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.
Columbia's 28th trip into space had been delayed for two full years due to various issues,
but when it finally lifted off on January 16, 2003, it took just 81 seconds for disaster
to strike.
That's when a piece of foam from the external fuel tank came off and damaged the shuttle's
left wing.
According to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the foam chunk was about two feet long
and a foot wide, and it hit the wing's heat-resistant panels at a relative speed of roughly 500
miles per hour.
However, nobody at the time noticed, it wasn't until the following day that the foam strike
was seen during a review of the launch.
Foam striking the orbiter during liftoff had actually been a concern since even before
the shuttle first flew in 1981.
Following that first flight, over 300 heat-resistant panels had to be replaced due to damage from
debris.
And it wasn't an isolated incident, most shuttle launches also had foam impacts.
But the damage to the Columbia was different: rather than hitting the more fragile white
or black tiles, the foam struck the reinforced grey carbon tiles on the leading edge of the
wing, which were thought to be more or less indestructible.
So conventional wisdom said that a foam strike to those tiles couldn't possibly cause significant
damage to the shuttle, an assumption that turned out to be deadly.
A day after the launch, the foam strike was detected by NASA's Intercenter Photo Working
Group.
Immediately concerned that severe damage could've been done to the heat-resistant tiles there,
Bob Page, the group's chair, quickly went to another official and asked him to contact
the Department of Defense to obtain images of Columbia.
Three days later, a Debris Assessment Team convened, and two members of that group also
reportedly requested imaging of the left wing, believing the images would be crucial to assessing
the damage.
But they never got the images.
According to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, NASA official Linda Ham blocked all
three imaging requests, concluding that imaging wasn't required, and that it would therefore
waste too much time.
"The intent is to pack each minute of the 24 hours that we're on orbit with science."
For her part, Ham would later claim to have had no knowledge of the DAT's concerns.
Whatever the case, though, the Debris Assessment Team was left flying blind, and they weren't
the only ones.
Without images of Columbia's left wing, the Debris Assessment Team had to rely on computer
simulators to guess what might happen on re-entry.
Their conclusion: the shuttle would suffer at least some heat damage on re-entry.
They just didn't know how much.
In the meantime, a week after launch, NASA finally clued the flight crew in to the fact
that their shuttle was damaged.
But they told crew commander Rick Husband and pilot William McCool that there was, quote,
"no concern."
NASA told them they were only being informed of the foam strike so they wouldn't be taken
by surprise if reporters asked them about it when they got back.
On the morning of February 1, 2003, after 16 days in space, Columbia attempted re-entry.
As detailed by the Columbia Accident Investigation Report, as the shuttle was streaking over
California at 8:53 AM EST, witnesses reported seeing several flashes of light.
A minute later, four sensors in the shuttle's damaged left wing mysteriously went offline.
Columbia shed a heat-resistant tile as it crossed from New Mexico into Texas at 8:58,
and a final, unintelligible communique came from the orbiter a minute later.
According to ABC News, a report released by NASA in 2008 indicated that the first alarm
to sound inside the shuttle would've come only four seconds before Columbia spun out
of control.
However, either Rick Husband or William McCool remained conscious for an additional 26 seconds,
desperately attempting to save the crew.
At 9:00 AM, observers on the ground could see that Columbia was in pieces, and all seven
astronauts on board had been killed.
NASA immediately launched an investigation, with the government mobilizing a massive effort
to collect as much of the debris from the shuttle as possible to determine exactly what
happened.
While some unscrupulous people tried to profit off the tragedy by selling debris, most people
turned over anything they found.
By March, recovery efforts were centered on East Texas, where hundreds of pieces of the
Columbia had been found.
And then, unthinkably, tragedy struck again.
While searching for debris on the afternoon of March 27, a helicopter carrying five people
suffered an engine failure near the Angelina National Forest in San Augustine County, Texas.
Though three passengers survived, pilot Jules Francis "Buzz" Mier and Texas Forest Service
aviation specialist Charles Krenek were killed instantly.
Krenek was awarded the Star of Texas in 2004, and a monument to the Columbia crew in Hemphill,
Texas, also includes a pillar inscribed with Mier's and Krenek's names.
In the aftermath of the incident, investigators inevitably asked the million-dollar question:
Would it have been possible to save Columbia's crew?
According to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the answer was yes, if the damage to
the left wing been detected by either spacewalk, or by the requested imaging.
"We availaled ourselves of photographic techniques which were not used, because it was not assessed
as being so critical."
How?
Well, the Space Shuttle Atlantis was already being prepared for its next launch.
Originally scheduled to launch on March 1, the launch could have been accomplished safely
as early as February 10.
According to calculations, the Columbia crew had enough supplies to remain in orbit until
February 15, meaning the Atlantis could have flown a rescue mission, once the two shuttles
met, Columbia's crew could have space walked over to Atlantis for a safe return home.
For the rescue scenario to have been possible, though, the damage to Columbia's left wing
would have to have been discovered by the seventh day of the mission.
Which it could have been, if those requests for imaging hadn't been denied.
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