- hace 20 horas
As the Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center on a 16-day mission, a piece of insulating foam breaks off the external fuel tank and damages the left wing of the shuttle. As it enters the Earth's atmosphere during the return trip, Columbia disintegrates under the massive heat, killing all seven astronauts on board.
Categoría
📺
TVTranscripción
00:01Seven astronauts aboard Space Shuttle Columbia complete a routine mission and head back to Earth.
00:07Mission Control expects a trouble-free re-entry.
00:11For just 16 minutes from landing, disaster strikes.
00:15The crew loses control. The shuttle disintegrates in the skies over Texas.
00:20Everyone on board perishes.
00:22The event shocks the world.
00:24It's the second shuttle disaster in 17 years.
00:29Now, using advanced computer simulations, we reveal exactly what caused Columbia's destruction.
00:37Disasters don't just happen. They're a chain of critical events.
00:41Unravel the clues and count down those final seconds from disaster.
00:55USA. Florida.
00:58Kennedy Space Center.
01:01January 16, 2003.
01:057 a.m.
01:08The cream of America's astronaut corps suits up for the launch of Space Shuttle Columbia.
01:14Mission STS-107 will be the 113th flight of NASA's shuttle program.
01:19Launched in 1981, Columbia was the first shuttle in space and is the oldest in the fleet.
01:25This mission will be its 28th.
01:28And blast-off is less than four hours away.
01:33The seven exceptional men and women selected to take on this huge responsibility are
01:38William McCool, renowned athlete and U.S. Navy test pilot.
01:42Ilan Ramon, Israeli Air Force colonel.
01:46He's the first-ever Israeli astronaut.
01:48David Brown, Navy flight surgeon and top-class fighter pilot.
01:52Mike Anderson, Air Force lieutenant colonel.
01:56Kalpala Chalwa, flight instructor and scientist.
02:00It's the first trip into space for Laurel Clark.
02:04A former Navy commander, she specialized in diving assignments with the U.S. Navy SEALs.
02:09She's been married to John for 12 years.
02:12They have an eight-year-old son.
02:14She applied, and she was pregnant with our son.
02:17So she goes to the application process six months pregnant.
02:20She's huge.
02:21I was just giving her all kinds of grief.
02:23I said, there's no way you're going to ever get picked like that.
02:25You know, you don't, you just don't look the part.
02:28She stuck it out, and she had a great time on her interview, and then the next cycle, she applied,
02:32and she got in.
02:36Rick's husband, aged 45, will command Columbia.
02:40He and his wife, Evelyn, are due to celebrate their 21st wedding anniversary less than a month after his return.
02:46For Rick, going into space has been a lifelong dream.
02:50The first time Rick figured out that he wanted to be an astronaut was when he was four years old.
02:54So this was a goal that he set at a very young age.
02:57Rick is a fast-rising star of the Shuffle program.
03:00NASA promoted him to commander after his first flight.
03:04But he's had a long wait to take up his command.
03:07NASA has delayed this mission 13 times.
03:117.05 a.m.
03:14It's over an hour since engineers fueled Columbia for launch.
03:18Its orange external tank now contains nearly 2 million liters of liquid hydrogen and oxygen.
03:25But before Commander Rick Husband can lead his crew to the launch pad, he must take part in an eccentric
03:31NASA tradition.
03:33Rick Searforce is a good friend of Rick Husband and a former commander of Columbia.
03:38There's a card game, it's a blackjack-type card game, that the commander has to play with the boss, the
03:45head of flight crew operations.
03:46And the crew can't go out to the vehicle until the commander loses a hand.
03:57But that's something that we've done for years and years.
04:027.30 a.m.
04:04The astronauts leave crew quarters to take the astrovan to the waiting shuttle.
04:14But now as Commander Rick Husband approaches the launch pad, all thoughts turn to the dangerous job ahead.
04:21In the astrovan, as you get closer and closer to the pad, begin to put on the game face a
04:26little bit more.
04:27And you're thinking about what you're going to be doing when and the whole sequence of events.
04:31And then you just take it one step at a time.
04:337.53 a.m.
04:36Rick Husband climbs into the commander's seat on Columbia's flight deck.
04:41After two years of waiting, he must now focus on the most dangerous eight and a half minutes of the
04:46entire mission, the launch phase.
04:48The launch is by far the riskiest phase of the flight.
04:52The amounts of energy that you're trying to control are just phenomenal.
04:56So you're right to be scared.
04:58No one is more aware of the danger than the astronauts' families.
05:02I had every confidence that it was going to go well, but it's frightening because of what happened with Challenger.
05:09In 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after blast-off, killing all seven crew members.
05:19The cause of the accident, a fault in one of the rocket boosters, was corrected inside three years.
05:25But the disaster has cast a shadow over every shuttle launch since.
05:3110.38, countdown to the launch of Space Shuttle Columbia.
05:3631 seconds to go.
05:39Mission control implements the final phase of the launch sequence.
