My sincere condolences & prayers goes out to the families
of the crew of the Columbia :-(
'A Tragic Day for the Nation'
Space Shuttle Disintegrates; Seven Astronauts Killed
Saturday, February 01, 2003
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space Shuttle Columbia blew up and disintegrated in flames over Texas Saturday morning, killing all seven astronauts aboard and scattering debris over four states and the Gulf of Mexico.
The seven crew members -- six Americans and the first Israeli to go into space -- were just 16 minutes from landing at Cape Canaveral, Fla., when the shuttle broke up at 200,000 feet. The astronauts had been orbiting the Earth for 16 days.
"Columbia is lost. There are no survivors," President Bush said in a televised address from the Cabinet Room. He said the day had brought "terrible news" and "great sadness" to the country, and that "our entire nation grieves."
The first indication of a potential problem occurred minutes before 9 a.m. EST, when there was a loss of temperature sensors on the shuttle's left wing, said Ron Dittemore, the program manager. During Columbia's liftoff, a piece of insulating foam from the fuel tank was believed to have hit that wing.
Dittemore said the loss of the sensors on the left wing was followed seconds later by several other problems, including a loss of tire pressure and indications of excessive structural heating.
NASA put all future shuttle flights on hold until the cause of the disaster has been determined. The crew aboard the international space station will have enough supplies to last through the end of June, Dittemore said. The Russian Space Agency said a Sunday launch of a Progress cargo ship to the station would go forward as planned.
Bush praised the Columbia crew for their courage and daring in an age when space travel seems so routine, but is anything but.
"These men and women assumed great risk in the service to all humanity," Bush said. "The astronauts knew the dangers and they faced them willingly."
Still, he said, "our journey into space will go on."
Earlier, NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe told a press briefing: "This is indeed a tragic day for the NASA family, for the families of the astronauts, and likewise for the nation." He said Bush was speaking to the families of the astronauts, and "we trust the prayers of the nation will be with them and with their families."
"A more courageous group of people you could not have hoped to know."
NASA lowered its flags at Cape Canaveral. Flags also were lowered at the White House and the Capitol in Washington.
"Sadly, from the video that's available, it does not appear that there were any survivors," said Bill Readdy, NASA's associate administrator for space flight.
He said it was too early to speculate about the exact cause of the disaster.
White House officials said there were no indications that terrorism was involved. A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no threat was made and the shuttle was out of range of a surface-to-air missile.
O'Keefe said there was "no indication that the mishap was caused by anything or anyone on the ground."
Bush was alerted to the disaster at Camp David and then was taken to Washington in a motorcade. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge went to the White House to monitor the situation.
Columbia was at an altitude of 200,000 feet over north-central Texas at a 9 a.m., traveling at 12,500 mph, when Mission Control lost all data and voice contact with the shuttle and crew. The shuttle was aiming for a Florida landing at 9:16 a.m.
The final radio transmission between Mission Control and the shuttle gave no indication of a catastrophic failure.
Mission Control radioed: "Columbia, Houston, we see your tire pressure messages and we did not copy your last."
Columbia responded: "Roger, uh ..."
Then the transmission broke off.
At the same time, residents of Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana reported hearing "a big bang" and seeing flames in the sky.
• Map: Witness/Debris Sightings
Television footage showed a bright light followed by smoke plumes streaking diagonally through the sky. Debris appeared to break off into separate balls of light as it continued downward.
Military satellites with infrared detectors recorded several flashes as Columbia broke apart, according to a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity. It was unclear whether those "spikes" of heat indicated an explosion, the burning of pieces of debris re-entering the atmosphere or something else.
NASA declared an emergency after losing contact with the crew and within minutes said search teams had been sent to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Ron Dittemore, NASA shuttle program manager, warned that very delicate and often toxic materials are aboard all shuttles, and people should be careful not to handle any debris.
In Nacogdoches, Texas, residents found bits of metal strewn across the city. Dentist Jeff Hancock said a metal bracket about a foot long had crashed through his office roof.
"It's all over Nacogdoches," said barber shop owner James Milford. "There are several little pieces, some parts of machinery ... there's been a lot of pieces about 3 feet wide."
Two hours after the shuttle had been expected to land, the giant screen at the front of Mission Control showed a map of the Southwest United States and what should have been Columbia's flight path. The U.S. flag next to the center's countdown clock was lowered to half-staff.
"A contingency for the space shuttle has been declared," Mission Control somberly repeated over and over.
In another room at Kennedy Space Center, O'Keefe met with the astronauts' families, who had been waiting at the landing site for the shuttle's return, spokeswoman Melissa Motichek said. Six of the seven astronauts were married, and five of them had children.
NASA officials, meanwhile, warned people on the ground to stay away from any fallen shuttle debris. EPA spokesman Joe Martyak said he didn't know what toxic chemicals could be amid the debris because the shuttle can undergo reactions from the intense heat of reentry.
The shuttle flight was the 113th in the shuttle program's 22 years and the 28th flight for Columbia, NASA's oldest shuttle.
In 42 years of U.S. human space flight, there had never been an accident during the descent to Earth or landing. On Jan. 28, 1986, space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff.
The shuttle is essentially a glider during the hour-long decent from orbit toward the landing strip. It is covered by about 20,000 thermal tiles to protect against temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees.
On Jan. 16, shortly after Columbia lifted off, a piece of insulating foam on its external fuel tank came off and was believed to have hit the left wing of the shuttle. Leroy Cain, the lead flight director in Mission Control, assured reporters Friday that engineers had concluded that any damage to the wing was considered minor and posed no safety hazard.
Gary Hunziker in Plano, Texas, said he saw the shuttle flying overhead. "I could see two bright objects flying off each side of it," he told The Associated Press. "I just assumed they were chase jets."
"The barn started shaking and we ran out and started looking around," said Benjamin Laster of Kemp, Texas. "I saw a puff of vapor and smoke and saw big chunk of material fall."
Former astronaut John Glenn and his wife were watching on television at their home in Maryland.
"Anytime you lose contact like that, there's some big problem. Of course, once you went for several minutes without any contact, you knew something was terribly wrong," Glenn said.
The Columbia crew was relatively inexperienced. Only three of the seven had flown in space before: the shuttle's commander, Rick Husband, Michael Anderson and Kalpana Chawla. The other four were rookies: pilot William McCool, David Brown, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon.
Security had been extraordinarily tight for their 16-day scientific research mission because of the presence of Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut.
Ramon, 48, a colonel in Israel's air force and former fighter pilot, had survived two wars. He became the first man from his country to fly in space, and his presence resulted in an increase in security, not only for Columbia's launch, but also for its planned landing. Space agency officials feared his presence might make the shuttle more of a terrorist target.
"The government of Israel and the people of Israel are praying together with the entire world for the safety of the astronauts on the shuttle Columbia," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said in a statement.
Dr. Yael Barr of the Israeli Aerospace Medicine Institute was waiting at the landing strip for the astronauts' return.
"When the countdown clock, when it got to zero and then started going, instead of counting down, counting up and they were still not there, I told my friend, 'I have a bad feeling. I think they are gone.' And I was in tears," Barr said.
Columbia's crew had completed 80-plus scientific research experiments during their time in orbit.
Just in the past week, NASA observed the anniversary of its only two other space tragedies, the Challenger explosion, which killed all seven astronauts on board, and the Apollo spacecraft fire that killed three on Jan. 27, 1967.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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