"It broke up! The shuttle broke up!": Remembering Columbia

As some might reckon it, the beginning of the end for NASA's space shuttle program came 10 years ago Friday, at 8:48:39 a.m. EST on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2003.

That's when strain gauge V12G9921A, a sensor in the shuttle Columbia's left wing, began registering a small but unusual increase in stress as the spaceplane descended from orbit to close out its 28th mission. Twenty seconds later, a temperature sensor followed suit.

Over the next few minutes, a shuttle data recorder captured a cascade of alarming sensor readings and failures on the left side of the spacecraft that clearly indicated a rapidly unfolding catastrophe.

It played out in a brutal rush. Just 10 minutes and 53 seconds after that initial strain gauge reading, as the shuttle streaked across the heartland of America, commander Rick Husband was cut off in mid transmission, presumably when the spaceplane veered out of control at Mach 18, breaking apart less than a minute later.

It was 9:59:32 a.m. It would take another two-and-a-half minutes or so for the harsh reality of Columbia's demise to reach the Kennedy Space Center where family members, NASA managers, the ground support team, reporters and photographers were standing by for the shuttle's homecoming.

46 Photos

Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

I was covering Columbia's re-entry from the CBS News bureau at the Florida spaceport, polishing up a post-landing mission wrap-up story that I planned to post to the web within a few minutes of touchdown.

Listening to NASA television in Florida, I had no idea the shuttle was in trouble. I had heard Husband's interrupted transmission, but air-to-ground drop outs were not unexpected during shuttle entries. Still, this one seemed to be lasting longer than usual and I was beginning to feel a bit anxious.

Then, at 9:02 a.m., Justin Ray, a reporter with Spaceflight Now, forwarded an instant message from Stephen Clark, a space enthusiast (now veteran space reporter) who was watching Columbia fly overhead southeast of Dallas.

I will never forget that message and the sudden chill that settled over me as I read it:

Clark: O M G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Clark: DUDE OMG

Clark: It broke up!

Clark: The shuttle broke up!

Ray: He's in Texas

Harwood: What!!!

Harwood: Are you serious?

Ray: Yes

Ray: North of Houston

For a moment, I couldn't move. Clark was a veteran shuttle watcher and I did not doubt his observation. I simply stared at the computer screen for a few seconds, coming to grips with what those words meant, thinking of Husband and his crew, wondering if they were still alive but fearing the worst.

As it turned out, the astronauts almost certainly were already dead, killed by rapid decompression when the crew module broke away from the fuselage and disintegrated high above central Texas.

Over the days, weeks and months that followed, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board uncovered a now-familiar history of external tank foam insulation problems, management miscues and poor internal communications that contributed to the mishap.

As we would learn during the course of the investigation, Columbia sustained its fatal wound 16 days earlier when a briefcase-size chunk of foam insulation fell away from a so-called bi-pod ramp on ship's external tank 81.7 seconds after liftoff.

The lightweight foam slowed rapidly in the supersonic flow and the shuttle, racing skyward at more than 1,500 mph at that point, ran into it at a relative velocity of about 545 mph. The impact blasted a large hole, possibly 6 inches across or wider, in one of the protective heat shield panels making up the left wing's leading edge.

The reinforced carbon carbon making up the shuttle's nose cap and wing leading edge panels experiences the most extreme heating during re-entry, some 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit during the 15-minute zone of "peak heating" just after the orbiter falls back into the discernible atmosphere.

Put simply, the gaping hole in Columbia's wing was not survivable. From that perspective, the beginning of the end was the foam strike and not its inevitable consequence.

But some believe Columbia's crew could, in fact, have been saved if NASA management had recognized the severity of the problem soon enough to mount an emergency rescue flight.

Mission control at the Johnson Space Center at roughly the time Columbia should have landed at the Kennedy Space Center. Numbers on the left screen are followed by an S, indicating a static display. The numbers stopped updating 15 minutes earlier when the shuttle veered out of control above central Texas.

/ NASA

Engineers analyzing launch photography clearly saw the foam fall from the tank. But they could not see where it struck. From the tracking camera's perspective, the debris disappeared below the left wing and emerged as a cloud of white powder. There was no question it had hit the wing. The question was where? And how much damage had it caused?

A few alarmed shuttle engineers lobbied NASA management to ask the Air Force or the National Reconnaissance Office to aim a spy satellite at the shuttle for a detailed photo inspection. But NASA managers in Florida and Texas rebuffed those efforts and settled instead for an in-house analysis based on computer modeling and past experience.

The engineers assigned the task ultimately concluded the foam strike did not represent a "safety of flight" issue. NASA's Mission Management Team, while concerned about what repairs or modifications might be required for downstream external tanks, dismissed the incident as a concern for Columbia.

And besides, the common wisdom went, without a robot arm and some kind of repair kit, there were no viable options to repair serious heat shield damage. As MMT Chairman Linda Ham famously said at one point, "it's not really a factor during the flight because there is not much we can do about it."

Columbia Space Shuttle debris lies on the floor of the RLV Hangar May 15, 2003 at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

/ NASA/Getty Images

Ham later came under intense criticism during the course of the accident investigation for her quick, seemingly uncritical acceptance of the foam strike analysis.

