Nation mourns astronauts lost aboard shuttle Columbia
Posted on 02/01/2003 6:42:55 PM PST by MeekOneGOP
Nation mourns astronauts lost aboard shuttle Columbia
02/01/2003
The space shuttle Columbia, carrying seven astronauts including an Israeli and three with Texas connections, broke up over North Central Texas enroute to a scheduled landing in Florida on Saturday morning.
"Columbia is lost; there are no survivors," President George W. Bush said in an address to the nation.
"The astronauts knew the dangers and they faced them willingly," the president said, flanked by two flags and his voice dropping almost to a whisper at some points.
Mr. Bush pledged that the U.S. space program would continue.
Shuttle commander Rick Husband grew up in Amarillo and received a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from Texas Tech University in 1980. Pilot William McCool graduated from Coronado High School in Lubbock. And Kalpana Chawla, a mission specialist, earned a master's degree from the University of Texas-Arlington in 1984.
Bill Readdy, NASA's associate administrator for space flight, said it was too early to speculate about what destroyed the shuttle. A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was no immediate indication of terrorism.
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, his voice breaking at times as he spoke, said Bush had talked to the families of the astronauts.
"We trust the prayers of the nation will be with them and with their families. A more courageous group of people you could not have hoped to know than the families of these crew members, an extraordinary, extraordinary group of astronauts who gave their lives," he said. Neither he nor Readdy took reporters' questions.
"The last contact was at approximately 8 a.m. CST when the shuttle was 200,000 feet above north central Texas enroute to a planned landing at 8:16 a.m.," mission commentator James Hartsfield said.
Mission Control abruptly lost all data and voice contact with the shuttle and crew. At the same time, residents of Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana reported hearing "a big bang" and seeing flames in the sky.
The final radio transmission between Mission Control and the shuttle gave no indication of a catastrophic failure.
Mission Control radioed: "Columbia, Houston, we see your tire pressure messages and we did not copy your last."
Columbia's responds: "Roger, uh ..."
Then the transmission breaks off.
Video of the shuttle as it re-entered the atmosphere at sixteen times the speed of sound showed the usual orange dot of its heat shield glowing, followed by a vapor trail. Then, suddenly, the orange dot and the vapor trails broke into multiple pieces.
NASA declared an emergency and alerted residents in Dallas and East Texas to report any debris found to local law enforcement. The debris could be dangerous and will be needed to determine what happened, a spokesman said.
Aboard Columbia were Commander Rick Husband, Pilot Willie McCool, Mission Specialists Dave Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson and Laurel Clark, and Israeli Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon, all trained at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
IRWIN THOMPSON/DMN A piece of the space shuttle Columbia rests on the grass in front of Rice High School in Rice, about 50 miles south of Dallas.
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Inside Mission Control, flight controllers hovered in front of their computers, staring at the screens. The wives, husbands and children of the astronauts who had been waiting at the landing strip were gathered together by NASA and taken to a secluded place.
"A contingency for the space shuttle has been declared," Mission Control repeated over and over as no word or any data came from Columbia.
Dallas Web Staff |
Residents of Nacogdoches, Texas, said they found bits of metal strewn across the city. Dentist Jeff Hancock said a metal bracket about a foot long crashed through his office roof.
"It's all over Nacogdoches," said barber shop owner James Milford. "There are several little pieces, some parts of machinery ... there's been a lot of pieces about 3 feet wide."
Two hours after the shuttle had been expected to land, the giant screen at the front of Mission Control showed a map of the Southwest United States and what should have been Columbia's flight path.
It was the 113th flight in the shuttle program's 22 years and the 28th flight for Columbia, NASA oldest shuttle.
In 42 years of U.S. human space flight, there had never been an accident during the descent to Earth or landing. On Jan. 28, 1986, space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff.
NOAA.gov Radar image shows the debris path over Texas. |
The shuttle is essentially a glider during the hour-long decent from orbit and is covered by about 20,000 thermal tiles to protect against temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees.
On Jan. 16, shortly after Columbia lifted off, a piece of insulating foam on its external fuel tank came off and was believed to have hit the left wing of the shuttle. Leroy Cain, the lead flight director in Mission Control, assured reporters Friday that engineers had concluded that any damage to the wing was considered minor and posed no safety hazard.
Watch WFAA-TV (Ch. 8) and TXCN (Cable Ch. 38 in Dallas area) for news updates throughout the day and read more in Sunday's Dallas Morning News.
I'm not sure why it is, but maybe I'll be able to determine this better in coming days. All I know now is that I deeply regret what happened, but it's not affecting me like the earlier incident.
Oddly enough, I'm a little surprised the U.S. space program didn't have more re-entry disasters early on -- I thought that would be the most dangerous part of any mission.
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