Talk:STS-75

message: There is some bizare video footage from this mission that has become of great interest to the UFOologist community. The teather snapped and a bunch of large glowing pulsing disks began swarming around the broken off section. NASA has tried to pass it off as dust in front of the camera lens, but the disks can clearly be seen passing behind the teather (not dust particles between the teather and camera). Would it be appropriate to make some mention of this?
http://www.freewebs.com/nurmufo/tether.html
http://www.rense.com/nasaufo/nasaufo.htm 66.134.88.163 01:09, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Why... thats an awfully big "dust bunny" Adreamsoul 03:19, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

text: They're probably just ice crystals. First of all, they're not "swarming around" the tether, the crystals are just floating by. Not a single one changes direction, slows down, or speeds towards the tether. The video footage was taken with the sun behind the shuttle, so the tether and crystals are so bright that the whole sequence is completely overexposed. How it is possible for anyone to claim that "disks" are passing behind the tether is beyond me, as the tether and the crystals are mainly white blobs, so it is impossible to derive any sense of depth. Occam's razor, anyone? 82.10.157.146 16:23, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Everything about the footage is consistent with small drifting particles, illuminated by reflected sunlight, shot way out of focus. Furthermore, if the images really did represent giant space blobs, they would certainly have been seen by other spacecraft and even from the ground. James Oberg has refuted the UFO speculations in probably more detail than they deserve; see http://www.rense.com/general/stsd.htm (yes, I know it's Rense.com, but Oberg links the article himself from his own UFO page so it's safe to assume it's genuine.) 74.14.68.196 (talk) 02:42, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Was James Oberg's "refutation" peer reviewed by experts from the relevant disciplines? I think we'd all be more interested in seeing a PEER REVIEWED study that actually proves 74.14.68.196's attempt to trivialize the tether incident. I don't think Rense.com qualifies as a reputable authority. In fact, Rense frequently endorses articles written by Holocaust deniers like Henry Makow-- so again, not exactly a reputable source. Whether the article was written by James Oberg or Werner Von Braun, it would still need to go through the process of peer-review to "close the book" on this issue. Short of that, I believe this incident is still of interest to many people who are capable of drawing their own conclusions based on the facts we should be presenting to (instead of hiding from) them. 72.155.238.104 (talk) 11:07, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

text: Also, while he might make other contributions to NASA, James Oberg is not an engineer, so why is he being cited as an authority on this matter,? 72.155.238.104 (talk) 11:16, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

text: Those critical analysis you linked to don't address the obvious velocity / direction changes demonstrated in the videos linked above. No one here has responded to that specifically. Anomalies like this are ripe for serious and scientific inquiry, and it's troubling that attention to that discussion is being discarded. This is interesting data that has seemed to lack rigorous discussion or analysis. Please don't discourage scientific inquiry. WhyDoTheyChangeDirection (talk) 19:14, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments and discussion - dust or UFOs 

message: I'm sure the dedicated WikiGnomes who edit this page are irritated and bored by the UFO crap and wish it would go away. But this page gets one or two orders of magnitude more pageviews than comparable pages, and I would guess that nearly all of the extra readers are drawn here by the "tether UFO" stuff. So, please leave the section in, even though it is admittedly silly to have to refute this stuff. TiC (talk) 17:48, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  More about the UFO section 

message: Should anyone wish to restore the UFO speculations, I found a mainstream source.
\\/// --Hillbillyholiday talk 12:39, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: UFOs

message: Again, with no explanation and fightning rationale viewpoint, an important piece of wisdom and evidence is cut from wiki. Thanks. Anybody can put it again?  --95.127.172.146 (talk) 23:02, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incredible UFO section removal 

message: Best ufo nasa file and zero words? Rotten science i would say.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.127.176.147 (talk) 05:25, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikispiracy

message: Hi Allanana79, 95.127.176.147, and others. I was the editor that removed the line
"Little did the people of STS-75 know that the broken tether attracted company."
from this page. I'm sorry and I hope I have not undermined your trust in Wikipedia. I have no evidence that the particles are not as you describe them. However, spacecraft have a habit of shedding particles and debris in orbit - just a brief search finds
- https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/32587/what-is-the-circular-item-that-fell-off-of-the-returning-booster-during-the-crs
- https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/29702/debris-breaking-away-from-electron-rocket
If you would like this section to be reinstated, you need to find sources that provide encyclopedic evidence that the observations during this mission are significantly different from these other cases, where a benign explanation is found (otherwise, we would need to add a section to every rocket launch with a piece of dust falling off it, every venting and thruster firing, and practically every ISS spacewalk, where large amounts of floating particles are often seen when work is ongoing).
It is not uncommon for ice flakes, debris, and other particles in space to accelerate and move in a chaotic and un-intuitive way. This can occur due to simple outgassing, in the same manner as a comet's tail when it is exposed to the sun's light (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet#Jets). Particles are also accelerated from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poynting%E2%80%93Robertson_effect, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarkovsky_effect, solar wind pressure, and notably from ram pressure against the exosphere; they will spin due to both propulsive outgassing and the YORP effect, and that spin will become chaotic due to the Dzhanibekov effect. One should not expect particles adrift in orbit to behave as they do on earth. 
The particles would also have an enormous electrostatic charge due to the rupture of the conducting tether. Note the bizarre motions of charged particles (here, a water droplet) in space: https://imgur.com/vzokKQ9 . 
Moreover, contemporaneous descriptions of the mission and the later investigation seem to well-describe the sources of the particles seen, as side effects of the violent explosion of the tether, and do not express surprise or voice observations of especially unusual debris. In the 1997 failure report we see, for instance, "aluminum shavings, and unidentified non-metallic debris was found.".
Thank you; I appreciate your interest and dedication, and I hope you will continue to explore and appreciate the beauty and majesty of our universe.
'The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.' ~ Sagan
ArthurDent 42 121 (talk) 22:27, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  UFO section removal