05:43Commander Rick Husband hands over control to the onboard flight computers.
05:49At six seconds before blast-off, computers fire the main engines.
05:54Go for main engine, start.
05:59Now, there's no turning back.
06:01Three, two, one.
06:03We have booster ignition and liftoff of Space Shuttle Columbia.
06:07At 10.39 a.m., Columbia lifts off, its engines consuming fuel at the rate of an Olympic-sized swimming
06:14pool every 30 seconds.
06:17Launch is a very exhilarating ride.
06:20Just like a giant hand has picked you up, and while it's pushing you very violently, it's also shaking you
06:26back and forth.
06:27Now comes the part of the launch that everyone fears most.
06:31The call to go and throttle up from mission control.
06:35On this command, the shuttle's computers will boost Columbia's velocity to 12,000 kilometers per hour.
06:42The speed it must reach to break free of the Earth's atmosphere.
06:46It was at this precise point in the launch that Space Shuttle Challenger exploded.
06:52Ex-mission controller Jim Oberg knows how apprehensive crew and ground staff feel right now.
06:58Later flights, when that same call was made, people remembered.
07:03People had been trained.
07:04Be scared.
07:05Be afraid at this point.
07:07They were.
07:09Mission control radios the command to Rick Husband in Columbia.
07:13Columbia, Houston.
07:14Go at throttle up.
07:16We're talking.
07:17Go at throttle up.
07:25Now the shuttle hurtles towards its escape velocity, almost 10 times the speed of sound.
07:3443 kilometers up, Columbia sheds its solid rocket boosters.
07:40At 10.47, the shuttle's flight computers shut down the main engines.
07:45The most dangerous phase of the mission is over.
07:49Columbia and its crew are in space.
07:513, 2, 3, 2, 1, now.
07:56Okay, welcome to space.
08:00280 kilometers below, staff at mission control can relax.
08:05It's been a textbook launch.
08:08But 24 hours later, NASA technicians running a routine check on video footage find a disturbing anomaly.
08:17Shortly after takeoff, a piece of insulation foam from the external fuel tank detaches, striking Columbia's wing.
08:25It disintegrates in a shower of pieces.
08:28It disintegrates in a shower of pieces.
08:30NASA managers assess the potential damage.
08:34Could the mission be threatened almost before it's begun?
08:41January 17th, 2003.
08:43Space Shuttle Columbia hurtles through orbit at a breathtaking speed of 2,800 kilometers per hour.
08:51The mission is going perfectly to plan.
08:56Six astronauts, led by Commander Rick Husband, prepare for the mission ahead.
09:02But back on Earth, NASA engineers are worried.
09:06Video footage from the launch has shown a piece of insulating foam that's detached from the fuel tank and hit
09:11the shuttle's wing.
09:13They must assess the damage.
09:16Foam strikes like these have occurred on nearly every single shuttle launch, with no serious consequences.
09:24Jim Oberg, at NASA for 22 years, has seen it happen before.
09:29Stuff coming off the fuel tank is pretty common.
09:33The phrases that they use about foam strikes, foam coming off the tank, was that it was not a safety
09:38issue, but a maintenance issue.
09:40And this is no exception.
09:43NASA managers agree the foam strike is a maintenance problem.
09:46It can be checked out when the shuttle returns to Earth.
09:49They take no further action.
09:54The astronauts begin their mission.
09:56They'll run 79 scientific experiments, exploring the effect of zero gravity on human cells.
10:03The results may help to develop treatments for illnesses like cancer and osteoporosis.
10:09But they also have time to enjoy the enormous privilege of being in space, a feeling that former shuttle commander
10:16Rick Sierfoss will never forget.
10:18What's it like to be in space?
10:20Is my smile big enough?
10:22I mean, it's just unbelievable.
10:24It's incredible.
10:25The most amazing thing is to see the planet from that perspective.
10:30Such a unique view.
10:32It's amazing.
10:34January 31st, 2003.
10:37After 16 days in space, the experiments are almost complete.
10:42The crew's mood is buoyant.
10:44The mission has been a great success.
10:47Tomorrow, they go home.
10:49No one is more excited than the crew's families.
10:53February 1st, 2003.
10:56The next day.
10:57The astronauts put on their pressure suits, designed to stand the enormous G-forces of re-entry.
11:02They strap themselves into their seats on the flight deck of Columbia.
11:088, 10 a.m. Eastern Time.
11:11Johnson Space Center in Houston gives the crew the all-clear for re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
11:18Leroy Cain is flight director at Mission Control.
11:22One man who knows all too well what he'll be feeling now is Jim Oberg.
11:26As you approach entry, the tension does build up.
11:29Perhaps not quite as tense as during launch, but darn near.
11:34If something goes wrong here, it's almost as dangerous as blast-off.
11:418, 15 a.m.
11:44Rick Husband starts the series of maneuvers that will put Columbia into the correct position for re-entry.
