The fiery disintegration of Columbia ultimately led to the loss of lives and the retirement of NASA's shuttle fleet. But as it turns out, there's more to the story that makes it so much worse because it didn't need to happen in the first place.
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00:00The fiery disintegration of Columbia ultimately led to the loss of lives and the retirement
00:05of NASA's shuttle fleet.
00:07But as it turns out, there's more to the story that makes it so much worse, because it didn't
00:11need to happen in the first place.
00:13Columbia's 28th trip into space had been delayed for two full years due to various issues,
00:19but when it finally lifted off on January 16th, 2003, it took just 81 seconds for disaster
00:25to strike.
00:26That's when a piece of foam from the external fuel tank came off and damaged the shuttle's
00:29left wing.
00:30According to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the foam chunk was about two feet long
00:35and a foot wide, and it hit the wing's heat-resistant panels at a relative speed of roughly 500
00:40miles per hour.
00:41However, nobody at the time noticed.
00:43It wasn't until the following day that the foam strike was seen during a review of the
00:47launch.
00:48Foam striking the orbiter during liftoff had actually been a concern since even before
00:52the shuttle first flew in 1981.
00:55During the first flight, over 300 heat-resistant panels had to be replaced due to damage from
01:00debris, and it wasn't an isolated incident.
01:02Most shuttle launches also had foam impacts.
01:05But the damage to the Columbia was different.
01:07Rather than hitting the more fragile white or black tiles, the foam struck the reinforced
01:12gray carbon tiles on the leading edge of the wing, which were thought to be more or less
01:16indestructible.
01:17So conventional wisdom said that a foam strike to those tiles couldn't possibly cause significant
01:21damage to the shuttle, an assumption that turned out to be deadly.
01:25A day after the launch, the foam strike was detected by NASA's InterCenter Photo Working
01:30Group.
01:31Immediately concerned that severe damage could have been done to the heat-resistant tiles
01:35there, Bob Page, the group's chair, quickly went to another official and asked him to
01:39contact the Department of Defense to obtain images of Columbia.
01:42Three days later, a debris assessment team convened, and two members of that group also
01:46reportedly requested imaging of the left wing, believing the images would be crucial to assess
01:51the damage.
01:52But they never got the images.
01:54According to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, NASA official Linda Hamm blocked all
01:59three imaging requests, concluding that imaging wasn't required and that it would therefore
02:04waste too much time.
02:05So the intent is to pack each minute of the 24 hours that we're on orbit with science.
02:12For her part, Hamm would later claim to have no knowledge of the DAT's concerns.
02:17Whatever the case, though, the debris assessment team was left flying blind, and they weren't
02:21the only ones.
02:23Without images of Columbia's left wing, the debris assessment team had to rely on computer
02:27simulators to guess what might happen on re-entry.
02:30Their conclusion?
02:31The shuttle would suffer at least some heat damage on re-entry.
02:35They just didn't know how much.
02:36In the meantime, a week after launch, NASA finally clued the flight crew in to the fact
02:41that their shuttle was damaged.
02:42But they told crew commander Rick Husband and pilot William McCool that there was, quote,
02:47no concern.
02:48NASA told them they were only being informed of the foam strike so they wouldn't be taken
02:52by surprise if reporters asked them about it when they got back.
02:55On the morning of February 1, 2003, after 16 days in space, Columbia attempted re-entry.
03:02As detailed by the Columbia Accident Investigation Report, as the shuttle was streaking over
03:07California at 8.53 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, witnesses reported seeing several flashes
03:12of light.
03:13A minute later, four sensors in the shuttle's damaged left wing mysteriously went offline.
03:18Columbia shed a heat-resistant tile as it crossed from New Mexico into Texas at 8.58,
03:23and a final, unintelligible communique came from the orbiter a minute later.
03:28According to ABC News, a report released by NASA in 2008 indicated that the first alarm
03:33to sound inside the shuttle would have come only four seconds before Columbia spun out
03:37of control.
03:38However, either Rick Husband or William McCool remained conscious for an additional 26 seconds
03:43desperately attempting to save the crew.
03:45At 9 a.m., observers on the ground could see that Columbia was in pieces, and all seven
03:50astronauts on board had been killed.
03:52NASA immediately launched an investigation, with the government mobilizing a massive effort
03:58to collect as much of the debris from the shuttle as possible to determine exactly what
04:02happened.
04:03While some unscrupulous people tried to profit off the tragedy by selling debris, most people
04:08turned over anything they found.
04:10By March, recovery efforts were centered on East Texas, where hundreds of pieces of
04:14the Columbia had been found.
04:16And then, unthinkably, tragedy struck again.
04:20While searching for debris on the afternoon of March 27th, a helicopter carrying five
04:24people suffered an engine failure near the Angelina National Forest in San Augustine
04:29County, Texas.
04:30Though three passengers survived, pilot Jules Francis Buzz Meyer and Texas Forest Service
04:35aviation specialist Charles Krennic were killed instantly.
04:39Krennic was awarded the Star of Texas in 2004, and a monument to the Columbia crew
04:43in Hemp Hill, Texas also includes a pillar inscribed with Meyer and Krennic's names.
04:49In the aftermath of the incident, investigators inevitably asked the million-dollar question
04:54— would it have been possible to save Columbia's crew?
04:57According to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the answer was yes, if the damage to
05:02the left wing had been detected by either spacewalk or the requested imaging.
05:07We availed ourselves of photographic techniques which were not used because it was not assessed
05:14as being so critical.
05:16How?
05:17Well, the space shuttle Atlantis was already being prepared for its next launch.
05:21Originally scheduled to launch on March 1st, the launch could have been accomplished safely
05:25as early as February 10th.
05:28According to calculations, the Columbia crew had enough supplies to remain in orbit until
05:32February 15th, meaning the Atlantis could have flown a rescue mission.
05:36Once the two shuttles met, Columbia's crew could have spacewalked over to Atlantis for
05:40a safe return home.
05:41For the rescue scenario to have been possible, though, the damage to Columbia's left wing
05:45would have had to have been discovered by the seventh day of the mission, which it could
05:49have been, if those requests for imaging hadn't been denied.