|
|
7
Astronauts Die As Shuttle Breaks Apart
By MARCIA DUNN CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Space shuttle Columbia broke apart in flames 200,000 feet over Texas on Saturday, killing all seven astronauts just minutes before they were to glide to a landing in Florida. "Columbia is lost; there are no survivors," President Bush announced to a stunned nation. NASA lost contact with the shuttle at 9 a.m. EST, 16 minutes before it had been scheduled to land. Bill Readdy, NASA associate administrator for space flight, said it was too early to speculate about a cause. A senior U.S. official said there was no indication of terrorism. The first indication of a potential problem occurred minutes before 9 a.m. when there was a loss of temperature sensors on left wing, said Ron Dittemore, the shuttle program manager. During Columbia's liftoff, a piece of insulating foam from the fuel tank was believed to have hit that wing. Dittemore said the loss of the sensors on the left wing was followed seconds later by several other problems, including a loss of tire pressure and indications of excessive structural heating. "Our thoughts and our prayers go out to the families of Rick and Willie and Davie and Kalpana, Michael and Larel and Ilan. True heroes," he said. The six Americans and one Israeli aboard Columbia had been expected to land in Florida at 9:16 a.m. At 9 a.m., Mission Control abruptly lost all data and voice contact with the shuttle. 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 any trouble. Mission Control radioed: "Columbia, Houston, we see your tire pressure messages and we did not copy your last." Columbia's commander, Rick Husband, calmly responds: "Roger, buh ..." Then the transmission goes silent for several seconds, followed by static. Military satellites with infrared detectors recorded several flashes as Columbia broke apart, according to a defense official who spoke only on condition of anonymity. It was unclear whether those "spikes" of heat indicated an explosion, the burning of pieces of debris re-entering the atmosphere or something else. Television footage showed a bright light followed by smoke plumes streaking through the sky. Debris appeared to break off into separate balls of light as it continued downward. In Nacogdoches, Texas, residents found bits of metal strewn across the city. Dentist Jeff Hancock said a metal bracket about a foot long had 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." 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. The U.S. flag next to the center's countdown clock was lowered to half-staff. "A contingency for the space shuttle has been declared," Mission Control somberly repeated over and over from Houston. At Kennedy Space Center, O'Keefe met with the astronauts' families, who had earlier gathered at the landing strip to watch the shuttle's return. Six of the seven astronauts were married, and five of them had children. The crew was relatively inexperienced. Only three of the seven had flown in space before: shuttle commander Husband, Michael Anderson and Kalpana Chawla. The other four were rookies: pilot William McCool, David Brown, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut. NASA officials warned people on the ground to stay away from any fallen shuttle debris. EPA spokesman Joe Martyak said he didn't know what toxic chemicals could be amid the debris because the shuttle can undergo reactions from the intense heat of reentry. The shuttle flight was the 113th 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. The shuttle is essentially a glider during the hour-long decent from orbit toward the landing strip. It 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. The shuttle was at an altitude of about 203,000 feet over north-central Texas, traveling at 12,500 mph, when Mission Control lost all contact and tracking data. Readdy said the speed was equivalent to Mach 18, or 18 times the speed of sound. Gary Hunziker in Plano, Texas, said he saw the shuttle flying overhead. "I could see two bright objects flying off each side of it," he told The Associated Press. "I just assumed they were chase jets." "The barn started shaking and we ran out and started looking around," said Benjamin Laster of Kemp, Texas. "I saw a puff of vapor and smoke and saw big chunk of material fall." Former astronaut John Glenn and his wife were watching on television at their home in Maryland. "Anytime you lose contact like that, there's some big problem. Of course, once you went for several minutes without any contact, you knew something was terribly wrong," Glenn said. Security had been extraordinarily tight for the 16-day scientific research mission because of the presence of Ramon. Ramon, 48, a colonel in Israel's air force and former fighter pilot, had survived two wars. He became the first man from his country to fly in space, and his presence resulted in an increase in security, not only for Columbia's launch, but also for its planned landing. Space agency officials feared his presence might make the shuttle more of a terrorist target. "The state of Israel and its citizens are as one at this difficult time," the prime minister's office said in a statement. A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no specific threats had been made against the shuttle and that it would have been out of range of a surface-to-air missile at the time. Dr. Yael Barr of the Israeli Aerospace Medicine Institute was waiting at the landing strip for the astronauts' return. "When the countdown clock, when it got to zero and then started going, instead of counting down, counting up and they were still not there, I told my friend, 'I have a bad feeling. I think they are gone.' And I was in tears," Barr said. NASA put a hold on space flights Saturday, and an investigative board from outside the agency will help determine the root cause of the problem, Dittemore said, but he said it was too early to say what long-term impact the tragedy would have on the shuttle program. The crew aboard the international space station will have enough supplies to last through the end of June, he said. The Russian Space Agency said a Sunday launch of a Progress cargo ship to the station would go forward as planned. Columbia's crew had completed 80-plus scientific research experiments during their time in orbit. "To have this happen with 15 minutes to go until it was over was just unbelievable," said Clark's brother, Daniel Salton. But in his sadness, he said he knew she was doing what she loved. "I'm just so glad she got to get up to space and got to see it," he said, "because that had been a dream for a long time." Just
in the past week, NASA observed the anniversary of its only two other
space tragedies, the Challenger explosion, which killed all seven astronauts
on board, and the Apollo spacecraft fire that killed three on Jan. 27,
1967.
|
