Editor’s Word: Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of Historical past at Rice College. He’s the creator of “American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Nice House Race.” The CNN Authentic Collection “House Shuttle Columbia: The Closing Flight” uncovers the occasions that in the end led to catastrophe. The four-part documentary premieres 9 p.m. ET/PT Sunday. The opinions expressed on this commentary are solely these of the creator. View extra opinion on CNN.
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Across the begin of this century, the world counted solely two main gamers in manned area exploration: The Nationwide Aeronautics and House Administration (NASA) and Roscosmos, the Russian House Company. Ten years later, the heavens had been crowded by comparability, with a variety of personal firms vying to restart the area race with Russia. Internationally, China had common manned missions and the United Arab Emirates, Japan and the European nations had been drawing near success.
Moore Huffman
Douglas Brinkley
The turning level between the 2 eras was an unforeseeable tragedy: the disintegration of the Columbia area shuttle on February 1, 2003. It occurred virtually precisely 17 years after a earlier shuttle, the Challenger, burned simply after lift-off.
That 1986 catastrophe had resulted in a towering wave of public anger at NASA, primarily as a result of prime officers had been suggested very particularly to clean the launch. Merely put, the climate was too chilly for the gear. The intrepid American area program survived the Challenger horror, however NASA’s self-doubt by no means subsided. Not even twenty years later, after the Columbia exploded throughout re-entry, the 2 lethal failures broke the religion that many among the many American individuals had in NASA.
Seven astronauts had been onboard the Columbia for its 16-day mission, primarily to carry out scientific experiments. The launch in mid-January had been uneventful – apart from one factor. The group assigned to overview video of the voyage seen what gave the impression to be a free piece of the protecting foam layer insulating the shuttle’s exterior tank. Quickly thereafter a bit of froth about as massive as a briefcase dislodged and struck the entrance of the left wing. The evaluation of the malfunction was communicated to others at NASA, however the issue was thought of minor.
Shuttles had been invariably broken throughout missions. It was solely to be anticipated. “There’s this time period in NASA referred to as accepted danger,” defined Nancy Currie-Gregg, who flew 4 shuttle missions, the final in 2002, “There isn’t any such factor as zero-risk area flight, however how do you determine how a lot danger is suitable?”
As a result of different shuttle missions had returned safely with “shredded” floor tiles – and since the stalwart Columbia had introduced astronauts house from 27 earlier flights – many NASA officers had been lulled into complacency. They went as far as to guarantee the pilot and commander by way of electronic mail that “there isn’t any concern … Now we have seen the identical phenomenon on a number of different flights and there’s completely no concern for entry.”
NASA officers additionally determined in opposition to enlisting spy satellite tv for pc pictures to look at the shuttle harm extra totally. If that they had, it’s doable that the astronauts might have repaired the spaceplane or at the least deserted it for refuge on the Worldwide House Station. As a substitute, because the Columbia made its descent from area, superheated atmospheric gases entered by the gaping gap left by the dislodged chunk of froth. The construction was compromised and the shuttle broke aside in midair. Wreckage unfold over Texas and Louisiana.
NASA/Courtesy of Scott Andrews
House Shuttle Columbia launches from the Kennedy House Heart in Florida on January 16, 2003.
Joe Skipper/Reuters
The crew of NASA’s STS-107 mission attends a information convention at Kennedy House Heart in Florida on December 20, 2002. Pictured from left are payload commander Michael P. Anderson; pilot William C. McCool; commander Rick D. Husband; mission specialist David M. Brown; mission specialist Laurel B. Clark; payload specialist Ilan Ramon; and mission specialist Kalpana Chawla.
NASA
House Shuttle Columbia sits on Launchpad 39A, atop the cellular launcher platform, on the Kennedy House Heart in Florida on December 9, 2002.
NASA/Courtesy of Scott Andrews
The STS-107 crew members wave to onlookers on their solution to the launchpad for liftoff on the Kennedy House Heart in Florida on January 16, 2003.
