That conclusion was found to be erroneous only in hindsight.ġ0. Columbia's astronauts were fully informed of the actual results of NASA's analysis, which determined that the impacting debris had not hit a vital region of the heat shield. No official decision was ever made, because nobody thought there was any need. He reported a private conversation during the mission that speculated what might be best in the event lethal damage were discovered. This newborn myth consists entirely of exaggerated or misrepresented excerpts from a recent blog posting by former NASA official Wayne Hale. NASA knew the spaceship was fatally damaged but decided not to tell the crew. And the cracks and dents were normal non-hazardous structural features.ĩ. The images in Israeli newspapers and across the Internet actually showed the front wall of the payload bay, not the wing at all. The spacecraft was crippled by 'space lightning' during re-entry, but NASA covered it up. Had the ship been slightly lower and slower when it disintegrated, some of the astronauts might well have been saved by their bailout suits.Ĥ. Others were killed by the blunt force trauma suffered during collisions with swirling cabin fragments. At least one of the astronauts had neglected to fasten their helmet and gloves, and died of asphyxiation.
#NASA SPACE SHUTTLE ACCIDENTS FREE#
There was enough frictional heating to scorch some of those fragments as they continued to fall, but no flames or smoke in the traditional sense.Įquipped with spacesuits and parachutes, the crew would have had time to experience the initial tumble and breakup for several seconds, and to hope that they might be thrown free and descend safely by parachute.
Fragments of the spacecraft ionized the thin air that they passed through. The streaks in the sky over east Texas that morning were essentially meteoric effects resulting from Columbia's speed - about Mach 15 - and its 40-mile altitude. But in the end it is usually the softness of humans, and not the hardness of space, that is to blame. If we relax from relentless vigilance, spaceflight will kill, and has killed.
In such a culture, disasters were not accidental, but inevitable.įormer NASA Administrator Mike Griffin often pointed out that spaceflight is so very difficult that humans can handle the hazards only if they're at their best. The disaster was a consequence of that flaw, not of the essential and unavoidable nature of spaceflight.
#NASA SPACE SHUTTLE ACCIDENTS SERIES#
The biggest misconception is what I call "Myth Zero." This pernicious and poisonous myth is that the disaster was an "accident" - suggesting that it was caused by factors beyond human control, and was just one of those things that should be expected and tolerated on the space frontier.Īs investigators later determined - and as some experienced safety analysts warned beforehand - the root cause was a series of bad decisions made by people who ignored traditional and time-tested strict safety standards. This is a continuation of earlier myth-busting work by others. But for those who want to help themselves, and others around them, to stick to the facts, in tribute to the fallen, I've composed my own list of myths - some harmless, some not so much.
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