Space Shuttle Columbia - Recreating Events

Sixty kilometers above the states of Louisiana and Texas, the space shuttle Columbia began to disintegrate on the morning of February 1, 2003.  People driving their cars - or fishing in their boats - avoided fatal injuries as approximately 84,000 pieces of debris - some of it huge - fell to Earth.

Within hours after the explosion, NASA requested a 4-star Navy Admiral - Hal Gehman - to head the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.  This team of twelve experts would try to determine what had caused the disaster.

They began their work with a key piece of evidence.  Before Mission Control lost contact with the astronauts, some of the shuttle's temperature sensors were showing extremely high readings before they went offline. 

Investigators would try to determine the cause of that problem.

Credits

Clip from "Columbia's Last Flight" - from the series "Seconds from Disaster" - online, courtesy National Geographic Channel at YouTube.

Director:
Sid Bennett

Producer:
Anna Kirkwood

Original broadcast:
June 28, 2005 - Season 2 of "Seconds from Disaster," Episode 1