The NASA Columbia Disaster: Investigating One of History’s Worst Space Tragedies—and Its Lasting Legacy | Scientific and technical news

Scott Hubbard remembers precisely the place he was on the day of one of many deadliest tragedies within the historical past of house journey.

Earlier than he bought off the bed on the morning of February 1, 2003, a radio broadcast carried the information that NASA’s house shuttle Columbia was “delayed” in its return to Earth.

“I had a sick feeling in my abdomen,” he remembers.

The spacecraft, which launched from the Kennedy Area Heart in Florida greater than two weeks in the past with seven astronauts on board, was scheduled to land that morning.

However the touchdown by no means got here.

Columbia, which made its maiden voyage in April 1981, disintegrated over Texas 16 minutes earlier than it was scheduled to land in Florida, killing its complete crew. They had been Commander Rick Husband; pilot William McCool; mission specialists Michael Anderson, Laurel Clark, David Brown and Kalpana Chawla; and payload specialist Ilan Ramon, who was Israel’s first astronaut.

It marked the start of the top for America’s house shuttle program, which had already endured the lack of seven astronauts within the 1986 Challenger catastrophe.

For Hubbard, a veteran of the US house company who served as its first Mars program director, Columbia modified the way in which he checked out rocket launches ceaselessly.

“If you get hit by that low-frequency rumble, that strain wave, you could have a way of awe on the drive that is getting used to drag you out of the Earth’s gravity properly. However after experiencing Columbia, once I see a launch with folks on board, there is a unusual sense of hysteria: ‘Did I do all the things attainable to make sure the success of the mission?’

The decision that modified all the things

Earlier than the lack of the crew was even confirmed, Hubbard obtained a name from the NASA administrator’s workplace asking him to characterize the company in investigating what occurred.

The administrator on the time was Sean O’Keefe, who was with the astronauts’ households when it turned obvious that one thing was fallacious.

“The temper went from pleasure and anticipation to despair as soon as it turned clear the shuttle was not coming residence,” he advised Sky Information.

“Usually, you may set a look ahead to when the shuttle goes by means of the ambiance. Identical to on launch day, we had a countdown clock with these massive numbers that regularly wound down.”

“It bought inside about two minutes of 00 – normally earlier than you see the shuttle, you hear two sonic booms because the shuttle passes the sound barrier, which tells you it is about to land. Neither confirmed up.”

Columbia had already damaged up, particles raining down on Texas whereas close by crews waited unknowingly on the Kennedy Area Heart.

Not lengthy after, an official investigation was launched.

Scott Hubbard was chosen as NASA’s sole consultant on the board of inquiry to work with Air Pressure generals, Navy admirals and former U.S. astronauts to color an in depth image of why Columbia led to tragedy.

“I knew that if we confronted the lack of a crew, it might have the identical affect on the company because the Challenger crash had years in the past,” he says.

“So I went into it decided to do my finest.

“The Hardest Obligation”

The investigation in Colombia was speculated to final 30 days. It ended up taking six months.

Starting with seven-day work weeks from a base outdoors Johnson Area Heart in Houston, Hubbard calls it the “most tough responsibility” of his 20 years at NASA.

“The primary half was a really unhappy operation to seek out the stays of the crew, so the households may have some closure,” he says. The stays of all seven astronauts had been discovered.

About 25,000 folks joined the trouble to gather items of particles, O’Keefe remembers, which had been scattered throughout a 200-mile strip of land from Dallas to the Louisiana border.

Hubbard’s background in science and engineering tasked him with specializing in the technical reason for the accident.

“It was circumstantial proof at first,” Hubbard remembers.

“There was just one good high-definition picture of this chunk of froth coming off the principle tank and hitting the shuttle someplace on the left wing, after which there was a bathe of particles.

This incident didn’t happen throughout re-entry, however after launch on January 16 – 82 seconds into the flight.

Mission management knowledgeable the commander and pilot, who had been assured that—as a result of it had occurred on earlier missions—there was no trigger for alarm when reentry occurred.

Proving the reason for the tragedy

However when Columbia re-entered the ambiance, injury to the wing let in “superheated gases” that led to the destruction of the wing and the following disintegration of the whole shuttle.

“Foam shedding has been happening because the first house shuttle flight, 30 years in the past,” says Hubbard.

“However whereas it was initially labeled as an in-flight anomaly, which is probably the most severe of the issues, it will definitely got here to be seen as a turnaround drawback, only a upkeep factor, and was downgraded in severity.

“We expect that this casual method to what was a significant issue was one of many organizational causes of the accident.”

Due to the “feeling of denial” amongst these interviewed in the course of the investigation, Hubbard says he was pushing for a take a look at that will recreate the so-called anomaly and arrange a analysis facility in Texas used to simulate a chook placing plane elements.

Over the months it was configured to the specs of what occurred to Columbia.

The take a look at was carried out on dwell tv on July 7, 2003 – and the consequence was indeniable.

“It gave me two feelings on the identical time,” Hubbard remembers.

“One was ‘sure, we did it’ and the opposite was ‘oh my god, that is how these folks died’.

“And that was… fairly some time.

Heritage of Colombia

The complete Columbia Accident Investigation Board report—which O’Keefe obtained 10 days earlier than its launch in August 2003—made 29 suggestions to enhance the protection of future house shuttle flights, all of which had been accepted by NASA.

They included that foam falling from the shuttle’s exterior tank throughout launch, as was accepted as par for the course amongst NASA engineers, ought to now not be allowed.

The company has not misplaced an astronaut throughout an area flight since.

“It was onerous information,” says O’Keefe. “Nothing was straightforward about it. It was very vital, however that is what we would have liked to listen to.”

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Each January, NASA remembers the victims of Columbia, in addition to its different fallen astronauts, by laying flowers and studying tributes throughout a memorial service on the Kennedy Area Heart.

The Cape Canaveral website has been the middle of pleasure since November, when the launch of the Artemis mission kicked off NASA’s effort to return people to the moon for the primary time in additional than 50 years.

Area can be more and more a playground for personal enterprise, with firms like SpaceX and Blue Origin setting massive objectives to go additional than people have earlier than. A worthy enterprise, O’Keefe says, however – for all of the marvel many really feel when witnessing the launch – by no means one that ought to see folks lose sight of the danger.

“The character of it scared me each time,” he admits. “Everybody who talked about ‘routine’ shuttle launches – there isn’t a such factor. Each one is a chance for catastrophe, and that is the character of it.

“However all through human historical past, we have achieved issues which are inherently harmful as a result of our curiosity will get the higher of us.”

For Hubbard, who turned chairman of SpaceX’s security panel in 2012 and has included Elon Musk amongst those that have obtained his recommendation, the teachings discovered from Columbia are solely rising in significance.

“Area is a tough factor, getting folks into house is tough and we have been fortunate that there have been comparatively few disasters thus far,” he advised Sky Information. (NASA has misplaced 15 astronauts in spaceflight: seven in Columbia and Challenger, and one, Michael Adams, in a suborbital flight in 1967.)

Hubbard says the Columbia expertise “profoundly modified” his view of human house exploration, however our collective ambition to go additional, sooner, solely goes in a single path.

“Any rocket you ship on the market, you may’t say with certainty that it may be OK,” O’Keefe says. “However the different is: ‘do not we go?’ And the reply is you may’t give in to it.”