WASHINGTON, Dec. 30, 2008
NASA Details Columbia Crew's Grisly Deaths
Graphic 400-Page Report Explores Five Fatal Possibilities; Exact Causes Of Death Uncertain
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Seven astronauts were killed when space shuttle Columbia fell apart in midair. (CBS/AP)
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Interactive Voyage's End A flash movie in tribute to the seven extraordinary individuals aboard the shuttle Columbia.
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Interactive The Columbia Disaster The crew and their mission, the accident and investigation.
At least one crew member was alive and pushing buttons for half a minute after a first loud alarm sounded, as he futilely tried to right Columbia during that disastrous day Feb. 1, 2003.
In fact, by that time, there was nothing anyone could have done to survive as the fatally damaged shuttle streaked across Texas to a landing in Florida what would never take place.
But NASA scrutinizes the final minutes of the shuttle tragedy in a new 400-page report released Tuesday. The agency hopes to help engineers design a new shuttle replacement capsule more capable of surviving an accident. An internal NASA team recommends 30 changes based on Columbia, many of them aimed at pressurization suits, helmets and seatbelts.
As was already known, the astronauts died either from lack of oxygen during depressurization or from hitting something as the spacecraft spun violently out of control. The report said it wasn't clear which of those events killed them.
And in the case of the helmets and other gear, three crew members weren't wearing gloves, which provide crucial protection from depressurization. One wasn't in the seat, one wasn't wearing a helmet and several were not fully strapped in. The gloves were off because they are too bulky to do certain tasks and there is too little time to prepare for re-entry, the report notes.
Had all those procedures been followed, the astronauts might have lived longer and been able to take more actions, but they still wouldn't have survived, the report says.
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The new report comes five years after an independent investigation panel issued its own exhaustive analysis on Columbia, but it focused heavily on the cause of the accident and the culture of NASA.I guess the thing I'm surprised about, if anything, is that (the report) actually got out.
Dr. Jonathan Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon whose astronaut wife, Laurel, died aboard Columbia.The new document lists five "events" that were each potentially lethal to the crew: Loss of cabin pressure just before or as the cabin broke up; crew members, unconscious or already dead, crashing into objects in the module; being thrown from their seats and the module; exposure to a near vacuum at 100,000 feet; and hitting the ground.
A timeline of what was happening in crew compartment shows that the first loud master alarm - from a failure in control jets - would have rung at least four seconds before the shuttle went out of control.
Twenty-six seconds later either Commander Rick Husband or Pilot William McCool - in the upper deck with two other astronauts - "was conscious and able to respond to events that were occurring on board."
Shortly after that, the crew cabin depressurized, "the first event of lethal potential." That would have caused "loss of consciousness" and lack of oxygen. It took 41 seconds for complete loss of pressure.
Dr. Jonathan Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon whose astronaut wife, Laurel, died aboard Columbia, praised NASA's leadership for releasing the report "even though it says, in some ways, you guys didn't do a great job.
"I guess the thing I'm surprised about, if anything, is that (the report) actually got out," said Clark, who was a member of the team that wrote it. "There were so many forces" that didn't want to produce the report because it would again put the astronauts' families in the media spotlight.
Some of the recommendations already are being applied to the next-generation spaceship being designed to take astronauts to the moon and Mars, said Clark, who now works for the National Space Biomedical Research Institute at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
Kirstie McCool Chadwick, sister of pilot William McCool, said a copy of the report arrived at her Florida home by FedEx Tuesday morning but that she had not read it.
"We've moved on," Chadwick said. "I'll read it. But it's private. It's our business ... Our family has moved on from the accident and we don't want to reopen wounds.
In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, NASA appointed an independent panel to investigate its cause. That group released its blistering report on Aug. 27, 2003, warning that unless there were sweeping changes to the space program "the scene is set for another accident."
Columbia disintegrated as it returned to Earth at the end of its space mission. The accident was caused by a hole in the shuttle's left wing that occurred at launch. Here is a look at the seven who perished Feb. 1, 2003:
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 40 CommentsClearly you''ve never used any sort of technology, and you''ve never bought something from a store, because you''re implying that things we got from the space program, like bar codes, are a waste of time! Next time you''re in a long line at a supermarket or other store, just think about how much longer the line would be if there weren''t any bar codes.
I still grieve for our space ( as well as war ) heroes.
I guess we can choose to see it as some sort of blessing that their terror wasn''t prolonged by "procedures" since they were doomed anyway because of the initial damage.
Think again! The micro-processor in your computer and through-out your car, many modern insulation material, many composite materials, etc. were spinoffs from NASA. Yes they probably would have been developed eventually but it would have taken longer. Add into that information that we have gained on global mapping and environmental research that could only be done from space. Anyone who is likely to be posting on the internet also likely has benefited from the Space Program.
There is debate on the checklist that if the charging of the LOX was done later in the sequence, there is no need for the foam at all.
There was no need for an O2 environment in Grissom''s Apollo caspsule. (MacCaffey & White)
Perhaps the whole of the issue is to turn the operation over to the Navy. The military has what is known as "acceptable" losses (which is, of course, any and all).
So the dead astronauts get to have their hands slapped posthumously by this report for not following procedures. I wonder what NASA''s "procedure" is for dealing with a complete and violent structural failure of the shuttle during reentry where the occupants have maybe a minute from the first alarm until near certain death? These were all highly trained individuals who would follow procedure to the nth degree until there was no procedure to follow. Maybe the astronauts other than the Commander and Pilot were trying to make sure their helmets and/or gloves were secure in order to try to survive a rapid cabin depressurization. Maybe gloves, helmets, and seat belts were wrenched out of place when the shuttle began to break apart. It doesn''t matter, had they all been strapped in and following "procedure" they still would have died. Many mistakes were made in this disaster, yes, but I for one don''t believe the astronauts who paid the ultimate price should be blamed in any way for events beyond their control. Their legacies and their families deserve better.
Define soft. Now, define soft at 16,000 MPH.
Given what we get out of the program, I think we MUST keep doing it.
The Columbia crew died when the heat of re-entry and aerodynamic forces tore them apart.
Jack drown in freezing waters and Rose floated away on a door.
In these disasters, the fascination with the last inescapeable seconds really does amaze me.
They died when that piece of foam damaged the heat tile. They died because some at NASA thought it too expensive to plan for the contingency of heat tile damage, even though they knew it probable.
They died because the o-ring froze and the design of the SRB joint was prone to leakage and because some at NASA thought it too expensive to fix.
We need to abandon manned space exploration for one fundamental reason. THERE IS NO MANNED SPACE EXPLORATION. Going around the Earth in the ISS and poooping in a vacuum cleaner is not advancing science. The ISS is the scientific equivalent of camping in the back yard. It''s pointless. Let''s put some more rovers on some more planets and moons!
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