fire?

There was plenty of oxygen and thus as long as that high level of oxygen was
present there was fairly complete combustion--no smoke. Once the cabin
ruptured and the pressure returned to normal, the oxygen was rapidly
consumed and the combustion was incomplete yielding dense dark smoke with
high levels of carbon monoxide and other toxic chemicals. In fact the fire
died due to lack of oxygen creating what they call an oxygen deficient
atmosphere in the cabin. Even then some items would have been so hot that
they pyrolyzed despite the lack of oxygen.

> Is
> their timing off and they heard a call of fire earlier than anyone else
did
> (doubtful, since they were listening on the same loops, 3 and 7, as
others.)
> I just don't understand why their testimony is so different than everyone
> elses. (Essentially a factor of five or so more spread out with regards to
> the rupture, the smoke, and the recovery efforts.)

Well you will just have to stay tuned and decide for yourself I guess.

Daniel

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