Editor’s Be aware: The CNN Authentic Collection “Area Shuttle Columbia: The Last Flight” uncovers the occasions that finally led to catastrophe. The four-part documentary concludes at 9 p.m. ET/PT Sunday.
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When NASA’s Columbia shuttle launched on January 16, 2003, it carried a crew of seven astronauts who had spent almost three years attending to know each other earlier than venturing on a 16-day science mission into area.
NASA chosen astronauts Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel B. Clark, Rick D. Husband and William C. “Willie” McCool, in addition to Ilan Ramon of the Israeli Area Company for the mission in July 2000.
Through the day, the crew educated collectively, engaged on the camaraderie that will assist them as a crew. After work, the crew members and their households would collect for cookouts and laser tag at each other’s properties.
In footage: Area Shuttle Columbia’s closing flight
The STS-107 mission crew included 5 males and two girls of numerous backgrounds, religions, pursuits and hobbies. However moderately than let the variations divide them, the trainees got here collectively and inspired each other, stated Laura Husband, daughter of STS-107 Commander Rick Husband.
“I grew up with seeing this stunning image of all these completely different views, and so they cherished one another and labored so properly collectively,” Laura advised CNN. “They celebrated one another.”
Earlier than the launch, the crew went on an out of doors team-building journey in Wyoming. Because the shuttle commander, Rick thought it will assist the crew bond.
“I watched my dad actually construct a crew, and he did that with our household, too,” Laura stated. “He was a superb chief and a superb crew participant.”
Crew member Brown filmed the journey. Earlier than changing into a medical physician and astronaut, he was a collegiate varsity gymnast who carried out as an acrobat, 7-foot unicyclist and stilt walker.
The footage Brown captured reveals crew members laughing and joking with each other, making enjoyable of campfire brownies that appeared like bear scat and anticipating their mission with an infectious hopefulness.
“Once they got here again, it was like their bond was eternally,” stated Rosalind Hobgood, NASA secretary for the crew, within the CNN docuseries. “They walked in sync with one another. It was like left, proper, left, proper. They had been the Columbia crew. They had been STS-107. They had been a unit.”
After launching to area, the crew break up into two groups to conduct dozens of round the clock experiments and collect useful science knowledge whereas taking time to trade emails and revel in a few video calls with their households.
When Columbia reentered Earth’s ambiance on February 1, 2003, the shuttle broke aside over Texas on account of injury from a foam strike on the shuttle’s left wing after liftoff, and the crew was tragically misplaced.
Now, greater than twenty years after the lack of the Columbia astronauts, their members of the family proceed to honor the reminiscences and legacies of their family members.
Jonathan Clark first met his future spouse, Laurel, at a US Navy diving course for medical officers on the Naval Diving and Salvage Coaching Heart in Panama Metropolis, Florida, in February 1989. However he joked it wasn’t like the long-lasting bar scene from the 1986 film “High Gun.”
Jonathan and Laurel every teamed up with a diving buddy, and the 2 pairs had been subsequent to one another throughout coaching. She had a tenacious spirit and was a pure within the water, outswimming all the boys within the course “like a race boat,” he stated. She was extremely calm below stress, even when her diving helmet system flooded and she or he almost died.
After finishing the course, the 2 went on dive journeys collectively and shaped a friendship that bloomed right into a deeper relationship constructed on mutual respect and admiration, Jonathan stated.
Laurel turned one of many first feminine submarine medical officers and aced quite a few achievements earlier than changing into an astronaut. She was an outdoorsy individual and avid sailor who cherished tenting and nature. And he or she was at all times smiling.
“She was only a enjoyable, cheerful, constructive position mannequin,” he stated. “And fairly actually, I absorbed a number of who she was as a result of I spotted that’s a greater approach for me, not simply being that type of machismo, cocky man, however to consider issues and care about different folks. She was very emotionally clever and had a beautiful capability to learn folks and be capable of make any scenario higher.”
Laurel additionally loved being a mom and excelled at it, Jonathan stated.
“She made every little thing joyful on a regular basis,” stated her son, Iain Clark, within the sequence. “She was my complete world. I relied on my mother for a lot.”
The knowledge and perception that Jonathan gained from Laurel helped him course of his grief after shedding her, he stated. She taught him to just accept actuality however by no means abandon hope, and that people develop and be taught from loss and hardship.
“What I’m doing now’s working to make human spaceflight safer by specializing in what classes we will be taught after catastrophic occasions,” Jonathan stated. “It’s not about discovering who’s at fault. It’s about discovering the trigger and addressing and coping with that.”