11:49The commander flies the vehicle up into this attitude, so it comes into the atmosphere with what we call a
11:5540-degree angle of attack,
11:57and then just starts slamming in that way.
12:018, 44.
12:02As the 100-ton shuttle pierces the atmosphere at 2,800 kilometers per hour,
12:08the resulting friction heats its wings to 1,400 degrees Celsius.
12:13The only thing protecting the shuttle now is its outer skin of insulation tiles.
12:19The energy and superheated gases thrown off create a spectacular light show for the astronauts on the flight deck.
12:25Wow, this looks like a blast race.
12:28It's kind of a pinkish-orange glow of this very hot ionized gases.
12:33And if you're the commander pilot, you're sitting right there, a foot away from looking at this light show, and
12:38it's amazing.
12:40Members of the crew joke with each other as the shuttle rockets through the atmosphere nine times faster than a
12:45speeding bullet.
12:46This is amazing. It's really getting fairly bright out there.
12:49Yeah, you definitely don't want to be outside now.
12:538, 54 a.m.
12:56Spirits are high.
12:58Everything points to a safe landing.
13:00Then, controllers analyzing data beamed down from Columbia get a surprise.
13:06Four temperature sensors on the shuttle's left side suddenly fail.
13:11FYI, I've just lost four separate temperature transducers on the left side of the vehicle, hydraulic return temperatures.
13:19Four high return temps?
13:21As a veteran of seven re-entries, Leroy Cain knows that sensor dropouts don't necessarily indicate a major problem.
13:29Everything looks good to you? Everything is nominal, right?
13:32Control's been stable. I don't see anything out of the ordinary.
13:35Okay.
13:36There's plenty of simple and safe reasons that can cause that without assuming that it's a hazard yet to the
13:43crew.
13:44Everything else looks normal.
13:46Mission control doesn't inform the crew.
13:528, 55 a.m.
13:54Man, look at that sunrise.
13:56Columbia is now visible from Earth.
13:58You see it?
13:59Yeah.
14:00Shuttle enthusiast Chris Valentine, his son and brother, are up early to catch a glimpse of Columbia as it crosses
14:06the California coast.
14:07Oh, it's cool.
14:08Yeah.
14:09That is cool.
14:10This is their camcorder footage.
14:12Oh, man, that is... look at the trail.
14:14Oh, that's beauty.
14:16There's seven people in that thing.
14:18Yeah.
14:18Wow.
14:20But then they spot something strange.
14:22Look at the chunks coming off of it.
14:24Yeah.
14:25What the heck is that?
14:27I don't know, but I see what you're saying.
14:29Check that out.
14:32On Columbia's flight deck, Commander Rick Husband and his crew are unaware of any damage to the shuttle.
14:428, 59 a.m.
14:448, 59 a.m.
14:45Without access to live pictures of the shuttle, mission control is in the dark, too.
14:49By goodness, we're processing drag with good residual.
14:51Copy.
14:53But then more sensors go offline.
14:56FYI, I've just lost tire pressure on left outboard and left inboard both tires.
15:02When mission control began to see this series of sensor dropouts, one after the other, you assume it's not coincidence.
15:09Something is causing them all.
15:11That's when you begin to worry.
15:16In mission control, there's now a mounting sensor foreboding.
15:20Leroy Cain tries to contact shuttle commander Rick Husband.
15:23In Columbia, Houston, we see your tire pressure messages, and we did not copy your last.
15:27Is it instrumentation?
15:28Our flight max is also off.
15:30Roger.
15:36The message breaks off abruptly.
15:44On board Columbia, flight computers are losing control of the shuttle's descent.
15:50Mission control now fears there's a problem.
15:53Controllers try again to contact Rick Husband.
15:56Columbia, Houston, comm check.
16:02Columbia, Houston, UHF, comm check.
16:11Columbia, Houston, UHF, comm check.
16:15There's no reply from Columbia.
16:29The shuttle Columbia is scheduled to land in just 16 minutes.
16:33Evelyn Husband and her children can't wait to be reunited with Rick.
16:36We were very excited.
16:39We had breakfast, and we drove to the landing site.
16:41It was a beautiful Florida morning, and everything was going well.
16:47But 60 kilometers above the Earth, Space Shuttle Columbia is starting to break a pass.
17:00Columbia, Houston, UHF, comm check.
17:07Columbia, Houston, UHF, comm check.
17:24At 9 a.m. and 18 seconds, eyewitnesses on the ground in Texas and Louisiana see a cluster of bright
17:31lights leaving vapor trails across the morning sky.
17:35It's almost 46 seconds since mission control lost all contact with Columbia.
17:40No onboard system can fake changes right before we lost data.
17:46Without any information coming in, flight director Leroy Cain fears that Columbia is in serious trouble.
17:52But he's unaware of the shuttle's fate.
17:569.03 a.m.
17:59Hemp Hill, East Texas.
18:01Sheriff of Sabine County, Tom Maddox, checks through his morning work schedule.