NASA/Getty Pictures
Folks work within the management room at NASA’s Mission Management Heart in Houston on January 16, 2003. House Shuttle Columbia launched from the Kennedy House Heart in Florida at 10:39 a.m. ET.
NASA
Members of the closeout crew assist Anderson, entrance, along with his launch and entry go well with within the White Room at Kennedy House Heart in Florida on January 16, 2003. The environmentally managed chamber was mated to House Shuttle Columbia for entry into the orbiter. Behind Anderson is McCool.
Karl Ronstrom/Reuters
House Shuttle Columbia lifts off from the Kennedy House Heart in Florida on January 16, 2003. It was the twenty eighth mission for the orbiter, with the STS-107 crew set to hold out experiments over the course of 16 days.
NASA
The VIP stand on the Kennedy House Heart in Florida is stuffed with pals and households of the STS-107 crew on January 16, 2003. Representatives of Israel had been there as effectively to help Ramon, the primary Israeli astronaut and a colonel within the Israeli Air Drive.
NASA
Chawla performs work within the SPACEHAB Analysis Double Module (RDM) on January 18, 2003. She is pictured by the tunnel linking SPACEHAB to the House Shuttle Columbia’s crew cabin.
NASA
A few of the STS-107 crew are pictured previous to their sleep shift in bunk beds on the middeck of House Shuttle Columbia on January 20, 2003. From left are Clark, Husband and Chawla. Together with Ramon, out of body, they had been members of the Pink Staff; Anderson, Brown, and McCool had been on the Blue Staff. The groups labored reverse shifts with a view to carry out steady analysis for 16 days.
NASA
The STS-107 crew pose for an in-flight portrait within the SPACEHAB RDM aboard House Shuttle Columbia. This photograph was on a roll of unprocessed movie that searchers later recovered from particles.
NASA
Clark appears by an overhead window on the aft flight deck of House Shuttle Columbia. This photograph was on a roll of unprocessed movie that searchers later recovered from particles.
Robert Giroux/Getty Pictures
A retailer worker in New York pauses to observe a breaking information broadcast about House Shuttle Columbia minutes earlier than its scheduled touchdown on February 1, 2003.
Brett Coomer/Getty Pictures
Kathryn O’Neill of Laguna Hills, California, and her son Zachary kneel by the doorway signal of Johnson House Heart in Houston on February 1, 2003. A makeshift memorial for the STS-107 crew had been arrange there.
Matt Stroshane/Getty Pictures
Former astronaut and then-Florida Sen. Invoice Nelson addresses the information media at Kennedy House Heart in Florida on February 1, 2003. House Shuttle Columbia broke aside throughout reentry over east Texas at round 9 a.m. ET, and the STS-107 crew was misplaced.
Eric Homosexual/AP
Tommy Peltier of Houston stands subsequent to mess from House Shuttle Columbia that fell close to San Augustine, Texas, on February 2, 2003.
Smiley N. Pool/Houston Chronicle/Getty Pictures
Averi Forline, 4, performs with a mannequin of an area shuttle as he visits a rising memorial exterior the primary gate of Johnson House Heart in Houston on February 3, 2003. The memorial was created by NASA staff and different Houstonians in honor of the STS-107 crew.
NASA
Folks attend a memorial for the STS-107 crew on the mall of the Johnson House Heart in Houston on February 4, 2003.
Smiley N. Pool/Houston Chronicle/AP
Joe Cavaretta/AP
Ron Dittemore, NASA’s area shuttle program supervisor, shows a chunk of insulating foam, just like that which coated House Shuttle Columbia’s gasoline tank, throughout a briefing for the information media held on the Johnson House Heart in Houston on February 5, 2003.
