Feb 01 2009
Remembering NASA’s tragedies - Columbia Accident
This is the hardest anniversary for me. Not that the others weren’t just as tragic, just as painful, that those lost weren’t just as brave and their deaths just as untimely. But I wasn’t even born when Apollo 1 burned so horribly. And I was just a kid in college when Challenger was torn to pieces. I wasn’t responsible.
But STS-107 was my flight. I was the EVA Safety Flight Lead for this flight. I knew the crew personally. I knew the team supporting them. I’d watched them practice in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab. I was there as the flight went through delay after delay. I went in the Mission Evaluation Room (one of the back rooms at Mission Control that supports “the Front Room”) and spoke to the folks manning the safety console every day. There were no scheduled EVAs so I wasn’t working shift. In fact, unless a contingency EVA was needed, neither was I. But I checked in physically at least once a day.
And I never saw this coming. I never heard any of the feverish concerns going on in different areas. And, sadly, I wasn’t even watching the landing. After all, nothing had gone wrong.
I was actually sleeping in, that morning of February 1, 2003. My husband of only a few months had (and this never happens) gotten up early that Saturday morning to watch cartoons. I was barely pregnant at the time - I don’t think I even knew it yet - and was feeling lazy. My daughter was at her father’s house that weekend. And Lee called out to me from the living room. “Uh, hon, I think the Shuttle just disintegrated.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” I snapped.
“I’m not joking.”
I may have mispoken when I said I never saw it coming. I had dreamed of it and it was one of those extremely rare dreams of mine that I remembered: a Shuttle coming in and breaking into fiery pieces. Whatever dreams I might have generally, I have no remembrance of them when I wake up. But this one, I remembered.
I had been worried about a potential risk. The program and my management had become comfortable with what they knew. I had not. But I had moved on to a different area and only kept track of what was going on sporadically. And I had dreamed of just such a disaster.
Of course, there is considerable evidence that the culprit that damaged the sensitive RCC panels was foam, rather than what had worried me, but that didn’t make it better. We’d been hit by foam repeatedly over the years and had talked ourselves out of worrying about it. We saw the hit before we landed, and we didn’t do more. All of this is well documented in the CAIB report . We fell into the same trap and the same causes culture-wise were cited in the CAIB report that we had heard in the Rogers Commission report from Challenger.
When Columbia reentered, the plasma began burning through the wing, first tearing off the protective RCC panel, then tearing through the structure, hydraulics and wiring, even the tire, behind it. In minutes, the Orbiter began to break up and rain debris over Texas and Louisiana.
To be honest, I’m not sure that we could have saved this crew if we had recognized the danger before they came down. I know we would have tried, would have pulled out all the stops, killed ourselves to save them if we had known what was to happen. I believe that absolutely. But, and this is the lesson we need to take forward into our future endeavors, the best way to have saved them was to keep this from happening.
We learned a great deal in the years that followed this tragedy, more about the materials we use to protect the Shuttle and the limitations and capabilities we have of bringing the Shuttle down safely if something like this ever happens again. And we know more about the risks that scared me and about the foam and ice on the ET and we have steps to address that, too.
Seven Astronauts paid for that lesson: Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson, Ilan Ramon, Kalpana Chawla, David M. Brown, and Laurel Clark. I must also note two others who died during recovery efforts: Jules F. Mier Jr. and Charles Krenek
Have we learned enough to preclude a recurrence? I don’t know. I hope so. I hope we tuck the lessons like Apollo, Challenger and Columbia in the corner of our minds whatever else we do and we resolved “Never again!” I don’t want us to grow complacent that such tragedies are inevitable, the price of going where no man has gone before. I want us to kick and fight and claw our way forward, unwilling to give an inch to fate, unwilling to accept defeat and any more deaths.
In the end, time will be the true judge on how well we have learned from these tragedies. Here’s hoping this is truly the last for human spaceflight. According to our previous Space Shuttle Program Manager , we still have work to do.
More resources
Wikipedia
CAIB Report
CAIB Hearing transcripts
Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report
Stifling Dissent
I followed your link to Wayne Hale’s blog and watched the video he linked to. Yeah, that’s not good. And the scary thing is, NASA isn’t the only institution/company that runs that way. I’ve worked in retail for 30 years, and I’ve run into the scenario depicted in the video twice - with FW Woolworth’s and with The Home Depot, two of the worst-run companies I’ve ever had the misfortune to work for and observe. And of course, these days Woolworth’s is defunct and THD massively downsizes every couple of months (and I’ll be willing to bet - you heard it here first - that THD files for Chapter 11 within the next 6 months).
I’m really hoping the scenario in the video isn’t widespread in NASA. If it is, that’s scary! I’ve been through that “proper channels” and “that’s really not how we do things here” BS too many times, that pressure to conform, conform, conform, don’t make waves, don’t stick your head up above the herd. If that’s how NASA’s being run, it needs an overhaul, now. A space program has to, by its very nature, be open to innovation and the open sharing of ideas. If it regularly squashes that, it’s doomed.
What scares me even more is that you’ve run into that pushing safety. Safety should be hard-wired into every consideration NASA makes. If safety concerns are getting the “yeah, yeah, yeah, we know, we’ll deal with it” treatment, something is dreadfully wrong, and something needs to be done to address it. I sincerely hope that the scenario in the video isn’t widespread in NASA. And if it is, I hope Wayne sent a copy of that video to every director in NASA.
And finally, big hugs to you on a day that I know is a bad, bad anniversary for you.
I’m not sure what I can say that hasn’t already been said.
I hope in the future you have a chance to change things and see your impact on them–to know that what you’ve learned, that what you’re willing to share now, prevents something much worse from unfolding. That you can see the fruits of the changes you’ve made already, and that you find peace from it.
Thank you for writing this. My thoughts are with you.
Oh, wow, Stephanie. Such a personal recount of the events of this tragedy. Since it was your flight and you knew the crew personally, I know this had to be really hard to write about… I’m so sorry. I hope, as you do, that enough was learned to prevent a recurrence. Thanks for sharing this.
Davida
It was a sad day for all. I love the space flight program and I was at work when this happened. Thanks for sharing this post.