18:05All of a sudden, you know, the whole building shook.
18:11And all of a sudden, all five lines that I have coming into my office immediately lit up.
18:18I picked up the first one.
18:19Sabine County Sheriff's Office, Tom Maddox speaking.
18:21And the first one said there that I had a plane crash there in the northern part of my county.
18:25All right, we'll have someone down there shortly.
18:27I picked up the second one.
18:28Tom Maddox speaking.
18:29And it said I had a plane crash in the southern part of my county.
18:31All right, we'll have a unit there shortly.
18:33I picked up the third one.
18:35And they said that I had a train derailment on the western side of my county.
18:39Sheriff Maddox hurries to investigate the noise that residents heard in the skies of East Texas that morning.
18:469.12 a.m.
18:48In mission control, cut off from the outside world, only now does the terrible news filter through.
18:55A NASA employee phones in to tell the team that he's seen TV footage of Columbia disintegrating.
19:01All seven astronauts are presumed dead.
19:06The flight director feels like an officer who's had a man killed in his unit.
19:10A commercial pilot who's had a crash landing and lost passengers.
19:14Someone on your watch has been killed.
19:18A devastated Leroy Cain gives the signal to start investigation procedures.
19:23Flight DC.
19:23Lock the doors.
19:24Copy.
19:27On the ground, the danger still isn't over, as pieces of the 100-ton space shuttle start to crash down
19:33from the sky.
19:37In East Texas, Jack Martin and Kent Griffin are out fishing on Toledo Bend Reservoir.
19:44First, we heard a sound, a big rumble, like an explosion, like a sonic boom.
19:49But it just kept going and kept going.
19:52Then we heard a whistling sound, like something was tumbling.
19:55We didn't know what the heck it was.
19:58It just kept getting louder and louder and louder.
20:00Both kind of knew then.
20:01I said, you know, we in a heap of trouble now.
20:07If that thing would have hit this boat, we would have went down right there.
20:11But what Jack and Kent witness is just one of 84,000 pieces of debris crashing down to earth,
20:18causing chaos across Texas and Louisiana.
20:25You know, we were real fortunate that with as much debris there that did fall upon us,
20:30that, you know, not a single person there was injured.
20:35At 1 p.m., NASA officially announces the loss at Columbia.
20:39President Bush addresses a shocked nation.
20:42These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly.
20:47Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more.
20:55It's the second shuttle NASA has lost in 17 years.
20:58The Columbia disaster shakes the space program to its core.
21:03What made the 113th space shuttle flight go so catastrophically wrong?
21:09Now, by rewinding the events of that fateful day and going deep into the investigation,
21:14we can reveal what really happened.
21:23Advanced computer simulations will take us where no camera can go,
21:28into the heart of the disaster zone.
21:33Leroy Cain triggers the investigation the moment he gives the official command to go to disaster mode.
21:39Lock the doors. Copy.
21:40Lock the doors means don't speculate, don't communicate.
21:45Get down on your console, write down what you've done, what you've seen, what you thought.
21:51Capture those raw memories so that later on, someone else can use them to figure out what really happened.
21:58Within three hours of the disaster, NASA's deputy administrator asks retired four-star Navy Admiral Hal Gaiman to head the
22:05investigation.
22:07I asked whether or not my appointment had been cleared by the White House, and he said it had been,
22:13because I wanted to make sure, of course, that I had the backing of the whole government.
22:17Gaiman assembles a team of 12 experts to run the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, or CABE.
22:23One of their first jobs is to tackle speculation already making headline news in the media.
22:29Could terrorists have brought down the shuttle?
22:31The chances of somebody interfering with a shuttle flight once it's in space is pretty low.
22:36But the chance of interfering with a shuttle when it takes off, that's something that people take very seriously,
22:42especially on a flight like this with an Israeli astronaut on board.
22:45So whether someone could sneak up close enough with a high-powered missile to fire it during the liftoff phase
22:50of the flight,
22:51that is not something you can dismiss as impossible.
22:54It's one of the first theories that Admiral Gaiman must explore.
22:58We investigated the security at Cape Kennedy, as well as the security of who gets near the shuttle.
23:05And we satisfied ourselves that the security was quite good and that this was not a likely cause.
23:11Now, Gaiman dedicates a team of investigators to examine every second of the re-entry phase.
23:17They quickly focus on unusual temperature sensor readings, beamed back from the shuttle,
23:23minutes before mission control loses touch with Columbia's crew.
23:27They make a vital discovery.
23:30Some sensors showed extremely high temperature readings before going offline.
23:36Crucially, this cluster of readings all came from the same area of the shuttle.
23:42These happen to be in the wheel well, the place where the landing gear folds up relatively deep inside the
23:47wing.
23:47At the time, mission control dismissed the readings as anomalies.
23:51But now Gaiman's team realizes that they are no coincidence.
23:55There can only be one reason for this cluster of high-temperature readings.
24:00Superheated gases from re-entry must have somehow got inside the shuttle's left wheel well.
