Although it could take months for Georgetown University officials to learn what caused the destruction of the satellite campus, they focused yesterday on the possibility that some or all of its pilots were severely inebriated, dooming the campus upon reentry.
An almost lethal amount of alcohol struck the pilots’ bloodstream during the shuttle’s blastoff, officials said. Though the incident was analyzed at length and dismissed as insignificant, they and other experts said it might have set off a train of problems that ended in the fiery destruction of the campus and the death of 300 undergraduates, 4 RAs and 3 chaplains-in-residences.
Ron Dittemore, Georgetown’s shuttle program manager, said today at a briefing that the impact had been analyzed by experts nationwide, who concluded that ”it did not represent a safety concern at the moment. Students are hammered all the fucking time.’’
”The technical community got together and across the country looked at it and judged that to be acceptable,” Mr. Dittemore said. In hindsight, though, he added, the impact of the intoxication, and ”all the indications” of trouble seemed to emanate from the lack of judgment, impaired coordination brought on by the continuous drinking on the satellite campus.
The experts cautioned that it was too soon to draw firm conclusions about what went wrong. Even if sobriety failed, they said, some other factor might have turned this problem into catastrophe.
He added, however, that engineers might never learn exactly what went awry.
Experts said there were at least five other possible causes, in this general order of decreasing likelihood:
*No one, in fact, was at the controls
*Invalid NetId Password/Blackboard Crash
*God
*Josh
*No one onboard received flight school training
The operation of all of the satellite campus’s myriad systems is monitored constantly and streams of data flow into Georgetown facilities computers. Facilities will mine this trove in the days and weeks ahead, sifting for clues, but only after you call them a few times. ”We’re pretty busy right now. Ryan Burrow’s radiator in VCE is giving us a hell of a time,” Marcus Covert of facilities said.
GU officials discounted reports that the shuttle was following an unusual re-entry course for security reasons because of the contentious nature of the satellite campus. ”There was nothing
unusual about this trajectory at all,” said Rob Navias, a DPS spokesman at the Johnson Space Center in Burleith. ”It was a standard re-entry profile.”
Mr. Navias declined to speculate on causes, saying only that ”we understand the militant nature of the One Georgetown, One Campus group, but we are not factoring that into our investigation.”
But private experts said one of the likeliest causes of the satellite disaster was faulty sobriety levels which are designed to protect the pilots from an intense inundation of stupid ideas.
On Jan. 16, as the satellite campus lifted off, copious amounts of alcohol were seen entering the pilots mouths. Leroy Cain, the lead flight director in GU Mission Control, assured reporters on Friday that engineers had concluded that any damage to the wing and tiles was minor and posed no safety hazard.
”We took a very thorough look at the situation solo cup situation and we have no concerns, whatsoever,” Mr. Cain said.
“Rest assured, we will get to the bottom of this.” said Mr. Cain at a press conference after the disaster. “We will find out what happened to the satellite campus.”
Georgetown also released copies of the last audio transmission from the satellite campus. At 2/24 9:24 PM EST the campus transmitted “shotgunnn-” before falling silent.