Jonathan Clark was a flight surgeon in mission management at Johnson Area Heart in Houston in the course of the closing Columbia mission. After the tragedy, he turned his efforts to the restoration and investigation that adopted. He turned a member of the crew survival working group to find out the implications and classes of what might need enabled the crew to outlive, and the way these classes might be utilized sooner or later.
“I type of take a look at the legacy of Columbia as not simply the science that they recovered from the mission, but additionally the crew survival enhancements discovered,” he stated. “Spaceflight is a lot safer now than it was once.”
Since leaving NASA in 2005, Jonathan has labored with firms relating to crew security for area missions and different high-stakes operations. And he has found the “greatest job he by no means knew existed”: changing into a grandfather.
Iain Clark now has a daughter named Laurel, and she or he has a lot of her namesake’s attributes, together with a love of nature, water and the outside, “with a bubbly character such as you wouldn’t consider,” Jonathan stated.
“God gave Laurel again in a small approach,” he stated.
Rick Husband and his future spouse, Evelyn, grew up a mile down the highway from each other in Amarillo, Texas.
They went to the identical highschool, however they didn’t start courting till after working into every one other in school throughout a basketball recreation at Texas Tech College. Their first date was on January 28, 1977, and immediately, Rick knocked over a glass of water and bumped his head on a lightweight attempting to wash up the mess.
Quickly after, he advised Evelyn he needed to be a Dallas Cowboys soccer participant or an astronaut, however he didn’t assume being a soccer participant was practical, which made her snort. Rick had labored towards the purpose of changing into an astronaut since he was 4 years previous.
The 2 married after school, specializing in rising their religion collectively.
Rick was extremely humble, Evelyn stated. When folks requested about his job, he merely stated he labored for NASA, and solely would admit to being an astronaut after additional questioning, she stated. For Rick, religion got here first, household second and his job was third, Evelyn stated.
Regardless of how demanding his job was, Rick at all times made time to spend along with his household, his daughter Laura stated. He adorned her ceiling with glow-in-the-dark stars, acted out skits together with her at church and took her on father-daughter tenting journeys, creating candy reminiscences that she nonetheless cherishes. She cherished how goofy he was and favored to listen to him sing as a result of it was one in all his favourite issues to do.
Religion helped Evelyn and Rick navigate tough patches of their marriage, she stated. When Rick entered a quarantine to stop crew members from getting sick earlier than launch, he advised Evelyn, “I really feel like we’re in the perfect place we’ve ever been in our marriage,” she recalled. And he or she advised him she felt the identical approach.
From area, Rick and his household shared a video name on January 28, 2003, and Rick wished Evelyn a “joyful courting anniversary.” It was the final time they ever spoke.
Evelyn and Laura relied on their religion to navigate their grief after the catastrophe, and so they felt like God protected them via a number of the worst days, they stated.
Eight months after her loss, Evelyn learn the accident investigation report that was launched. She remembers struggling together with her anger, realizing that NASA knew the froth strike could have brought about a difficulty and that possibly one thing might have been carried out to save lots of the crew. She prayed that she wouldn’t be bitter.
Evelyn has since attended seminars hosted by NASA to recollect the Columbia tragedy and share classes discovered, in order that historical past by no means repeats itself once more.
“I’ve a ton of buddies at NASA, and I nonetheless do,” Evelyn stated. “No one did this on goal. NASA needed to do a very onerous take care of (the) Challenger (explosion in 1986), after which they wanted to do a very onerous take care of Columbia. So it was tremendous vital to me to not be bitter and to take care of this relationship with them, and it’s actually paid off.”
Inside the previous 10 years, Evelyn has turn into the one feminine board member of a ministry referred to as Fathers within the Discipline, a program that pairs mentor fathers with fatherless boys for a three-year dedication. She needs that her son, Matthew, might have had that have after shedding his father.
Laura was 12 when her dad died, forcing her to develop up rapidly. Now, she displays on how intentional her dad was along with his time. Religion and her love of storytelling, singing, dancing and performing have helped her alongside the best way, she stated.
“My want is to stay and foster magnificence on this planet and deliberately do one thing along with different folks to carry hope indirectly,” Laura stated.
Rising up with the opposite crew children, Laura remembers the adults speaking over barbecue whereas the children went upstairs and performed for hours.
Laura and Tal Ramon, son of Ilan Ramon, had been solely a couple of yr aside in age, and they’d paint or play piano collectively. Now, Tal is a singer-songwriter, pianist and composer. And lots of the Columbia children are artistic in quite a lot of methods — one thing that connects them past tragedy.
“It’s one thing that existed in all of us, and possibly it’s as a result of we watched our mother and father do huge issues,” Laura stated. “That gave us stability and safety to dream huge.”