24:06It all points to a startling conclusion.
24:08There must have been a breach in Columbia's outer skin.
24:13This was not a matter of a rivet hole being missing or a little seam or a little piece of
24:18insulation being missing.
24:19A lot of heat had gotten into the shuttle's wing.
24:22Not a little bit of heat. A lot of heat.
24:25Investigators suspect that hot gases somehow penetrated the shuttle's protective insulation
24:29to get into the wheel well, perhaps via a broken seal on the landing gear doors.
24:35But to find out for sure, they need a lot more data.
24:39Data that would only have been recorded on board Columbia itself.
24:43The flight data recorders aboard shuttles usually record only limited re-entry information.
24:49But the recorder that Columbia carried was unique.
24:52By chance, it had been set up to record comprehensive re-entry data for post-flight analysis.
24:58There is one hitch.
25:00The data recorder didn't have an armored casing.
25:03It's not like a flight recorder on board a commercial airline.
25:06It's not a black box.
25:07It is not designed to survive a crash or fire or anything like that.
25:12But it does record thousands and thousands of on-board events.
25:16And we knew it would be very useful if we could find this thing.
25:21Investigators are doubtful that the recorder could survive the 60-kilometer fall to Earth.
25:26But they know that finding it offers their best chance of discovering what caused Columbia's loss.
25:37Investigators coordinate an enormous operation to recover the wreckage of Space Shovel, Columbia.
25:42They hope that what they find might shed light on Columbia's disastrous loss.
25:47They dropped in 25,000 people from all over the United States to search on foot through the vast expanses
25:54of land in Texas and Louisiana, where the wreckage fell.
25:58But after six weeks, there's no sign of the data recorder unit anywhere.
26:03It's a dead end.
26:05Without more information, investigators cannot know for sure if superheated gases penetrated the shuttle during re-entry.
26:12Their best chance of solving the mystery is slipping away.
26:16Then investigators hit upon a plan.
26:19The search is turning up many pieces of Columbia's wreckage.
26:22Could they provide a reference point to estimate where an object, the size and weight of the data recorder, would
26:28land?
26:29The team uses complex computer software to do the calculations.
26:34We calculated where this data recorder ought to be, and it turned out to be an area that had already
26:40been searched.
26:42The analysis tells them that the box should be here, in the area of Hemphill.
26:50Investigators send the searchers back in.
26:53There's just a chance they missed the box in this swampy, overgrown area.
26:59Chauncey Birdtail, a Native American firefighter, flies in from Montana to join the search effort.
27:05But after three hard weeks, he's ready to give up.
27:08It was tough, man.
27:10I was getting tired, and I was kind of wanting to go back home.
27:13I haven't had a find since the first week.
27:15I didn't even know what I was doing here anymore, fighting off the briars.
27:19After weeks of searching, the hunt for the data recorder looks like another dead end.
27:24I was coming out of the thick, I could see a clear area.
27:28Then it hits me.
27:31It was laying there like something thrown away somebody didn't want.
27:36I ran up to it, and I knew, I seen that tape fluttering in the breeze.
27:41I got a find.
27:42Somebody mentioned, yeah, that's the black box.
27:44So I was pretty confident it was a good find.
27:49Incredibly, the data recorder appears to be totally intact, despite falling 60 kilometers with no protective casing.
27:56They found it, lying right out in the open, undamaged.
28:01Just a miracle.
28:02It's a godsend to the investigation.
28:05The recorder's undamaged magnetic tape contains data recorded from 800 different sensors.
28:13It's a mine of new information for the investigators.
28:18The data gives Gaiman's team their first major breakthrough.
28:21It confirms there was a hole in Columbia's outer skin that let in superheated gases during reentry.
28:29But it's not in the place they were expecting.
28:33What it showed was that the readings that we were getting, that the first place on the shuttle where the
28:39temperature rose was in the wheel well, was not true.
28:44That the heat had entered quite a long distance away, and we were completely wrong.
28:49We were looking in the wrong place.
28:51Gaiman realizes that the hole in Columbia's outer skin is not near the left wheel well, but somewhere towards the
28:58front of the left wing.
28:59What's more, his team is able to deduce when the hole was made, and it happened long before reentry.
29:06We came to the conclusion that the very first indication of any temperature rise turned out to be very, very
29:13early in the flight,
29:15when there was essentially no Earth's atmosphere to speak of.
29:20That convinced us with beyond a doubt that whatever was wrong with the shuttle was wrong before it tried to
29:27enter the Earth's atmosphere.
29:28In other words, it tried to enter the Earth's atmosphere with a pre-existing fault.
29:32All eyes turned to an incident during launch, something that was dismissed as unimportant at the time.
29:4082 seconds after launch, NASA footage shows a piece of foam detaching from the external fuel tank and hitting the
29:47shuttle.
29:49Now, investigators want to analyze it frame by frame to see if it did cause serious damage after all.
29:57But it's not that easy.
