2003 Columbia shuttle destroyed
Feb 3 2003
Wilderness hunt for bodies of 7 hero astronauts. From Richard Wallace, Us Editor, In Nacogdoches, Texas. THIS is America's new Ground Zero - the towns and plains of Texas strewn with the debris of stricken space shuttle Columbia. Scattered across the earth yesterday were a solitary helmet and chunks of charred and twisted metal, some a few inches long, others 7ft wide. Many were toxic and still smoking. Centre of the crash was Nacogdoches, Texas' oldest town, where more than 1,000 pieces of wreckage were found. Other debris spread over 500 square miles. Scores of charred tiles, some of the 20,000 that protected Columbia from 2,500F temperatures and whose failure may have caused the disaster, littered the area in a grim swathe. With the gruesome task of recovering the body parts and wreckage under way, emergency coordinator Billy Smith said: "We'll probably be finding pieces for years." Of the seven astronauts - five men and two women - who died when Columbia burned up at 12,500mph 40 miles above the earth all that remained were body parts. Along with the helmet, a boot sole and an unmarked Nasa mission badge engraved with the crew's names bore poignant testimony to a disaster that has shaken the US to its core. But despite claims of sloppy safety checks and underfunding, America was determined that its dream of exploring the unknown still further must continue. Yesterday, as world leaders sent messages of condolence, memorial services were held across the US and the Pope led prayers for the dead, experts believed Columbia was doomed from the moment it left the launch pad on January 16. It is thought a piece of stray insulating fuel tank foam hit the left wing on lift-off and may have damaged vital thermal heat protection tiles. The foul-up was spotted and checked. But Nasa said there was no reason for concern. Shuttle programme manager Ron Dittemore revealed last night that Columbia's mid- fuselage experienced a 60F rise in five minutes. He admitted that damage or loss of the tiles could be to blame, saying: "We can't discount a connection. But we can't rush to judgment." Manufacturers Lockheed said Nasa was using an older version of the fuel tank. Pre-flight information from Nasa said a newer super-lightweight version was installed. Those killed in Saturday's disaster were commander Rick Husband, 45, pilot William McCool, 41, payload commander Michael Anderson, 43, mission specialists David Brown, 46, KalpanaChawla, 41, and Laurel Clark, 41, and Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, 48. Their families watched the tragedy unfold live on TV. President George Bush and wife Laura will today attend a memorial service at the JohnsonCenter mission control in Houston, Texas. In Nacogdoches yesterday locals were still coming to terms with the day the skies hailed smoking metal. At the town square a chunk the size of a car bonnet was turned into an impromptu shrine to the dead. A barrel-shaped piece of Columbia fell like a bomb on the local airport landing strip. Three highway patrol cars guarded the entrance of an electricity sub station where part of the shuttle's control panel had hurtled to the ground. Nobody was allowed within 200 yards of the site. One officer said: "I'm told it's real important that it's not touched." Nasa chiefs warned that all debris should be avoided as it could be hazardous. At least eight people needed hospital treatment for burns and breathing problems after getting too close to wreckage. Body parts including an arm, leg, torso, hand and head were spread across a vast wilderness. Three boys from SabineCounty aged eight, six and four, heard the explosion and headed in its direction. Their father Bob White said: "They came back with eyes wide open, saying ''Dad, there's a human leg in our pasture.' Sure enough from hip to foot it was all there, scorched." The leg dug a six-inch deep 2ft long crater in the ground. Mr White covered it with a blanket and called police. Officers and firefighters paused to say a prayer before wrapping it in a body bag and taking it away in a hearse. In Hemphill, near the Louisiana state line, hospital employee Mike Gibbs found what appeared to be a charred torso, thigh bone and skull. Fifteen miles outside Nacogdoches, a metallic sphere about 30ins across landed intact. For hours it lay undisturbed in the woods, oozing a yellow gas. Nasa confirmed it was probably one of the shuttle's auxiliary power unit fuel tanks. To help the recovery effort, the authorities banned aircraft from flying below 3,000ft in an area 160 miles long and 40 miles wide. Pilots were to watch out for a debris cloud. As flags flew at half-mast I joined Bonnie Kerr, 71, and her daughter Bambi surveying the land around their home. At the roadside lay a mangled bundle of burned and twisted metal and plastic that had bounced off their roof. Bonnie said: "We were sitting on the porch when there was this huge bang like a bomb. "The whole house shook. I went outside and saw this metal thing the size of a fist floating down. Then I saw this huge piece lying there still smoking and sparking. We found bits of tile all over the place. It must have showered down." Other wreckage tore holes in roofs, scorched front lawns and ripped a street light from its pole. The first Mission Control knew something was terribly wrong came at 7.53am when sensors on Columbia's left wing suddenly malfunctioned. For the next seven minutes experts tried to trace the cause of the fault. Contact was lost at 8.00am, 16 minutes before the craft was due to land at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. Moments later there were up to four explosions and a solitary vapour trail from the shuttle broke into several smaller trails. Hundreds of thousands on the ground heard a huge rolling, thunderous boom that rumbled on for around 30 seconds rattling homes and shaking the ground. Never before in 42 years of human spaceflight, has a space crew been lost on landing. The doomed flight was the 113th in America's shuttle programme. It was the 28th flight for Columbia which, built in 1981, was Nasa's oldest craft.
TIMELINE TO DISASTER For the doomed crew of the Columbia space shuttle, it took just seven minutes to take their journey from the brink of mission accomplished to disaster and tragedy. Here is a breakdown of the final moments of the Columbia's journey, based on news reports and the independent Spaceflight Now mission website: 1353 GMT: Some sensors for recording the temperatures in the spacecraft's hydraulic systems, both inboard and outboard, go offline. An independent commission set up by Nasa to investigate the tragedy said this was the first indication of trouble. The spacecraft had just re-entered the atmosphere and was to be subjected to its highest temperatures. 1356: Temperatures in the housing of the left main landing gear rise. At this point the shuttle is 207,135ft or 39 miles up and travelling at 12,500mph - 18 times the speed of sound. 1358: Temperature sensors in the left wing, embedded in the structure of the vehicle, stop working. 1359: Pressure and temperature sensors for both tyres on the left main landing gear go offline. 1400: Residents in North Texas report hearing a "big bang" in the skies. At the same time all radio and data communication with the Columbia is lost. The final radio transmission between Mission Control and the shuttle at this time gave little indication of any trouble. Mission Control radios: "Columbia, Houston, we see your tyre pressure messages and we did not copy your last." Columbia's commander, Rick Husband, calmly responds: "Roger, uh, buh ..." The transmission then went silent for several seconds before nothing but static is heard. Television pictures show a bright light over Texas followed by smoke plumes streaking across the sky. 1416: Columbia is scheduled to land at Cape Canaveral in Florida but there remains no sight or word. 1431: Nasa, having already declared an emergency and that it was "fearing the worst", announces search and rescue teams are being mobilised in the Dallas and Fort Worth areas.
Within hours debris begins to be recovered from across Texas. The tragedy came as Nasa marked the death of seven astronauts in the Challenger shuttle on January 28, 1986, and the deaths of three other astronauts in the Apollo spacecraft blaze on January 27, 1967.
