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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.
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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.
00:54USA. Florida. Kennedy Space Center.
01:01January 16th, 2003.
01:057 AM.
01:08The cream of America's astronaut corps suits up for the launch of Space Shuttle Columbia.
01:13Mission 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 US Navy test pilot.
01:43Ilan Ramon, Israeli Air Force Colonel. He's the first ever Israeli astronaut.
01:49David Brown, Navy flight surgeon and top class fighter pilot.
01:53Mike Anderson, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel.
01:57Kalpala 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 US 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 gonna 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 our interview.
02:30And then the next cycle, she applied, and 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
02:43less 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 shovel 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 AM.
03:14It's over an hour since engineers fueled Columbia for launch.
03:17Its 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,
03:29he must take part in an eccentric NASA tradition.
03:33Rick Searforce is a good friend of Rick Husband and a former commander of Columbia.
03:38There's a card game.
03:40It's a blackjack-type card game that the commander has to play with the boss,
03:44the head 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 AM.
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,
04:17all thoughts turn to the dangerous job ahead.
04:21In the Astrovan, as you get closer and closer to the pad,
04:25begin to put on the game face a little bit more,
04:27and you're thinking about what you're going to be doing when,
04:29and the whole sequence of events, and then you just take it one step at a time.
04:337.53 AM.
04:36Rick Husband climbs into the commander's seat on Columbia's flight deck.
04:41After two years of waiting,
04:42he must now focus on the most dangerous eight and a half minutes
04:45of the entire 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,
05:05but it's frightening because of what happened with Challenger.
05:08In 1986, space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after blast-off,
05:14killing all seven crew members.
05:19The cause of the accident, a fault in one of the rocket boosters,
05:22was 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.
05:4911.
05:50At 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 lift-off of space shuttle Columbia.
06:08At 10.39 a.m., Columbia lifts off, its engines consuming fuel
06:12at the rate of an elliptic-sized swimming pool every 30 seconds.
06:17Launch is a very exhilarating ride.
06:20Just like a giant hand has picked you up,
06:23and while it's pushing you very violently,
06:25it's also shaking you back 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
06:39to 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
06:48that space shuttle Challenger exploded.
06:52Ex-mission controller Jim Oberg knows how apprehensive
06:55crew and ground staff feel right now.
06:58Later flights, when that same call was made,
07:01people remembered, people had been trained,
07:04be scared, be afraid at this point.
07:07They were.
07:09Mission control radios the command to Rick Husband in Columbia.
07:13Columbia-Houston, go at throttle up.
07:16We're topic, go at throttle up.
07:25And the shuttle purtles towards its escape velocity,
07:29almost 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, 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,
08:23striking Columbia's wing.
08:25It disintegrates in a shower of pieces.
08:30NASA managers assess the potential damage.
08:33Could the mission be threatened almost before it's begun?
08:40January 17th, 2003.
08:44Space 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
09:09that's detached from the fuel tank and hit the shuttle's wing.
09:13They must assess the damage.
09:16Foam strikes like these have occurred on nearly every single shuttle launch,
09:20with 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.
09:32The phrases that they used about foam strikes, foam coming off the tank,
09:36was that it was not a safety issue, but a maintenance issue.
09:40And this is no exception.
09:42NASA 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,
09:59exploring 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.
10:14A feeling that former shuttle commander Rick Sierfoss will never forget.
10:19What's it like to be in space? Is my smile big enough?
10:22I mean, it's just unbelievable. It's incredible.
10:25The most amazing thing is to see the planet from that perspective.
10:30Such a unique view. It'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. The next day.
10:57The astronauts put on their pressure suits, designed to stand the enormous g-forces of re-entry.
11:03They strap themselves into their seats on the flight deck of Columbia.
11:088.10am 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...
11:32But darn near.
11:34If something goes wrong here, it's almost as dangerous as blast-off.
11:418.15am. Rick 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. As 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.
12:18The energy and super-heated gases thrown off create a spectacular light show for the astronauts on the flight deck.
12:25Wow. That looks like a blast, Teresa.
12:28It's kind of a pinkish-orange glow of this very hot ionized gases.
12:33If you're the commander pilot, you're sitting right there, a foot away from looking at this light show, and it's
12:39amazing.
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 really bright out there.
12:49Yeah, you definitely don't want to be outside now.
12:538.54 a.m. Spirits are high. Everything points to a safe landing.
13:01Then, controllers analyzing data beamed down from Columbia get a surprise.
13:07Four temperature sensors on the shuttle's left side suddenly fail.
13:12FYI, 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 Kane 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 there's a hazard yet to the
13:43crew.
13:43Everything else looks normal. Mission control doesn't inform the crew.
13:528.55 a.m.
13:54Man, look at that sunlight.
