What Happened To Space Shuttle Columbia - DISASTER BREAKDOWN

This video went After over two weeks in Space, disaster struck on Space Shuttle Columbia. Upon reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, the shuttle broke apart due to a severe weakness in the left wing which was cause on launch.

CORRECTION: In this video I mentioned that the SRBs are connected to the Orbiter Vehicle, the SRBS are infact connected to the External Fuel Tank. A thank you to those in the comments section for pointing that out.

Sources:

[DisasterBreakdown]

Small Corrections.
- Astronaut Kalpana Chawla achieved a PhD in Aerospace Engineering. In this video I did not address her as Dr. Kalpana Chawla as I should have.
- As a couple people have pointed out here, the Solid Rocket Boosters on the Space Shuttle are actually connected to the External Fuel Tank and not the Orbiter Vehicle.
Thanks to those for that info, my apologies.

[ckotcher]

You know what’s so sad and chilling? If you Watch the in shuttle video in the minutes before the explosion or before it burned on reentry I should say, the crew in the cockpit are all joking saying “I’m glad I’m not outside right now” as their reentry started and they could see the flames. (Note: seeing flames is actually normal on reentry but obviously they aren’t supposed to burn through the core of the shuttle)

[MrPvtrandall]

My Father was part of an Elks Lodge group that helped scour the fields in Texas for missing parts. They were each given an official shuttle patch and a replica of the Columbia Shuttle for their efforts.

[aidancoutts]

I heard that they did a mock foam strike test for days and days. It never made a dent for the longest time. Then one attempt, at just the right angle, at just the right spot, at just the right speed;

the foam obliterated the wing. Going against every bit of testing they did prior.


Freak accident.

[jfiorello]

I remember that morning. Here in Central Florida we would hear and feel Twin sonic booms whenever a shuttle returned to KSC, but that morning there were none. On TV, they said they had lost contact with the shuttle. A very sad day.

[TheWtfnonamez]

A classic case of basing a diagnosis on the difficulty of the cure. They pretty much knew they were screwed if the wing was damaged, so they shrugged it off and said "nah it will be fine". Very poor management. They should have run the inspection space walk, and then dealt with the reality of outcome. RIP the astronauts.

[butcherhanson]

Just crazy how a foam tile can cause so much damage especially against carbon material previously thought to be indestructible.
Goes to show how crucial the planning process is for any space launch.
Speculation and a rush job due to financial pressure can lead to a catastrophic lose of life and the financial cost exceeding the original balance.
*Great breakdown, learned much about this process and what could happen when things are over looked and/or disregarded for time.*

[terribleTed-lncm]

My mother who lives 45 minutes southwest of Dallas was watching that day she still talks about it to this day with a tear in her eye.

[sttv]

Tip for future decision makers. An event has to be evaluated to determine what it was and whether it is dangerous. When a big chunk of something hits the wing at enormous speed, you cannot just say “hey, something like that happened in 1989 and the ship didn’t explode. So we are good.” You have to actually figure out what happened and what that means.

[ExperimentIV]

damn, i remember watching the news the day this happened. i was really young and remember not really understanding what happened or how it happened. i mean, i was born too late to know anything useful about challenger. now i look back on the two incidents as NASA at its absolute worst - both disasters could have been completely averted, but it wasn’t worth the money/time/extra weight/whatever.

[DisasterBreakdown]

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[Oklahomarailfan.]

A lot of people seem to confuse the rolls as a braking maneuver to find lift, when it’s actually quite the opposite, it’s to try and point as little lift upward as possible to avoid skipping out of the atmosphere, if you point your lift sideways you can keep going down

[helenwilliams]

I've always been fascinated by the space program, and have watched everything from Gemini splashdowns, the moon landing, Apollo 13 crisis, Challenger's avoidable demise, and the tragic death of Columbia and crew. Nice job, as always, and very tastefully done. Of course, if you want more details about what happened to the shuttle and the search for parts and whatever human remains that was identifiable, there are many sources out there. I think your videos are very respectful to those who lose their lives in these disasters. RIP Columbia.

[whatweather]

I can’t believe it wasn’t mandatory before this for inspection of the spacecraft before descending back to Earth! They just hoped for the best that it didn’t suffer any trauma during its launch?!

[Eric_Hutton.]

I remember both the Challenger and Columbia disasters. Both tragedies taking the lives of 14 brave souls.

[thesquirrel]

I work with an engineer named Kevin Stevenson today on the Atlas program. He use to work shuttle. He was there that day in 2003, on the tarmac, at the shuttle landing facility, waiting for Columbia to come home. He knew all of the Columbia 7 personally. He said to me quote. "That is a feeling I never want to feel ever again."

[XxprobertsonxX]

Really appreciate the writing and execution of this. Super professional.

[ShuckfacedShank]

Yes! I was so excited when I saw this in my notifications! Can you also maybe do a dedicated video on the Challenger disaster? Great video as always! <3

[ExperimentIV]

genuinely surprised (especially since you’re usually way more thorough than i could ever hope to be!) that you don’t bring up STS-27, a shuttle launch in 1988 that caused worse foam strike damage to atlantis overall, but luckily took place over a thick steel plate which melted through and iirc was starting to melt through the aluminum skin but survived because of how thick it was (so not everything would wear away). it was a classified DoD payload, and astronaut Hoot Gibson, who was one of the crew members on STS-27 said he could only send Mission Control heavily encrypted video. On his end, though, the video was crystal clear, and it was obvious that the foam strike had caused massive damage. he was convinced they would burn up on reentry. when the shuttle successfully landed, everyone who saw the damage was horrified. so NASA knew how badly things could go, and we could have lost atlantis and the shuttle programme before 1990 if not for where the foam strike on atlantis occurred. NASA knew this could be a problem that led to fatalities since at LEAST late 1988, and the columbia disaster still occurred.

[whoever]

I remember watch Challenger launch live as a little kid but I think I saw the home video of the Columbia breaking apart later on. It was really sad. My family used to always pay attention to shuttle stuff because we're a bunch of space nerds.