posted 05-07-2008 11:41 PM               

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Researchers have finally published the results of data recovered from a cracked and singed hard drive that fell to Earth in the debris from the Space Shuttle Columbia, which broke up during reentry on February 1, 2003, killing all seven crew members.

The hard drive contained data from the CVX-2 (Critical Viscosity of Xenon) experiment, designed to study the way xenon gas flows in microgravity. The findings, published this April in the journal Physical Review E, confirmed that when stirred vigorously, xenon exhibits a sudden change in viscosity known as shear thinning. The same effect allows whipped cream and ketchup to go from flowing smoothly like liquids to holding their shapes like solids.

Although the CVX-2 results may not change anyone's life, Robert "Bobby" Berg, the lead investigator for CVX-2 and a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md., says the publication caps a 20-year research project that has occupied his thoughts daily since 2003. "It was a load off my shoulders to finally get it published," says the 52-year-old researcher.

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posted 05-09-2008 04:29 PM               

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Jon Edwards often manages what appears impossible. He has recovered precious data from computers wrecked in floods and fires and dumped in lakes.

Now Edwards may have set a new standard: He found information on a melted disk drive that fell from the sky when space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003.

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posted 05-10-2008 01:10 AM               

Talk about that being a real crapshoot as I imagine the Spacehab got badly cooked once the orbiter broke apart into the wings, payload bay, crew module and aft module. Unlike the orbiter, the payload bay and what sits in it isn't exactly capable of withstanding those kinds of thermal stresses.