29:59There were three cameras trained on the shuttle during launch.
30:02One was at an oblique angle.
30:05Footage from another was blurred.
30:07The only one that captured the foam strike in full was 42 kilometers away.
30:12And the pictures just aren't clear enough to tell where the foam hit Columbia and whether it possibly could have
30:17damaged it.
30:19To tackle the problem, the investigation board drafts in top NASA specialist and head of the Mission to Mars program,
30:25Scott Hubbard.
30:27When you looked at the unprocessed data, you saw this big shower of particles.
30:33Also, people thought they saw one object, some saw two, some saw three.
30:38And there was a great debate over the exact size of the largest piece.
30:43The only way to settle that argument was to improve the quality of the images to try to remove the
30:49blur and the graininess.
30:51Enhancing the pictures takes two months, and Hubbard is eager to see the results.
30:57What they reveal excites him.
31:01This clip here, which is a loop of 17 frames, shows the size of the foam.
31:08It shows us where it hit.
31:10It shows us how fast it was traveling.
31:12About 500 miles an hour, relative to the speed of the orbiter.
31:17Here, the foam weighed about 1.7 pounds, and the foam was about the size of a small briefcase.
31:27It's a huge step forward for the investigation.
31:30The pictures clearly show the foam hits the leading edge of the left wing.
31:36Here, the wing is covered in protective insulating panels, made of a substance called reinforced carbon-carbon.
31:43This carbon fiber compound can resist temperatures ranging from minus 160 up to 1,650 degrees Celsius.
31:53But they are not intended to provide structural strength.
31:57Could a small chunk of foam smash a hole through one of these panels?
32:03Some NASA bosses are skeptical.
32:06Program manager Ron Dittmore goes public to cast doubt on the foam strike theory.
32:10Right now, it just does not make sense to us that a piece of debris would be the root cause
32:17for the loss of Columbia and its crew.
32:22There's got to be another reason.
32:26But Scott Hubbard is convinced he's onto something.
32:29As we were carrying out the investigation, looking at all the threads of data,
32:34we thought there should be some kind of test program to show what would happen
32:38if two pounds of foam hit the shuttle at 500 miles an hour.
32:47This machine is what's known in the aeronautics world as a chicken gun.
32:52It's designed to simulate the potentially dangerous bird strikes on airplanes.
32:57In this footage, testers fire a chicken at a 747.
33:02You go to the poultry counter and get a chicken and fire it at several hundred miles an hour,
33:08and you can find out what happens.
33:10So we use the same piece of equipment, only modified now, for our particular purposes.
33:17Hubbard and his team plan to use the modified gun
33:19to fire a piece of foam the size of a briefcase
33:22at a reinforced carbon-carbon panel, like those that line Columbia's wing.
33:28But getting the panels out of NASA isn't easy.
33:31The panels cost perhaps $800,000 a piece.
33:35So the shuttle program was reluctant to let go of that for a test.
33:41Hubbard persists.
33:42He gets access to the panels.
33:44But which panel should he test first?
33:48Information from the data recorder and the enhanced pictures
33:51suggests that the likely impact site is somewhere between panels 6 and 9.
33:57Hubbard's team chooses panel 6 as the starting point.
34:01And on May 30th, the foam strike test is ready to go.
34:14The impact looks dramatic, but leaves only minor cracks in the reinforced carbon-carbon panel 6.
34:23Not the major breach that would have downed Columbia.
34:27Some NASA employees declare the foam strike theory dead in the water.
34:31That type of comment told me that it was really, really important to conduct an exact test
34:39so that we would show experimentally the connection between the foam and the accident
34:44so that the engineering staff would understand that not only in their head, but in their heart.
34:51Then three weeks later, the team analyzing the readings on the data recorder get a major boost.
34:58The pattern of sensor burnouts enables them to pinpoint the exact passage of heat through the wing.
35:05It shows beyond doubt that the hole must have occurred in panel 8.
35:10Now, Hubbard can make his experiment truly accurate.
35:15Hubbard begs a number 8 panel from NASA.
35:18On July 7th, he sets up the gun to fire the foam block at the right angle.
35:23If the foam doesn't make a hole, the investigation into Columbia's loss will be back to square one.
35:29There's a lot riding on this test.
35:31The panel 8 test was, for me, a very emotional moment.
35:38I will never forget that day.
35:39There was a sense in the air of finding out the cause of a mystery
35:45and ultimately finding out why seven people died.
35:55Three, two, one, go.
36:11The 0.77 kilogram block of foam, the same weight as a basketball,
36:16hits the panel at 800 kilometers per hour,
36:19almost the speed of a bullet fired from a gun.
36:24It smashes a hole 25 centimeters in diameter
36:28in the reinforced carbon-carbon panel.
36:30Everyone present is stunned.
36:34When that gun fired and the hole appeared,
36:38there was an audible gasp from everyone that was there,
36:43the reporters and the engineers alike.
