Welcome back. This week,
NASA paused to remember those lost
in the pursuit of Space Flight.
NBC reports on the 20th anniversary
of the Columbia shuttle crash and
what NASA is working on now to
move space exploration forward.
NASA's Day of Remembrance honors the lives
lost in pursuit of space exploration,
but this year also marks the 20th anniversary
of the 2003 Columbia Space Shuttle disaster.
As the agency looks ahead to sending
astronauts to the Moon and Mars,
NASA recognizes costly lessons
learned along the way.
Apollo One was supposed to be the first
of several crude flights NASA conducted
in preparation for its first moon landing,
but it never made it off the
launchpad on January 27th, 19.
67 nearly a month before its planned launch,
three crew members entered the
Apollo control module for a launch
countdown simulation that failed.
As the crew sat inside debugging problems,
an electrical fire broke out in the cockpit.
As the astronauts struggled
to open the Hatch,
the spacecraft ruptured.
Roger Chaffee,
Ed White and Gus Grissom died
before rescuers could get them out.
The important, immediate project for Space
Administration officials will be to find
out what happened then and only then.
Will they be ready for the next
big step moving on toward manned
flight in the Apollo spacecraft?
The tragedy ultimately uncovered major
design flaws, like an abundance of
flammable materials inside the spacecraft.
The Apollo missions ended in 1975
after six successful moon landings,
and in 1981 the shuttle program began to
deliver crew and cargo to the International
Space Station and service the Hubble
telescope over the course of 135 missions.
Orbiters Columbia and Challenger
suffered catastrophic accidents
with the loss of all crew members.
On January 28th, 1986,
the Challenger Shuttle was set
to embark on A6 day mission.
The seven person crew included
Christa McAuliffe in New Hampshire,
teacher, and the first American
civilian to go to space.
The launch date was unusually cold
and engineers warned that certain
components were vulnerable to failure,
but managers overruled them.
Just before noon,
Challenger took off 73.
Seconds later,
the space shuttle exploded.
All 7 crew members died.
As millions watched the
tragedy unfold on live TV,
the crew of the space Shuttle
Challenger honored us by the manner in
which they lived their lives.
We will never forget them,
nor the last time we saw
them. It was later determined that the
O rings, the rubber seals that kept
hot gases inside the rocket booster,
had become stiff due to the cold weather
and caused the fuel leak for over 2 years.
The agency stopped sending astronauts
into space as it redesigned
several of its shuttle features.
It also made changes to its management
structure to improve future decision making.
It wasn't until 2003 when the
shuttle program would face another
catastrophe on the Columbia spacecraft.
The seven astronauts on Columbia
made it to space just fine,
but during the launch it looked like a
piece of foam insulation had broken off.
The mission continued despite
concerns from some engineers.
On February 1st,
minutes before Columbia
was scheduled to land,
NASA lost contact with the crew
Columbia Houston UHF Comm check.
It turned out the foam had
punctured a hole in the left wing,
ultimately destroying the
shuttle upon reentry.
The shuttle program was grounded until 2005,
and the fuel tank was redesigned
without the foam piece.
Now NASA is embarking on its Artemis
mission to return astronauts to
the Moon and eventually Mars.
The agency plans to conduct regular
missions to the Moon to establish
a base camp and use that research
to inform future missions to Mars.
And in the process,
NASA's astronaut safety is top of mind.
Safety is our responsibility is every day.
At NASA, we have an opportunity.
We have a duty to carry the memories
of those that we lost and carry
their dreams onward and upward.