SUBJECT: UFO's and the Shuttle                               FILE: UFO44

PART 3

       Since  the arguments for great range to the object all fail, the
       conclusions based on angular motion converted to physical motion
       also fail.

       What  is  the "flare" in the camera that precedes the  change in
       motion of all the objects? I believe the flare in the lower left
       camera   FOV  is  an  RCS  jet  firing,  not  per   Hoagland an
       electromagnetic pulse effect. There are several reasons: it does
       not  look like any known electromagnetic video  interference; it
       looks  just  like previously seen RCS flares;  and  the  Hoagland
       counterargument  about an alleged need for pointing  changing is
       not valid.

       First, while it is true that EMI can affect electrical equipment,
       such pulses would not lie in any localized region of a television
       screen but would blitz the whole image. Anybody whose TV has ever
       been blitzed by lightning knows that the effect does not  confine
       itself  to  the  corner nearest the  lightning.  Also,  far more
       sensitive  electronic  equipment aboard  the  shuttle,  including
       computers  which  were counting the pulses of  individual cosmic
       rays  striking  their circuits, were not affected  by  the event
       (otherwise,  the entire television transmission would  have been
       knocked   out).   So  Hoagland's  explanation is magical and
       unrealistic.

       Second,  the optical appearance of RCS jet firings is well known
       and  familiar to experienced observers, and they look just like
       the flash in question. These have been observed and videotaped on
       every shuttle mission, from the crew cabin, from payload bay and
       RMS  cameras, and from cameras on nearby free-flying  satellites,
       and from ground optical tracking cameras as well.
       Third, Hoagland's argument that the line of travel of stars down
       to the horizon should have been kinked by the jet firing is plain
       ignorant.  During  attitude  hold  coast  periods,  the   shuttle
       autopilot  maintains  a  "deadband" of  several  degrees, slowly
       drifting  back  and  forth and, when  the  attitude  exceeds the
       deadband  limit,  a  jet is pulsed to  nudge  (NOT  "shove") the
       spaceship  back  toward the center of the deadband.  The  angular
       rates induced by these 80-msec pulses are as follows:

            ROLL               .07 deg/sec
            PITCH              .10 deg/sec
            YAW                .05 deg/sec

       Note  that the star motion would have changed direction ONLY IF
       the orbiter's pointing attitude was shifted to the right or left.
       If  shifted up or down, only a slight change in star motion rate
       would occur (this appears to be the way the jet plume is actually
       directed)  but  so  would horizon motion, so  it  would have to
       measured  as absolute screen position. If shifted in or  out, no
       change  at  all would be observable. This is all  based on pure
       geometric considerations overlooked by Hoagland.

       After ten seconds, even in the worst case (pitch motion  inducing
       pure  crossways angular motion), the star track would only have
       diverged  a single degree from the former straight line. This is
       visually undetectable on the images shown by Hoagland.
       So the fact that he sees no change in the star motion tracks does
       not disprove that the pulse was an RCS jet.



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