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Space Shuttle Columbia The Final Flight

Space Shuttle Columbia The Final Flight
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One , Space-shuttle-columbia , Launch , Everything , Sts-107 , Shuttle-launch-control , Countdown , Eastern-time , Planned , 10 , 39 , 107

Space Shuttle Columbia The Final Flight

all working in synchronicity, which is kind of the fact that it ever worked at all is pretty amazing. -back here in the space shuttle flight control room, monitoring columbia's systems in preparation for the first shuttle launch of the year. -thank you very much. -the ascent team is led by flight director leroy cain for today's launch. -okay, folks. one ops, one, count to 20. -as a flight controller in mission control, sts-107 was my second mission. for me, it was always when you got the t-minus 10 minute hold and you give the final "go/no go" for launch. that is kind of the moment where you realize that this is about to get real. -go/no go for launch, final. guidance? gc? prop? gnc? max? -for me personally, i could feel my adrenaline gland just go and then my heart rate pick up a little bit. -you ready for g1 launch target?

Space-shuttle , Kind , All , Fact , Shuttle-launch , Flight-control-room , Monitoring-columbia , Working , Synchronicity , Preparation , Systems , Team

Space Shuttle Columbia The Final Flight

-after the launch, we came home for the next 16 days. we knew that the crew was going to be in space. by that point, i mean, i turned on nasa tv here and just started watching the mission. ♪ -next up for the blue shift was a blood draw experiment here. here, laurel is telling mike that this isn't going to hurt her a bit. -i was just thrilled for them. they were -- they were doing great. there's pride, excitement. but more than anything, i just loved listening to rick's voice. i loved listening to him talk back and forth with mission control. ♪ -as a kid, it mostly just felt... exciting and new and just kind of made your world feel more magical and bigger. i was just like, "yeah, that's just awesome. space is so cool."

Science-mission , Space , Crew , Nasa , Launch , Home , Point , Blue-shift , Tv , 16 , Anything , Bit

Space Shuttle Columbia The Final Flight

another successful launch. you know, the flight director's office and the mission control center in houston is working with them. they're -- everything's good. i walked into the analysis lab to start reviewing film from the launch. we started the film at the beginning. [ rockets roaring ] we're watching this liftoff. you see the roll maneuvers, beautiful blue sky. we do the normal review, and we start pointing out all the things that we normally see. and we got to 81 seconds, and then we see this object come off of the external tank area. ♪ it moved down, and then striked the vehicle and explode into a white cloud. my reaction was, "oh, shit."

Everything , Launch , Film , Flight-director , Houston , Mission-control-center , Good , Analysis-lab , Blue-sky , Liftoff , Review , Rockets-roaring

Space Shuttle Columbia The Final Flight

i wasn't sure what to think about it. i'm not a rocket scientist, so i called to somebody who i know -- knew very well at nasa. i said, "help me understand how worried i should be for this." and he said, "oh, it's foam. it's very light material. probably doesn't cause any damage." but it nagged me the whole mission. colonel ramon, um, i'm curious, was the launch what you expected? i was thinking about the foam. i just didn't know how to, in a five-minute interview, set that up. are all these experiments working? they couldn't all be working as planned.

Nasa , Somebody , Rocket-scientist , Science-mission , Damage , Foam , Um , Material , Colonel-ramon , Launch , Interview , Experiments

Space Shuttle Columbia The Final Flight

-a little bit later in the day, in the afternoon, i got a call from linda, and she said, "hey, i heard that you were trying to get some better pictures." and she said that she had talked to all the appropriate managers and no one had a requirement for any more information. they had what they needed to do the analysis. she said, "i want you to turn this off because we don't need to bother those other people." -how did you feel when she said that? -i was mad because i don't like to be overruled. i'd been, you know, trying to act within my authority, and i'd been countermanded by my boss. -linda ham knew that nasa's history with the department of defense and using spy satellites was a little bit checkered. -there had been a previous mission where the landing parachute door came off on launch,

Bit , Linda-ham , Pictures , Call , Managers , People , Analysis , Information , One , Requirement , Nasa , Authority

Space Shuttle Columbia The Final Flight

he played it over and over again. but it did not look good at all. it looked bad. ♪ -this is mission control houston. you're looking at live video coming from space shuttle columbia as columbia continues to orbit the earth at an altitude of about 150 statute miles. columbia, houston, laurel, you're loud and clear on air to ground one. -the second day, i drive in to work kind of euphoric because another launch,

All , Video , Earth , Space-shuttle-columbia , Mission-control , Houston , Altitude , 150 , Air , Laurel , One , Launch

Space Shuttle Columbia The Final Flight

i felt like it was my responsibility to talk about the foam strike, to get it out there in the public. if you take a close-up here, that bipod is the place where they think a little piece of foam fell off and hit the leading edge of that wing. i talked to the folks in the control room, and i said, you know, "can you cue up the launch replays?" alright. let's take a look at this launch. "look what happened a minute after launch." got this very, very slow -- look at that piece of foam right there that struck the shuttle as it came off. the question was, what did it do? ♪ i didn't know for sure. i still was the armchair analyst. but challenger was deep in our memory... ♪ ...and this was kind of a similar scenario. ♪ in the wake of challenger,

Wasn-t-foam , Piece , Responsibility , Place , Wing , Foam-strike , Edge , Public , Close-up , Bipod , Look , Launch

Space Shuttle Columbia The Final Flight

-there's that issue of the falling foam during the launch of space shuttle columbia. -very early on nasa told us that they knew about a foam -- a debris event. but we didn't even know enough about the shuttle to understand that there was foam on the tanks. the press wants to know what happened and it's like, "yep, so do we." -it's a mammoth job for those taking part in a mammoth task. -covering many hundreds of square miles. -it's the largest recovery effort that has ever been attempted in this country. -as an investigator, i wanted as ironclad a case as we could possibly have for the sequence of events leading to the cause of the crash of space shuttle columbia. but if we were going to do that, we needed to collect all the debris and reconstruct the shuttle. -1,200 sites have been identified.

Wasn-t-foam , Shuttle- , Space-shuttle-columbia , Foam , Nasa , Launch , Us , Issue , Debris-event , Tanks , Press , Part

Space Shuttle Columbia The Final Flight

-late october of 2002, after sts-112 atlantis, i went to a meeting about that flight. i had put together a report about the foam loss and the damage to the solid rocket booster. and i presented the case that said, "that amount of foam, that mass, in one chunk coming off shuttle atlantis -- this was the vehicle telling us something is wrong, here's your warning." at risk of being insubordinate, i said to the heads of the shuttle program sitting around the centre table, i was adamant at that meeting, "either fix the problem or don't fly an external tank on the next launch, which is impossible." from that meeting, i never heard any discussion of "let's get a better understanding of this

Foam-loss , Damage , Flight , Meeting , Solid-rocket-booster , Report , 112 , 2002 , October-of-2002 , Wasn-t-foam , Something , Case