On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas on its disastrous return to Earth, the tragic end result of a chain of events that began when a piece of foam insulation broke off the shuttle's external propellant tank and struck the vehicle's left wing shortly after lift-off, ultimately sealing the fate of Columbia's seven-member crew just 16 minutes before they were scheduled to land. This NOVA episode examines the incident from numerous perspectives, revealing details that tie the demise of the shuttle and her crew to a culture of arrogant hubris that continued to prevail at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration even after the similarly horrific Challenger explosion in 1986. As one interview subject laments, NASA operated under the belief that “if the mission is successful, no one will ask what it costs,” an approach that led to relaxed policies and procedures after successful missions throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Like several before it, the Columbia shuttle was routinely fulfilling its intended purpose as a reliable and reusable “space truck,” capable of hauling cargo into orbit and landing safely like an airplane. NASA's overconfident dismissal of warnings from ground-based experts that damage to the shuttle's thermal protection system could lead to disaster would eventually prove prophetic. Writer-director Gilles Cayatte's Columbia: Space Shuttle Disaster combines mission footage, post-mortem analysis, and candid interviews with past and present NASA personnel, including astronaut Story Musgrave. Ultimately, the facts speak for themselves, including NASA's immediate retirement of the shuttle program until 2010 and its subsequent emphasis on unmanned long-term exploratory missions. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (J. Shannon)
Columbia: Space Shuttle Disaster
(2008) 54 min. DVD: $24.95. WGBH Boston Video (avail. from most distributors). PPR. Closed captioned. ISBN: 978-1-59375-867-7. Volume 24, Issue 2
Columbia: Space Shuttle Disaster
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