Goodbye, Columbia

It was deja vu all over again. Much of America woke up on February 1st only to discover that Columbia, the country's first fully-functional space shuttle, had disintegrated in orbit over Texas as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere.

For ANN Associate Editor Pete Combs, it was a trial by fire. That first Saturday in February was his first day on the job. Living in Dallas (TX) at the time, Combs heard the sonic boom that accompanied Columbia's destruction. Moments later, he and Correspondent Rob Milford were on the phone as Milford sped south to the debris field.

First Reports: Appears To Have Broken Up Over Texas

NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia broke up in flight this morning as it re-entered Earth's athmosphere over Texas. All seven crew members, including Israel's first-ever man in space, are feared lost.

Columbia was approximately 13 minutes from touchdown, flying 200,000 feet above the Texas plain, when it apparently broke up. Videotapes show a single contrail becoming many just after the traditional sonic boom was heard in Dallas-Fort Worth. The shuttle disappeared from NASA radar and ground controllers lost contact with the astronauts immediately.

It appears to be the first time in 42 years of manned space flight that a spacecraft was lost on re-entry.

Later that day, Combs and Milford filed this report:

A Charred Electronics Component.
A Piece Of Pipe.
A Homecoming That Never Was...

One recovery worker described it as "trying to find a million needles in a haystack that's five thousand square miles wide." The firefighters, rescue workers and the increasing number of National Guard troops are stone-somber as they go about their grim task, first marking off areas where shuttle debris litters the landscape, then waiting for someone with FEMA or NASA to come by, catalog and photograph the wreckage and, eventually, haul it off. Debris is being taken to Barksdale AFB (LA), where it's being carefully inventoried and investigated. Meanwhile, in Houston, hundreds of mourners gathered at the Clear Lake Baptist Church, near the Johnson Space Center, for an evening memorial service."

President Bush addressed the nation that terrible day:

All Americans today are thinking, as well, of the families of these men and women who have been given this sudden shock and grief.  You're not alone.  Our entire nation grieves with you.  And those you loved will always have the respect and gratitude of this country.

The disintegration of shuttle Columbia led to a painful retrospective at NASA. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board, comprised of former astronauts, engineers and experts, found that a chunk of super-lightweight insulating foam had broken off the shuttle's external fuel tank and probably punctured the leading edge of the space plane's left wing. Flight controllers were aware of the problem, but dismissed it:

Seldom in the course of history is a single, heartwrenching tragedy so solidly linked to a precipitating moment.

Yet, right there on audio tape, recorded during a nationwide conference call, is the voice of Linda Ham (right), a shuttle manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston (TX):

"(T)he material properties and density of the foam wouldn't do any damage," she says in a conversation with engineer Don McCormick.
With that turn of words, Columbia was doomed, five days after a chunk of insulating foam from the orbiter's external fuel tank slammed into the shuttle's left wing leading edge. That strike, according to preliminary information from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, most likely allowed superheated gasses to enter the wing structure, leading to the shuttle's disintegration as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere.

"Really, I don't think there is much we can do," Ham said in the January 21st conference call. "It's not really a factor during the flight because there isn't much we can do about it."

That kind of conversation and NASA's apparent willingness to accept elevated risk levels as normal flight conditions led to the CAIB's warning that the space agency not only had to solve the falling debris problem. It also has to make some major changes in the way it does business.

The CAIB issued its report on the Columbia tragedy in August:

The CAIB report concludes that while NASA's present Space Shuttle is not inherently unsafe, a number of mechanical fixes are required to make the Shuttle safer in the short term. The report also concludes that NASA's management system is unsafe to manage the shuttle system beyond the short term and that the agency does not have a strong safety culture.

The Board determined that physical and organizational causes played an equal role in the Columbia accident -- that the NASA organizational culture had as much to do with the accident as the foam that struck the Orbiter on ascent. The report also notes other significant factors and observations that may help prevent the next accident.

Now, the big question is: When will the shuttles fly again? NASA is aiming for a launch no later than next November. But the space agency is still scrambling to meet the recommendations of the CAIB -- a self-imposed pre-condition to returning to flight.

But that's a story for 2004. This is the year we remember another group of seven astronauts. We honor them and we recall the last moments of their flight, as recorded on video tape:

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.

Commander Rick Husband, Pilot Willie McCool, Mission Specialists Dave Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson and Laurel Clark, and Israeli Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon have all gone west. Godspeed to all of them. They will never be forgotten.

FMI: Notes From The Debris Field; Love, Wonder, Joy: A Final Message From Space; CAIB Report