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. Look at the trail.
14:14Oh, that's beauty.
14:16There's seven people in that thing.
14:18Wow.
14:20But then they spot something strange.
14:22Look at the chunks coming off of it.
14:25What the heck is that?
14:27I don't know, but I see what you're saying. Check 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.
14:44Without 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.
14:54But then more sensors go offline.
14:57FYI, 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?
15:28Flight Max is over also.
15:30Roger.
15:36The message breaks off abruptly.
15:44Onboard 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.
16:17Columbia, Houston, UHF, comm check.
16:269 a.m. Cape Kennedy, Florida.
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.
16:37We 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 apart.
17:00Columbia, Houston, UHF, comm check.
17:07Columbia, Houston, UHF, comm check.
17:10Columbia, 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.
17:43There's correct flight. All looked good.
17:45Everything looked good.
17:46Without any information coming in, Flight Director Leroy Kane 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.
18:20Tom 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 said I had a plane crash in the southern part of my county.
18:32All 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 over East Texas that morning.
18:469.12 a.m.
18:48In Mission Control, cut off from the outside world.
18:51Only 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.
19:02All 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 to passengers.
19:14Someone on your watch has been killed.
19:18A devastated Leroy Cain gives the signal to start investigation procedures.
19:22Flight GC, lock 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.
19:48But 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.
19:57It 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, causing
20:19chaos across Texas and Louisiana.
20:25You know, we were real fortunate that with as much debris there that did fall upon us, that, you know,
20:31not a single person there was injured.
20:35At 1 p.m., NASA officially announces the loss at Columbia.
20:40President 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.
20:59The 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, we can reveal what really
21:16happened.
21:23Advanced computer simulations will take us where no camera can go, into 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.
21:41Lock 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.
22:11And 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.
22:22One 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 lift-off
22:50phase of 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.
23:18They quickly focus on unusual temperature sensor readings.
23:21Beamed back from the shuttle, minutes before mission control loses touch with Columbia's crew.
23:28They 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.
23:41These happen to be in the wheel well, the place where the landing gear folds up relatively deep inside the
23:47wing.
23:48At 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. Not a little bit of heat. A lot of heat.
24:25Investigators suspect that hot gases somehow penetrated the shuttle's protective insulation to get into the wheel well.
24:31Perhaps fire 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 onboard Columbia itself.
24:44The flight data recorders aboard shuttle's 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. The data recorder didn't have an armored casing.
25:03It's not like a flight recorder onboard a commercial airline. It'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 onboard 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
25:51to search on foot through the vast expanses of land in Texas and Louisiana, where the wreckage fell.
25:58But after six weeks, there's no sign of the data recorder unit anywhere.
26:04It's a dead end.
26:05Without more information, investigators cannot know for sure if superheated gases penetrated the shuttle during re-entry.
26:13Their best chance of solving the mystery is slipping away.
26:17Then investigators hit upon a plan.
26:19The search is turning up many pieces of Columbia's wreckage.
26:23Could they provide a reference point to estimate where an object, the size and weight of the data recorder, would
26:29land?
26:30The team uses complex computer software to do the calculations.
26:33We calculated where this data recorder ought to be, and it turned out to be an area that had already
26:41been searched.
26:42The analysis tells them that the box should be here, in the area of Hemphill.
26:51Investigators send the searchers back in.
26:53There's just a chance they missed the box in this swampy, overgrown area.
27:00Chauncey 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.
27:14I haven't had a fine since the first week.
27:16I don't even know what I was doing here anymore, fighting off the briars.
27:20After 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.
27:29Then it hits me.
27:31It was laying there like something thrown away somebody didn't want.
27:37I ran up to it, and I knew, I'd seen that tape fluttering in the breeze.
27:42Somebody mentioned, yeah, that's the black box.
27:45So 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.
27:57They found it, lying right out in the open, undamaged. Just a miracle.
28:03It's a godsend to the investigation.
28:06The 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.
28:22It confirms there was a hole in Columbia's outer skin that let in superheated gases during re-entry.
28:29But it's not in the place they were expecting.
28:34What it showed was that the readings that we were getting,
28:37that the first place on the shuttle where the temperature 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.
28:52Gaiman realizes that the hole in Columbia's outer skin is not near the left wheel well,
28:57but somewhere towards the front of the left wing.
28:59What's more, his team is able to deduce when the hole was made, and it happened long before re-entry.
29:07We came to the conclusion that the very first indication of any temperature rise turned out to be very, very
29:14early in the flight,
29:16when there was essentially no Earth's atmosphere to speak of.
29:21That 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.
29:33All eyes turned to an incident during launch.
29:36Something 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.
29:50Now, 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.
30:03One 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.
