february 1 space shuttle columbia disaster

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'I guess the thing I'm surprised about, if anything, is that (the report) actually got out,' said Clark, who was a member of the team that wrote it. Jonathan Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon and husband of Laurel Clark, praised NASA's leadership for the report 'even though it says, in some ways, you guys didn't do a great job.' Investigators in both accidents pointed to a NASA culture of ignoring problems that later turned fatal.ĭr. The shuttle Challenger blew up shortly after liftoff on 1986, also claiming seven lives. The hole in its wing was caused by a piece of foam insulation that broke off the fuel tank and slammed into it at launch. Killed in the Columbia disaster along with pilot McCool, were commander Rick Husband, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, and Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon.Ĭolumbia was the second space shuttle NASA has lost. The report lists events that were each potentially lethal to the crew: Loss of cabin pressure just before or as the cabin broke up crew members, unconscious or already dead, crashing into objects in the module exposure to a near vacuum at 100,000 feet (30,500 meters) and crashing to the ground. But they still wouldn't have survived, the report notes. Had the astronauts had time to get their gear on and get their suits pressurized, they might have lived longer and been able to take more actions. NASA's suits don't automatically pressurize, 'a basic problem of suit design and it is one we intend to fix with future spacecraft,' Hale said. Since the accident, NASA has quietly made astronauts put more priority on getting their protective suits on, Melroy said. The NASA study team is recommending 30 changes based on Columbia, many of them aimed at the spacesuits, helmets and seatbelts for both the shuttle and the next space capsule NASA is building.

We're talking about a brief time in a crisis situation.' The crew was trying very hard to regain control.

'There were a number of alarms going off simultaneously. 'It was a very disorienting motion going on,' NASA deputy associate administrator Wayne Hale said in a telephone conference call. It was pitching end-over-end, the cabin lights were out, and parts of the shuttle behind the crew compartment - including its wings - were falling off. The crew had lost control of the motion and direction of the spacecraft. 'There was no way for them to know that it was going to be impossible.'

#February 1 space shuttle columbia disaster crack#

However, the new report paints a more detailed picture of the final moments of the Columbia crew than the broader investigation into the accident five years ago.Īstronaut Pam Melroy, deputy study chief, said the analysis showed the astronauts were at their problem-solving best trying to recover Columbia, which was starting to crack up as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere with a hole in its left wing, damage that had occurred at liftoff. Many of the details about the astronauts' deaths have been known - they died either from lack of oxygen during pressure loss or from hitting something as the spacecraft tumbled and broke up. The report indicated that the spacesuits, restraints and helmets of the Columbia crew were not equipped to handle such an extreme catastrophe.

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The point of the 400-page analysis is to figure out how to make NASA's next spaceship more survivable. In short, Columbia's astronauts were quickly doomed.Ī new NASA report released Tuesday details the chaotic final minutes of Columbia, which disintegrated over Texas on Feb. If the loss of pressure didn't kill them immediately, they would be dead from violent gyrations that knocked them about the ship. In seconds, the darkened module holding the crew lost pressure. Some weren't wearing their bulky protective gloves and still had their helmet visors open. Most of the crew were following NASA procedures, spending more time preparing the shuttle than themselves for the return to Earth. The pilot, William McCool, pushed several buttons trying to right the ship as it tumbled out of control. When the first of many loud alarms sounded on the space shuttle Columbia, the seven astronauts had about a minute to live, though they didn't know it.