NASA
Items of House Shuttle Columbia that had been recognized are positioned inside the define of the orbiter on the reusable launch automobile hangar ground on the Kennedy House Heart in Florida on March 6, 2003. The Columbia Reconstruction Mission Staff was making an attempt to reconstruct the underside of the orbiter as a part of the investigation into what brought on the destruction of Columbia and the lack of its crew.
Mannie Garcia/Reuters
Reporters ask NASA Administrator O’Keefe, seen within the monitor, questions in regards to the “Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report” throughout a information convention at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, on August 27, 2003.
NASA
A member of the Shoshone-Bannock Native American neighborhood from Fort Corridor, Idaho, shows a hand-crafted merchandise with the STS-107 insignia on February 1, 2004. Dancers from Shoshone-Bannock Junior/Senior Excessive College additionally carried out a therapeutic ceremony in the course of the one-year anniversary occasion on the House Memorial Mirror in Florida. College students and employees of the Shoshone-Bannock Excessive College had an experiment on board House Shuttle Columbia.
Smiley N. Pool/Houston Chronicle/AP
Sandy Anderson, widow of House Shuttle Columbia’s Michael P. Anderson, is comforted by astronaut Carlos Noriega in the course of the annual Day of Remembrance ceremony on the Johnson House Heart’s Astronaut Tree Grove in Houston on January 27, 2011. Johnson House Heart Director Michael L. Coats is on the far left, and Evelyn Husband-Thomas, widow of the Columbia crew’s Rick D. Husband, is on the appropriate.
John Raoux/AP
Glenn Benson/NASA
Members of the House Coast Voices sing the nationwide anthem in the course of the NASA Day of Remembrance ceremony on the House Mirror Memorial in Florida on January 30, 2020. The crews of Apollo 1 and area shuttles Challenger and Columbia, in addition to different fallen astronauts who misplaced their lives within the identify of area exploration and discovery, had been honored on the annual occasion.
Kim Shiflett/NASA
A wreath is positioned in entrance of the House Mirror Memorial in Florida in the course of the NASA Day of Remembrance on January 27, 2022.
Within the wake of the catastrophe, NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe mentioned in an announcement, “That is certainly a tragic day for the NASA household, for the households of the astronauts who flew on STS-107, and likewise is tragic for the Nation.”
Because the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) famous in its remaining report, “the NASA organizational tradition had as a lot to do with this accident as the froth.” All of NASA’s launches had been suspended for two years. Whereas the shuttles finally flew once more, post-Columbia, this system was stunted and curtailed.
However as NASA floundered, Elon Musk’s upstart SpaceX scheduled its personal launches. Musk’s endeavor initially proved simply how exhausting rocket science is, although his firm lastly discovered success in 2008 with its reusable Falcon Heavy rocket. The billionaire’s membership was usurping NASA in area. At about the identical time, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin was creating rockets aimed primarily at suborbital flight. United Launch Alliance introduced two legacy aerospace firms collectively, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, in a concerted effort to develop and launch huge rockets. All 4 firms are thriving immediately within the area trade.
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Virgin Galactic, an American firm operated by Sir Richard Branson, is devoted to area tourism moderately than exploration. Likewise, Axiom House was based in 2016 to ascertain an area station for adventurers. And now, SpaceX has set its sight on returning people to the moon.
House entrepreneurs had been themselves launched into motion, pushed by the possibility to generate profits throughout NASA’s lull after the demise of the Columbia. NASA, removed from feeling threatened, has inspired lots of the personal firms with huge contracts. The company already had an extended historical past of coping with sub-contractors, utilizing its pocketbook to steer aerospace improvement; that custom has adjusted seamlessly to the present area economic system.
Whether or not the rapacious present period in area will likely be propelled by the idealism of President John F. Kennedy’s American Moonshot is an unsure query. Actually, the seven astronauts doing round the clock experiments in physics on the Columbia had, simply as JFK hoped, “set sail on this new sea as a result of there’s new data to be gained, and new rights to be gained, and so they should be gained and used for the progress of all individuals.”
