The Space Shuttle Catastrophe

On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia exploded. The mission was the twenty-eighth trip made by the space shuttle. The crew of seven would die in a fiery explosion as the ship attempted to reenter Earth’s atmosphere.

The start of the demise of the shuttle and its crew actually began with the shuttle’s liftoff. Within the beginning of the launch, a piece of insulation broke off from the propellant tank. The piece of foam hit the edge of the left wing of the shuttle. This damage to the wing would later prove disastrous.

The wings of the shuttle were protected by heat-resistant tiles. When the foam hit the wing, some of the tiles were dislodged. Without the protection of this equipment, heat and wind would enter the wing during its ascent into the atmosphere. The result would cause the wing to blow apart from the struggling shuttle.

At 8:58, witnesses began seeing the first debris from the shuttle hit the ground. By 9:00 a.m., the shuttle and its crew were gone. The space shuttle program remained grounded until a complete investigation could be done, and the program did not resume until July 2005.