"This was one of the hardest things I've ever done." "It was a way for us to work through our grief about the accident," said Melroy about compiling the report. Killed were commander Rick Husband, pilot Willie McCool, payload commander Michael Anderson and mission specialists David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon, an Israeli Air Force colonel who was Israel's first astronaut.īy request of the families of the Columbia astronauts, NASA released the report between Christmas and New Year's so that the astronauts' children would be at home where they could discuss the findings with their families in private, said former shuttle commander Pam Melroy, deputy project manager for the investigation team. Watch the view from the command deck as the shuttle enters the atmosphere » The oldest orbiter in the fleet, Columbia had just completed a 16-day science mission. The shuttle's wing was damaged on takeoff when a large piece of heat-reflecting foam ripped off and gouged a hole in it.ĭuring re-entry, the hole allowed atmospheric gases to burn the wing and destroy the spacecraft. "Their work will ensure that the legacy of Columbia and her heroic crew continues to be the improved safety of future human spaceflights worldwide."Ĭolumbia broke apart some 200,000 feet over Texas - just minutes before it was to have touched down in Florida. "The members of this team have done an outstanding job under difficult and personal circumstances," said Johnson Space Center director Michael L. The report took more than five years to complete.
It also includes many recommendations to make space travel safer for future astronauts.Ī shuttle-program source told CNN the families of the astronauts who died were brought in specifically to look at the report and even in some cases to help with its preparation. The graphic, 400-page investigative report relied on video, recovered debris and medical findings, supplemented with computer modeling and analyses. "In this accident, none of those actions would have ultimately made any difference," said former shuttle program manager Wayne Hale, now a deputy NASA administrator.
The report also found that while crew members were wearing their pressurized suits, one astronaut did not have on a helmet, three were not wearing gloves and none lowered the visors before the module lost cabin pressure. The NASA report found the astronauts knew for about 40 seconds that they did not have control of the shuttle before they likely were knocked unconscious as Columbia broke apart around them. The spacecraft broke up while re-entering Earth's atmosphere near the end of its mission on February 1, 2003. was not survivable by any currently existing capability." But the report also acknowledged that "the breakup of the crew module.
0 kommentar(er)