36:45I talked to one of the engineers,
36:47a young woman that had been helping us all along,
36:50and she had tears in her eyes.
36:52And she said,
36:54so this is what really happened, isn't it?
36:58And I said, yes, this is what really happened.
37:02This is how these people died.
37:06Together with analysis of data recorder readings,
37:08the foam strike test proves to be the critical breakthrough for the investigators.
37:12Now they can start to piece together the chain of events
37:16that left Space Shuttle Columbia seconds from disaster.
37:26January 16, 2003.
37:28And liftoff of Space Shuttle Columbia
37:30with a multitude of national and international space research experiments.
37:35Investigators now know that during launch,
37:37a piece of foam no bigger than a briefcase
37:39breaks off from the fuel tank.
37:41It crashes into the wing
37:43and blasts a hole around 25 centimeters in diameter.
37:47February 1, 2003.
37:50Fifty minutes to disaster.
37:53Mission control gives the Columbia crew
37:55the go-ahead for re-entry.
37:58What nobody knows is that the outer skin
38:00designed to protect them from the fearsome heat
38:02has a fatal breach.
38:09Sixteen minutes to go.
38:11Columbia hits the Earth's atmosphere
38:12at almost 28,000 kilometers per hour.
38:15The leading edges of its wings
38:17reach 1,400 degrees Celsius.
38:20This is amazing.
38:21It's really getting really bright out there.
38:23Wow.
38:24Like a blast, Chris.
38:26Nine minutes.
38:27The data recorder reveals
38:29that the gaping breach in Columbia's left wing
38:31causes drag on its left-hand side.
38:35Superheated gases penetrate the wing
38:37at 4,400 degrees Celsius.
38:40Heat sensors in and around the area
38:42show extreme temperature spikes.
38:46Six minutes left.
38:48Now temperature sensors start to go offline
38:50as superheated gases burn them out.
38:53Mission control assume it's an instrument malfunction.
38:58Then eyewitnesses on the ground
39:00see parts of Columbia's outer skin flying off.
39:03Look at the chunks coming off of it.
39:05Yeah.
39:05What the heck is that?
39:07Two minutes.
39:08The extreme temperatures start to melt
39:10the left wing's internal structure
39:12as Columbia crosses into Texas,
39:15Commander Rick Husband's home state.
39:21Mission control contacts him
39:23about the sensor failures.
39:24We did not come here, Vlad.
39:25His final response is cut short.
39:27Roger.
39:30As all systems break down
39:31aboard Columbia.
39:35The melting wing makes the shuttle
39:37fatally unstable.
39:38It starts to yaw from side to side.
39:41As it gets worse,
39:43the shuttle begins to break up.
39:48Rick was a pilot,
39:49and pilots have an uncanny ability
39:52to compartmentalize.
39:53In those final moments,
39:54he was wanting to bring
39:55the shuttle safely down.
39:58I know in those final moments
39:59that he was very focused
40:01and very attentive
40:03in trying to figure out
40:04exactly what he could do
40:05to fix the problem
40:06and make it right.
40:09But Commander Rick Husband
40:10is powerless
40:11to save his severely damaged craft.
40:14Space Shuttle Columbia
40:15disintegrates in the skies above Texas.
40:19All seven crew members die.
40:23This photo was taken
40:24on landing day,
40:26and it's a very important picture to me
40:28because I did not get it back
40:30until several weeks after Rick died.
40:32I noticed looking at this photograph
40:34that there's only 11 minutes left
40:36on the clock
40:37until they're scheduled to land.
40:39And so by this particular moment,
40:42Rick was probably already dead.
40:44And I look at this picture
40:45and this last photograph
40:46ever taken of the three of us
40:47before we knew the new life
40:49that we were setting on.
40:53What destroyed Columbia
40:54actually happened during launch.
40:57That was 17 days before re-entry.
41:00Investigators have one final mystery to solve.
41:04Why didn't NASA know
41:06that Columbia was flying
41:07with a gaping hole in its wing?
41:13Investigators want answers
41:14to a final crucial mystery.
41:16NASA learned of the foam strike
41:18the day after Columbia's launch.
41:20So why did no one pick up
41:22the gaping hole it tore in the wing?
41:26Investigators make a disturbing discovery.
41:29NASA's engineers were worried
41:31about the foam strike's effects.
41:33They asked managers
41:34to commission satellite photographs
41:36of Columbia's wing while in orbit
41:38to check for damage.
41:40But NASA's management
41:41turned them down.
41:43The question of a picture
41:44was brought up to management.
41:46And the management
41:47actively suppressed
41:49requests for pictures.
41:53They actually went on the aggressive
41:55to stamp out
41:57any thought of pictures.
41:59Foam strikes were common
42:01and never caused
42:02a major problem before.
42:04But Gaiman finds a second reason
42:06for NASA boss's reluctance
42:07to make a bigger issue
42:08of the foam strike.
42:11A fuller investigation
42:13could delay a crucial shuffle mission
42:15to the International Space Station
42:17and jeopardize its completion.