30:20To tackle the problem, the investigation board drafts in top NASA specialist and head of the Mission to Mars program,
30:26Scott 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, and there was a great debate over
30:40the 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.
30:58What they reveal excites him.
31:02This 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, about 500 miles an hour, relative to the speed of the orbiter.
31:17The 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.
31:37Here, 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 doubts on the foam strike theory.
32:11Right 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.
32:23There's got to be another reason.
32:27But Scott Hubbard is convinced he's onto something.
32:31As 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 if two pounds of foam
32:41hit 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.
32:58In this footage, testers fire a chicken at a 747.
33:02Go to the poultry counter and get a chicken and fire it at several hundred miles an hour and you
33:09can 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 to fire a piece of foam the size of a
33:22briefcase at 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.
33:36So the shuttle program was reluctant to let go of that for a test.
33:41Hubbard persists. He gets access to the panels.
33:45But which panel should he test first?
33:48Information from the data recorder and the enhanced pictures suggest that the likely impact site is somewhere between panels 6
33:55and 9.
33:58Hubbard'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.
34:17But 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.
34:32That type of comment told me that it was really, really important to conduct an exact test so that we
34:40would 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.
35:11Now 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 hold, the investigation into Columbia's loss will be back to square one.
35:29There's a lot riding on this test.
35:32The panel 8 test was, for me, a very emotional moment.
35:38I will never forget that day.
35:40There was a sense in the air of finding out the cause of a mystery, and ultimately finding out why
35:47seven people died.
35:56Three, two, one, go!
36:11The 0.77 kilogram block of foam, the same weight as a basketball, hits the panel at 800 kilometers per
36:18hour, almost the speed of a bullet fired from a gun.
36:25It smashes a hole 25 centimeters in diameter in the reinforced carbon-carbon panel.
36:31Everyone present is stunned.
36:35When that gun fired and the hole appeared, there was an audible gasp from everyone that was there, the reporters
36:44and the engineers alike.
36:45I talked to one of the engineers, a young woman that had been helping us all along, and she had
36:51tears in her eyes.
36:53And she said, so this is what really happened, isn't it?
36:58I said, yes, this is what really happened.
37:02This is how these people died.
37:06Together with analysis of data recorder readings, the foam strike test proves to be the critical breakthrough for the investigators.
37:13Now they can start to piece together the chain of events that left Space Shovel Columbia seconds from disaster.
37:26January 16th, 2003.
37:28And liftoff at Space Shovel Columbia with a multitude of national and international space research experiments.
37:35Investigators now know that during launch, a piece of foam no bigger than a briefcase breaks off from the fuel
37:41tank.
37:42It crashes into the wing and blasts a hole around 25 centimeters in diameter.
37:47February 1st, 2003.
37:51Fifty minutes to disaster.
37:53Mission control gives the Columbia crew the go-ahead for re-entry.
37:58What nobody knows is that the outer skin designed to protect them from the fearsome heat has a fatal breach.
38:09Sixteen minutes to go.
38:11Columbia hits the Earth's atmosphere at almost 28,000 kilometers per hour.
38:15The leading edges of its wings reach 1,400 degrees Celsius.
38:20This is amazing.
38:21It's really getting, uh, really bright out there.
38:24Wow.
38:24It's like a blast, Bruce.
38:26Nine minutes.
38:28The data recorder reveals that the gaping breach in Columbia's left wing causes drag on its left-hand side.
38:35Superheated gases penetrate the wing at 4,400 degrees Celsius.
38:40Heat sensors in and around the area show extreme temperature spikes.
38:46Six minutes left.
38:48Now temperature sensors start to go offline as superheated gases burn them out.
38:53Mission control assume it's an instrument malfunction.
38:59Then eyewitnesses on the ground see 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 the left wing's internal structure.
39:13As Columbia crosses into Texas, Commander Rick Husband's home state.
39:21Mission control contacts him about the sensor failures.
39:25His final response is cut short.
39:30As all systems break down aboard Columbia.
39:35The melting wing makes the shuttle fatally unstable.
39:39It starts to yaw from side to side.
39:42As it gets worse, the shuttle begins to break up.
39:48Rick was a pilot, and pilots have an uncanny ability to compartmentalize.
39:53In those final moments, he was wanting to bring the shuttle safely down.
39:58I know in those final moments that he was very focused and very attentive
40:03in trying to figure out exactly what he could do to fix the problem and make it right.
40:09But Commander Rick Husband is powerless to save his severely damaged craft.
40:14Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates in the skies above Texas.
40:19All seven crew members die.
40:23This photo was taken on landing day, and it's a very important picture to me
40:28because I did not get it back until several weeks after Rick died.
40:32I noticed looking at this photograph that there's only 11 minutes left on the clock
40:38until they're scheduled to land.