But Ham did not act in a vacuum and there were many engineers and managers up and down the chain of command who had an opportunity to lodge an objection. While concerns were raised in some quarters, no one stood up and publicly challenged the conclusions of the engineering analysis.

And by that point, as a NASA's analysis would later show, there was nothing Ham or the MMT could have done to save the crew.

While it was theoretically possible to launch the shuttle Atlantis on a rescue mission, it would have required an almost instant awareness of the severity of the problem with Columbia, a decision to commit a second shuttle to flight before the cause of the first failure was known and a willingness to cut corners to get Atlantis off the ground before Columbia ran out of power and air.

And even then, it would have required an enormous amount of luck, with no delays due to technical snags or even bad weather.

But it was theoretically possible, and many within the program regret to this day that NASA did not at least make an attempt. I don't believe it had any realistic chance of success, but as others have said before me, not even trying guaranteed it.

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[123-cbsnews]

Sounds like wishful thinking, distracting from the reality of aerospace engineers face, any problem, they fall out of the sky at 200 G's, everyone dies. My father worked in the industry all his life, Apollo, Black Hawks, that was his answer to race cars pulling over to the side of a track or road, verses a helicopter flight, can't have any single point of failure, not one.
They lived life large, that's for sure, the rest of you should grow up.

[mari1963]

Were the bodies of the astronauts recovered?

[Janet2121]

I remember hearing the boom that morning. I was watching the local weatherman talk about it coming over the Dallas area and then his face just froze. So sad.

[mari1963]

Yes, it was very sad.

[netjunkie1]

I visited Johnson Space Center just before the launch.
The astronauts were in town.
Their aircraft were parked out front of the entrance.
We did the typical tour while there.
When they herded us into the control room they asked for questions.
I had heard that the shuttle was overhauled, but the work was shotty.
So I asked about it but didn't mention it was a news item weeks before, and didn't accuse anyone of anything.
The response was that the work was done to standards...yet only weeks later, the tragedy struck.
I felt so bad for the astronauts and their families.
I remember it well.

[enlightenu]

Well, shotty or not, it wouldn't have mattered.

[myopinionpal]

I've always wondered when NASA sends up a shuttle why don't they have another one on the launchpad ready to go, so if something does go wrong they could launch the second shuttle to rescue the astronauts that are in trouble.

[enlightenu]

Three reasons;

1. cost
2. cost
3. cost

Do you have any idea what 1 mission costs? It would make the whole mission pointless to have 2 ready. Anyway it wouldn't have mattered. The damage was not discovered and you can't rescue anyone from a ship after reentry has begun.

[foo8259]

Hindsight is 20/20. At SWRI in San Antonio, I saw on the local news some researchers and engineers fired a chunk of foam at a mock-up shuttle wing edge from an air gun at 500 mph -- it went thru it like a cannon.

[lfcb]

I was at STS-1, and I was at the SLF for the landing of STS-107... somewhat of a neophyte still, I stayed home in Malabar for three days and watched the aftermath on CBS News, never realizing or seeing the hordes of media that had descended on KSC - I was too absorbed trying to figure out why? My definitive answers came from Bill and Mike's book 'Comm Check'... to this day he is my Bible for solid news out of KSC... thanks for your diligence and your insights... RIP Columbia, RIP STS-107, RIP STS

[tom70816]

One thing that never seems to be mentioned. The original foam insulation used in the space shuttle program was created using fluorocarbons to aerate the liquid base. Due to environmental issues, this was changed to a hydrocarbon product that did not work as well. The resulting foam was denser and more brittle, and much more prone to shed. One would think that using the the best material in a high risk, low frequency application would have taken precedence over tree hugging, but what do I know?

[enlightenu]

Yes, you are right.

[signseeker1717]

That changeover took place in 1997. NASA had SIX YEARS of missions, testing and analysis before the fatal 2003 Columbia flight. If they felt there were really SERIOUS safety issues, they could have asked for and no doubt readily received an EXEMPTION. No such request was ever made.

Apparently NASA either didn't consider the risk too high. Of course, everyone knows better in hindsight.

And that does NOT diminish in any way the importance, necessity and appropriateness of banning fluorocarbons.

[tom70816]

One thing that never seems to be mentioned. The original foam insulation used in the space shuttle program was created using fluorocarbons to aerate the liquid base. Due to environmental issues, this was changed to a hydrocarbon product that did not work as well. The resulting foam was denser and more brittle, and much more prone to shed. One would think that using the the best material in a high risk, low frequency application would have taken precedence over tree hugging, but what do I know?

[signseeker1717]

P.S. Since this flight took place during the first G. W. Bush administration, is there ANY doubt they would have been granted an exemption from the then-Republican run (hardly "tree huggers") EPA to use fluorocarbons IF they felt necessary? NO - but they didn't think it was a big enough problem, and didn't ask. So don't blame an important landmark decision in environmental history for a NASA decision.

[dustin96v]

NASA Workers slurred their speech due to intoxication from liquor and synthetic narcotics during destruction of space shuttle Columbia. Congress should immediately dissolve a dangerous and rogue federal agency.

[rwsmith29456]

Why do people feel compelled to make this stuff up?