42:20Congress had decreed
42:22that if you don't finish
42:23the International Space Station
42:24on time,
42:25we're going to cut the money
42:26and finish the program.
42:28The power of schedule
42:30and cost
42:32was so oppressive
42:34that the poor person
42:35way in the back of the room
42:37who said,
42:37yeah, but there might be
42:38a hole in this shuttle wing
42:39didn't have any influence
42:40and couldn't get heard.
42:42These startling revelations
42:44pose a new question
42:45for the investigators.
42:46If satellite photos
42:47had shown up
42:48the dangerous hole
42:49in Columbia's wing,
42:50was there any way
42:51that NASA could save its crew?
42:53If you had done
42:54a crash program
42:55with another orbiter,
42:57and carried out
42:58a series of very risky
43:00spacewalks,
43:02theoretically,
43:03the crew could have been rescued.
43:05Such a mission
43:05would involve
43:06launching a second shuttle
43:07to dock with Columbia
43:08and evacuating
43:10the seven astronauts.
43:12Not an easy task.
43:14It would have been
43:15a very, very risky proposition
43:17to save the crew,
43:19but if we had known
43:20something was wrong
43:21with the shuttle,
43:22we would have done something.
43:24We wouldn't have just
43:25sat here for ten days
43:27and done nothing about it.
43:29We would have done something.
43:32It's a shocking discovery
43:34for the families
43:35of the astronauts.
43:36I was convinced
43:38that it was just
43:40an accident,
43:40that there had been
43:42no way to prevent it,
43:44and the report
43:45was very disturbing to me.
43:46It became alarmingly clear
43:48that there could have been
43:50things done,
43:50and I found that
43:51very difficult
43:52to deal with.
43:53I would say
43:54that there were
43:55several people
43:55who made gravely
43:57erroneous judgments,
43:59and those errors
44:00contributed to this event.
44:03When you do an analysis
44:04of an accident,
44:05you've got to look
44:06at the human errors
44:08and judgment
44:08that were made
44:09and try to rectify those.
44:12That is my hope
44:13and dream
44:14for a human spaceflight.
44:17The Columbia
44:18Accident Investigation Report
44:19came out on August 26, 2003.
44:23It was highly critical,
44:24but it also outlined
44:26a plan of action
44:27to get the shuttle program
44:28safely back on track.
44:30We were definitive
44:31in our report,
44:32in which we said,
44:33essentially,
44:34you've got to fix the foam
44:38before you can fly again.
44:40But we also said
44:41that your management system
44:44is not safe
44:46to run this program.
44:47You have to change
44:49your management system.
44:51In a press conference,
44:52NASA Administrator
44:53Sean O'Keefe
44:54accepts the report findings
44:56unconditionally.
44:57We get it.
44:59Clearly got the point.
45:01What we need to do
45:03is to examine
45:04those cultural procedures,
45:06those systems,
45:06the way we do business
45:08to improve
45:09safety objectives
45:10as well as
45:11the larger task
45:12of exploring
45:13and discovering
45:14on behalf
45:14of the American people.
45:15NASA overhauls
45:17its management structure
45:18to actively encourage
45:19employees at all levels
45:21to voice any safety concerns.
45:23It improves video coverage
45:25of launches
45:25and orders satellite photos
45:27to be taken
45:27of all shuttles
45:28whilst in orbit.
45:31And NASA engineers
45:32eliminate the most vulnerable
45:33section of foam cladding
45:35to ensure that large pieces
45:37cannot detach
45:38during future launches.
45:41Today, the families
45:42of the astronauts
45:43take comfort
45:44from the fact
45:44that their loved ones
45:45got to achieve
45:46their life's ambition.
45:48My wife was
45:49an ordinary woman
45:50who did extraordinary things.
45:52She was just bubbling
45:53with excitement.
45:54You could see it
45:55every picture she had
45:56at what I call it
45:56kind of Cheshire Cat grin.
45:58From ear to ear,
45:58she was just smiling
46:00because she's doing something
46:01that she's trained
46:02her whole life for.
46:04Rick very much
46:05would have wanted
46:06to see the space program
46:07continue.
46:08Rick would have thought
46:09it was the most glorious thing
46:11to get to go to the moon
46:12or even to get to go to Mars.
46:14That's what put the fire
46:15in his belly
46:16to begin with
46:17to become an astronaut.
46:18So he would not want
46:19to see the space program
46:20fail as a result of this,
46:22but he would certainly
46:23want to see NASA learn.
46:25The Columbia disaster
46:27was a major crisis
46:28for NASA,
46:29but the space shuttle program
46:31is now back on track.
46:32It continues in the memory
46:34of the fearless crew
46:35of Columbia
46:35and of other astronauts
46:37who gave their lives
46:38in pursuit
46:39of human discovery
46:40and exploration.
46:42studio
46:44Very short,
46:54from people
46:55It is great
Comentarios