End of Moussaoui trial may destroy Bush administration

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Kontiki
I hate to jump into this mess, but they have a point, Ted. Once it can be shown that the attacks and subsequent collapses could cause the failures, what precisely could the middle ground be?

I have no idea

The whole original point of why I jumped in here, is to ask, why is all this information being safe guarded so secretly?

We have a right to know

Release all the evidence, unless there is something to hide

The, "they don't care" answer just doesn't cut it. If it did it wouldn't take lawsuits to get information released. It's also interesting to me the group that gets the "credit" for the Pentagon tape being released, is hardly a non-biased group.

Something here stinks.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Ted Striker

Originally posted by Straybow
No, once again the building was designed to withstand the estimated forces of initial impact and the assumed structural damage. To model the behavior of the structure under those forces was quite beyond the best computers of the day.

This site is claiming there was indeed a model. They do say the 767 had much more kinetic energy when it hit. On the other hand, any info endorsed by FEMA carries less weight in my book

No, the only modeling of an impact was done after 9/11 by a UC Berkeley Civil Engineering prof. No computer in existence during the design of the WTC Towers (early '60s) had the capacity to run models large enough, nor were the techniques developed at that time. Unless a back-of-the-envelope calculation counts as "modeling."

As I undestand it, finite element techniques for impact, moving contact between deforming objects, massive deformation (deflections on the same order of magnitude as the material dimensions), etc, were not developed until the '70s. Computer analysis of structures was normally limited to less intensive methods, and there is no indication that WTC was an exception.

You quote [my emphasis added]:

According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, WTC towers 1 and 2 were designed to withstand the impact of a 707 lost in fog while looking to land. The modeled aircraft was a 707 weighing 263,000 lb (119,000 kg) with a flight speed of 180 mph (290 km/h), as would be used in approach and landing situations.[25] The 767s that actually hit the towers had a kinetic energy more than seven times greater than the specifically modeled 707 impact...

The design did withstand the much greater 767 impact, but did not withstand the cumulative impact and fire damage over time.

I haven't been able to find the source of the preceding quote, which paraphrases a FEMA report, which is not cited as quoting the original design documentation. The quote appears to use the term "model" very loosely.

Perhaps "model" as used here means nothing more than the dimensions, weight, and anticipated speed of a 707 were used to estimate the impact force. That does not mean that a detailed computational model of the materials and impact behavior had been carried out.

Then this is the claimed quote of Frank A. Demartini, on-site construction manager for the World Trade Center:

The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it. That was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door -- this intense grid -- and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting.

Course, maybe he was just engaging in CYA.

Two really bad analogies. Mosquito netting isn't a load-bearing structure. Nothing that big, hitting with that much energy, would ever be like "a pencil puncturing that screen netting." If that statement were consistent with the impact "modeling" used in the analysis of 707 impact, then the analysis was nothing more than a back-of-the-envelope calculation and is worthless.

This interview with Demartini is dated Jan 2001, and he is clearly giving his feeling, not first hand knowledge of the 707 impact analysis. If his only connection to the project is being on-site CM, then he would have had no access to design calculations.

[Straybow]

Ted, there is no connection between the video tapes of the Pentagon attack and the WTC data which is widely available.

I was working in an office where we handled Unclassified Controlled Nuclear Information (UCNI). It was the 13th floor of a building and we had some windows open so we could have some fresh air and hear the St Patrick's Day parade below.

A gust of wind blew a few pieces of paper out the window. The guy watched where they went and others rushed down to collect them. IIRC, 3 of 4 were recovered and they couldn't prove the missing one wasn't UCNI and higher-ups were pissed.

It didn't matter that we never kept UCNI out in the open, only in folders, etc. The guy got reamed for loosing a piece of paper and his supervisor got reamed for letting him open a window. After that we weren't permitted to open windows.

Now, this was on a project where we used to joke that the way to screw the Iraqis was to send them the drawings for the reactor and they'd waste more manpower figuring them out than they'd use designing from scratch.

The drawings had been randomly updated for about 20 years. Each drawing had a list of change orders on file, and you had to look them up and see which changes were on the drawings and which weren't (most of them), and then call around to different departments to see if they had change orders pending that hadn't been filed yet.

That was the unclassified stuff. Now imagine the compartmentalization of the classified data in the Pentagon. I'd bet they used all that video to trace any possible papers or other classified objects that may have been dispersed by the explosions, flames, wind, firefighting efforts, etc.

I get a kick thinking about some paranoid bureaucrat sweating over the unknowns of how much was burnt up, how much blew away, and whether some Pakistani cab driver picked it up...

"It is a purchase order for frozen hamburger patties, dated 1983. Now we know what a submarine crew ate twenty years ago! Allahu Akbar, we will destroy them now! I must get this to my handler right away..."

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
I am taking a very unpopular stand.

That takes courage.

Why don't you give yourself a pat on the back and a handjob then?

Originally posted by Ted Striker


You posted pictures from a conspiracy theory site, that automatically means you endorse everything that was posted on the entire site.

Care to actually address my point instead of attributing to me Geronimo's totally irrelevant misunderstanding from 15 posts prior? Do you understand now why people can't stand attempting an intelligent conversation with you?

[Darius871]

Btw, while you're out looking for conspiracies...

Originally posted by Ted Striker

I still contend that World Trade Center 1 (1993) was sponsored by Iraq.

http://www.spiritoftruth.org/post_009.htm

**** if I was Saddam, I'd be doing everything I could to get back America.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...04#post1708104

[germanos]

Originally posted by Darius871
Btw, while you're out looking for conspiracies...

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=1708104#post1708104

That's an awesome thread

[Darius871]

Isn't it though? Nice to see Oerdin's made a 180 too.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, that link is really interesting as pertaining to Oerdin! Wow.

[notyoueither]

Wait til after the next Pres election.

It's like musical chairs.

[Straybow]

Bump to see if Ted has an intelligent response...

[Darius871]

Don't hold your breath.

[Kuciwalker]

@ Oerdin's posts

[Darius871]

Is anyone gonna nudge him in this direction?

[VetLegion]

About FEMA and their model, which, from what I understand in this thread, they haven't released to the public.

I'd venture that they used normal commercial software for finite element analysis. Algor, Nastran or whatever is used in civil engineering.

What they would need to release is not the source code of the software used, but the model of WTC they built in AutoCAD or whatever for testing with FEA software, plus the parametres used. That way, anyone with those FEA packages (many universities and companies have them) could load the model and take a look. There should be no copyright issues with that.

[Kuciwalker]

They can't do that because their model includes the secret alien laboratories hidden in WTC7.