Two times to get nervous.
In 1986, about seventy seconds after launch, a leaky o-ring gasket allowed a blow-torch of hot booster thrust to seep out of the side of one of Challenger’s solid rocket boosters. The white plume ate through the external fuel tank and caused the vehicle to disintegrate. The spacecraft went up in a fireball just after veteran astronaut Dick Scobee radioed to Earth "go at throttle up" after Challenger’s engines began to rev higher after the vehicle had passed the point of maximum aerodynamic pressure. Call it planning, or a subconscious response to what happened—but, I write in "Final Countdown" how astronaut Rick Hauck, Commander of the first flight after Challenger, didn’t use that same phrase during his return-to-flight liftoff. "Roger, go!" he responded at the same time during liftoff when Scobee last spoke. Similarly, Columbia was lost sixteen minutes before landing in 2003. Launch day damage to its left hand wing allowed super hot gases from re-entry to pour in through a breech, which melted in the inside of the wing and blew out through the landing gear door, according to engineers to studied the telemetry. Extra drag on the wing flipped the shuttle over, causing it to break up. Even after several successful post Columbia flights, the press was watching Atlantis’ path through the atmosphere about sixteen minutes prior to touchdown. The spacecraft was passing the western coast of Cuba at that point during its descent. Again, I'm looking forward to my talk at the Orange County Regional History Center this weekend. It's for a group of history teachers--I just hope there's not a test afterward ;). Again copies of my book "Final Countdown" are available your local bookstore, amazon.com, and on "Scientific American's" book club at... More to come-- |
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February 20, 2008—Atlantis landed safely today, and its return pointed up the two times when reporters covering a Shuttle mission tend to grit their teeth. About one minute after liftoff, and sixteen minutes before landing. That’s when NASA’s two Shuttle disasters occurred. That includes the mission of Atlantis to the International Space Station to deliver the Columbus lab.