IASK: Legacy

A turning point… Columbia is gone.

—

by

senseiken
in

as it was

Alright. Let’s take this one head on. The [[e2|space shuttle]]

[[e2|Columbia]] was lost during

STS-107. Something bad happened,

and at the speeds and temperatures the shuttle experiences during re-entry any

little problem is catastrophic.

Needless to say, this is a tragedy. My sympathies go to the families

of her crew, and to those who worked on her because no doubt each and every one

of them will wonder what they might have missed, or how they could have

prevented this from happening.

My main concern is that this disaster will have exactly the

wrong effect, once again causing the US to dampen or slacken its efforts to gain

and keep mastery of space, both around our planet and in our solar system. it is

imperative in my mind that we grow beyond our single world – we must remember

that tragedies must bring us caution, nor terror and weakness. If

9/11

taught us anything, it is that fear must not rule us.

There is no reason or me to try and cover this tragedy in detail, as events

are already being covered in both the [[wp|mainstream]] and [[wp|blogstream]]

media, where the [[e2|February 1, 2003|feelings of many users]] are already

apparent. The

official page for Columbia has already been updated.

I will provide links to the best places to keep an eye on all this, and

update this entry as necessary as time goes on. There is a lot of information

here, so click the [more] link if you have one.

Here is a summary taken from the current entry at the [[wp|Wikipedia]]:

"At about 9:00 a.m.

EST (14:00

UTC)

on

February 1,

2003,

NASA‘s Mission Control at

Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in

Houston, Texas lost radio contact with the

space shuttle

Columbia as it descended from orbit toward its landing

destination at

Cape Canaveral near the

John F. Kennedy Space Center and

Jacksonville,

Florida. Contact was lost at 203,000 feet (39 miles) above north central

Texas at over 12,500 miles per hour (Mach 18). The loss of contact was

expected and planned by NASA as a standard consequence of the shuttle passing

through the

ionosphere. The shuttle was expected to land at 9:16 EST; however it

failed to arrive and apparently disintegrated over north central Texas." – [[wp|Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster|full

text]]

on radar

Blogstream Coverage:

Mainstream Coverage:

Technical:

Media: