As officials continue to comb a wide swath of Texas and Louisiana for wreckage from the downed Columbia space shuttle, the question still remains; what went wrong?
The shuttle, which exploded just 15 minutes before returning to Cape Canaveral, Florida, was carrying seven crew members, including the first ever Israeli astronaut to go into space.
The ongoing investigation has a lot of territory to cover – 28,000 miles to be precise, but crews did pick up the ship’s cabin yesterday in eastern Texas.
Investigators are focusing on several theories of why the shuttle exploded, including the role played by a piece of insulation that broke off from an external fuel tank and struck the left side of the shuttle upon liftoff Jan. 16.
The left wing was also the focal point of another anomaly, as officials have pointed out that the temperature rose 60 degrees fahrenheit in five minutes, while the right side only increased by 15 degrees, causing an uneven drag. Scientists have noted that due to the sheer speed of the shuttle upon re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, this could have had a catastrophic effect on the amount of stress applied to the aircraft.
Investigators are also looking into the role that ceramic heat tiles played in the disaster, whether they were rough, or possibly even missing. There is currently no way of repairing these tiles once the shuttle is in space.
The Columbia was travelling at Mach 18 when NASA lost all vehicle data at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning. By 9:30, NASA declared an emergency, and by 9:45, residents were being warned not to touch any fallen debris, as it may be coated in toxic waste. Several people reported to local hospitals after touching debris, but none turned out to be injured.
Finally, at 1 p.m., NASA reported the loss of both the craft and the seven crew members aboard. U.S. President George W. Bush addressed the nation later that afternoon, announcing “The Columbia is lost. There are no survivors.”
The president also spoke to Israeli leader Ariel Sharon, expressing his sadness over the loss of Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut who was lost along with the six Americans on board.
Efforts to recover the astronaut’s bodies have so far yielded partial remains, and it has been reported that two young boys in Texas found a charred leg, while other Texans have recovered human hearts and a head and torso.
