They Were Busy, But Unaware

It's like being a fly on the headboard just before a horrible car wreck. You wish you could reach out, warn someone, shout something, stop it. Yet, you can't; all you can do is watch and listen.

That's the feeling from watching a NASA videotape of the Columbia crew, recovered from the East Texas debris field, February 6.

They were having fun, laughing, joking, enjoying their last minutes in space as Columbia re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. They were working their checklists. They were looking out the windows.

They made faces at the camera. They joked.

"There is not even a hint of concern, anxiety, nothing ... It's a very emotional piece because of what you already know, and that they don't," NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe told reporters at NASA headquarters before public release of the video.

Prophetic Words

"Looks like a blast furnace," commander Rick Husband says from the flight deck. You can see him drinking from a juice bulb, putting on his gloves, chatting with the other three crewmembers on the shuttle's upper level. "Yeah, you definitely don't want to be outside now," he quips.

The small digital camera was mounted at the front of the cockpit, to the right of Commander Willie McCool, who then handed it to Laurel Clark. She aimed it at Kalpana Chawla, the flight engineer seated next to her, and asked: "Can you look at the camera for a second? Look at me." Chawla waves at the camera. Clark turns the camera around and smiles into it.

It's haunting.

The space agency acknowledged the existence of the tape Tuesday, but delayed broadcasting it until Friday, to make sure the astronauts' families had a chance to see it first.

"Yep, we're getting some G's," says William McCool. "Let go of the card and it falls."

Husband releases a checklist card from his hand. Ever so slowly, it settles toward the control panel.

"All right, we're at 100th of a G," Husband notes. McCool notes how bright it's becoming outside. It's amazing, he says, his voice full of wonder. Outside the shuttle, the light show intensifies as the heat from re-entry continues to build.

The tape ends. You might say, ends mercifully. Four minutes after the end of the tape, the shuttle disintegrated. The crew was killed. But in the tape's last moments, it's obvious they didn't know what was to happen. Their penultimate moments were happy, carefree, and full of anticipation of a landing that would never occur.

FMI: http://www.caib.us, full 13-minute video