40:40And so by this particular moment, Rick was probably already dead.
40:44And I look at this picture and this last photograph ever taken of the three of us
40:48before we knew the new life that we were setting on.
40:53What destroyed Columbia actually happened during launch.
40:57That was 17 days before re-entry.
41:01Investigators have one final mystery to solve.
41:04Why didn't NASA know that Columbia was flying with a gaping hole in its wing?
41:13Investigators want answers to a final crucial mystery.
41:17NASA learned of the foam strike the day after Columbia's launch.
41:21So why did no one pick up the gaping hole it tore in the wing?
41:26Investigators make a disturbing discovery.
41:29NASA's engineers were worried about the foam strike's effects.
41:33They asked managers to commission satellite photographs of Columbia's wing while in orbit to check for damage.
41:40But NASA's management turned them down.
41:43The question of a picture was brought up to management.
41:47And the management actively suppressed requests for pictures.
41:53They actually went on the aggressive to stamp out any thought of pictures.
42:00Foam strikes were common and never caused a major problem before.
42:04But Gaiman finds a second reason for NASA bosses' reluctance to make a bigger issue of the foam strike.
42:12A fuller investigation could delay a crucial shuttle mission to the International Space Station
42:18and jeopardize its completion.
42:21Congress had decreed that if you don't finish the International Space Station on time, we're going to cut the money
42:27and finish the program.
42:28The power of schedule and cost was so oppressive that the poor person way in the back of the room
42:37who said,
42:37yeah, but there might be a hole in this shuttle wing, didn't have any influence and couldn't get, couldn't get
42:42heard.
42:43These startling revelations pose a new question for the investigators.
42:46If satellite photos had shown up the dangerous hole in Columbia's wing, was there any way that NASA could save
42:52its crew?
42:53If you had done a crash program with another orbiter and carried out a series of very risky spacewalks, theoretically,
43:03the crew could have been rescued.
43:05Such a mission would involve launching a second shuttle to dock with Columbia and evacuating the seven astronauts.
43:12Not an easy task.
43:14It would have been a very, very risky proposition to save the crew.
43:19But if we had known something was wrong with the shuttle, we would have done something.
43:25We wouldn't have just sat here for 10 days and done nothing about it.
43:30We would have done something.
43:33It's a shocking discovery for the families of the astronauts.
43:37I was convinced that it was just an accident, that there had been no way to prevent it.
43:44And the report was very disturbing to me.
43:46It became alarmingly clear that there could have been things done.
43:51And I found that very difficult to deal with.
43:53I would say that there were several people who made gravely erroneous judgments again.
44:00Those errors contributed to this event.
44:03When you do an analysis of an accident, you've got to look at the human errors and judgment that were
44:09made and try to rectify those.
44:12That is my hope and dream for human space flight.
44:17The Columbia Accident Investigation Report came out on August 26, 2003.
44:23It was highly critical, but it also outlined a plan of action to get the shuttle program safely back on
44:30track.
44:30We were definitive in our report, in which we said, essentially, you've got to fix the phone before you can
44:39fly again.
44:41But we also said, your management system is not safe to run this program.
44:48You have to change your management system.
44:51In a press conference, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe accepts the report findings unconditionally.
44:57We get it. Clearly got the point.
45:02What we need to do is to examine those cultural procedures, those systems, the way we do business to improve
45:09safety objectives,
45:10as well as the larger task of exploring and discovering on behalf of the American people.
45:16NASA overhauls its management structure to actively encourage employees at all levels to voice any safety concerns.
45:23It improves video coverage of launches and orders satellite photos to be taken of all shuttles whilst in orbit.
45:31The NASA engineers eliminate the most vulnerable section of firm cladding to ensure that large pieces cannot detach during future
45:39launches.
45:41Today, the families of the astronauts take comfort from the fact that their loved ones got to achieve their life's
45:47ambition.
45:48My wife was an ordinary woman who did extraordinary things.
45:53She was just bubbling with excitement.
45:55You could see it every picture she had, what I call a kind of Cheshire Cat grin.
45:58From ear to ear, she was just smiling.
46:00Because she's doing something that she's trained her whole life for.
46:05Rick very much would have wanted to see the space program continue.
46:08Rick would have thought it was the most glorious thing to get to go to the moon or even to
46:13get to go to Mars.
46:14That's what put the fire in his belly to begin with, to become an astronaut.
46:19So he would not want to see the space program fail as a result of this, but he would certainly
46:23want to see NASA learn.
46:26The Columbia disaster was a major crisis for NASA.
46:29But the space shuttle program is now back on track.
46:32It continues in the memory of the fearless crew of Columbia and of other astronauts who gave their lives in
46:39pursuit of human discovery and exploration.
46:59We'll see you next time.
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