On this day in 2003, the space shuttle Columbia breaks up while entering the atmosphere over Texas, killing all seven crew members on board.
The Columbia‘s 28th space mission, designated STS-107, was originally scheduled to launch on January 11, 2001, but was delayed numerous times for a variety of reasons over nearly two years. Columbia finally launched on January 16, 2003, with a crew of seven. Eighty seconds into the launch, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the shuttle’s propellant tank and hit the edge of the shuttle’s left wing.
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Cameras focused on the launch sequence revealed the foam collision but engineers could not pinpoint the location and extent of the damage. Although similar incidents had occurred on three prior shuttle launches without causing critical damage, some engineers at the space agency believed that the damage to the wing could cause a catastrophic failure. Their concerns were not addressed in the two weeks that Columbia spent in orbit because NASA management believed that even if major damage had been caused, there was little that could be done to remedy the situation.
Columbia reentered the earth’s atmosphere on the morning of February 1. It wasn’t until 10 minutes later, at 8:53 a.m.–as the shuttle was 231,000 feet above the California coastline traveling at 23 times the speed of sound–that the first indications of trouble began. Because the heat-resistant tiles covering the left wing’s leading edge had been damaged or were missing, wind and heat entered the wing and blew it apart.
The first debris began falling to the ground in west Texas near Lubbock at 8:58 a.m. One minute later, the last communication from the crew was heard, and at 9 a.m. the shuttle disintegrated over southeast Texas, near Dallas. Residents in the area heard a loud boom and saw streaks of smoke in the sky. Debris and the remains of the crew were found in more than 2,000 locations across East Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. Making the tragedy even worse, two pilots aboard a search helicopter were killed in a crash while looking for debris. Strangely, worms that the crew had used in a study that were stored in a canister aboard the Columbia did survive.
In August 2003, an investigation board issued a report that revealed that it in fact would have been possible either for the Columbia crew to repair the damage to the wing or for the crew to be rescued from the shuttle. The Columbia could have stayed in orbit until February 15 and the already planned launch of the shuttle Atlantis could have been moved up as early as February 10, leaving a short window for repairing the wing or getting the crew off of the Columbia.
In the aftermath of the Columbia disaster, the space shuttle program was grounded until July 16, 2005, when the space shuttle Discovery was put into orbit.
You’ve really got to hand it to our NASA scientists.
It took them almost six years work and millions of the taxpayers dollars to complete their final analysis of the space shuttle Columbia disaster.
See here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/31/columbia_crew_report/
And their conclusion?
That being subjected to near instantaneous cabin decompression, burnt to a cinder, and whatever might have been left of them being driven into the ground at over 500 miles per hour was and I quote: “…Not survivable…”
Perhaps even better was their recommendation the best way to handle such events was to ‘not let them happen.’
WOW! Why didn’t we think of that?
They don’t call NASA the flying post office for nothing…
What the public forgets is all the energy expended in those solid rockets and enormous fuel tank to put the shuttle in orbit has to be dissipated for it to return to earth. I’ve read that to put a shuttle in orbit is the equivalent of a 2 kiloton atomic bomb.
If flying has become routine its unlikely attaining and leaving earth orbit ever will be. The energies involved are simply too enormous and concentrated to be easily controlled.
Man was not made to go into space
I once saw a NASA list of 700-odd items that had to work perfectly for the shuttle to fly. The loss of any of these items doomed the vehicle.
I wonder if insulation-caused wing ventilation was on the list.
What were the last words spoken on the Shuttle Columbia before it went down? “Well I guess we can let the black guy take the controls.”
It really is astounding that NASA got away with a 40% loss of the shuttle fleet. I witnessed the Challenger accident when I was living in Vero Beach at the time, and how debris was washing ashore for months (along with many bales of marijuana that couldn’t be claimed…).
I read a report years ago about how the reformulation of the foam insulation (due to EPA mandates) caused a dramatic increase in foam strikes for following launches. I don’t remember the source, but basically the new foam just didn’t hold together like the old foam.