![]() Takeoff and reentry are the most dangerous parts of a space shuttle mission. Husband (L), mission commander Kalpana Chawla, mission specialist and William C. The crew of Space Shuttle Columbia’s mission STS-107 pose for the traditional crew portrait. It also kept the launch time secret until the last moment.Ĭolumbia was scheduled to land in Florida at 9:16 a.m., and the 28th flight of NASA’s oldest shuttle appeared to be going smoothly. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, NASA had imposed a no-fly area around the launch pad, barred boats from the area and ringed the site with heavily armed troops. 16 amid unprecedented security – and not simply because an Israeli was on board. Shuttle missions have become so routine over the 22 years the program has been in place that there was little fanfare surrounding Columbia’s return.īut there was wide coverage of the landing in Israel – an embattled nation that was looking to Ramon for a morale lift. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat also offered “condolences to the six American families and to the Israeli family who lost their loved ones,” cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said. “He was a ray of hope,” said Dan Gillerman, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. Israel was plunged into grief when it became clear that Ramon, a war hero and son of a Holocaust survivor, was dead. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘Lift your eyes and look to the heavens,’ ” he said. ![]() “This day has brought terrible news and great sadness for our country. President Bush cut short his weekend at Camp David and returned to the White House, where he tried to console the nation. And the bright lights atop the Empire State Building were left dark last night. Bouquets of flowers were placed at the entrance to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Somewhere along the line we missed something.”Ĭolumbia blew up almost exactly 17 years after the shuttle Challenger exploded on takeoff from Cape Canaveral with seven aboard.Įven before NASA declared the seven astronauts dead, flags outside the White House and at federal facilities across the country were lowered to half-staff. “My thoughts are on what we missed, what I missed, to allow this to happen,” said Ron Dittemore, the shuttle program manager. Instead, NASA probers focused on what initially was believed to have been minor damage to the $2 billion shuttle on launch, when a piece of foam insulation broke free of the shuttle’s external booster tank and struck the protective heat tiles on the left wing. officials discounted terrorism and noted the shuttle was out of range of surface-to-air missiles. ![]() It was Ramon’s presence on the mission that immediately raised suspicions that this was no accident. In a fearsome flash, Husband, pilot William McCool, mission specialists Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, Mike Anderson and David Brown, and Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon were lost. In Chinquipin, an arm and a hand were recovered. In the Texas town of Hemphill, a charred torso, a thigh bone and a skull were found along a rural road. Metal shards rained down across a wide area of Texas and as far east as Shreveport, La. “That’s when we began to know that we had a bad day,” said chief flight director Milt Heflin. So Hobaugh tried again, and again and again – until there was no point in trying. “UHF comm check.”Īgain, there was no answer. “Columbia, Houston,” Hobaugh tried again, using another radio channel. The New York Daily News published this article on Feb.
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