WASHINGTON — When the first of many loud alarms sounded on the space shuttle Columbia, the seven astronauts had about a minute to live.
The pilot, William McCool, pushed several buttons trying to right the ship as it tumbled out of control. Most of the crew were following NASA procedures, spending more time preparing the shuttle than themselves for the return to Earth.
Some weren’t wearing their bulky protective gloves and still had their helmet visors open. Some weren’t fully strapped in. One was barely seated.
In seconds, the darkened module lost pressure. The astronauts blacked out. If the loss of pressure didn’t kill them immediately, they would be dead from violent gyrations that knocked them about the ship.
A new National Aeronautics and Space Administration report released Tuesday details the chaotic final minutes of Columbia, which disintegrated over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003. The point of the 400-page analysis is to figure out how to make NASA’s next spaceship more survivable. The report targeted problems with spacesuits, restraints and crew helmets.
Many of the details about the astronauts’ deaths have been known — they died either from lack of oxygen during pressure loss or from hitting something as the craft tumbled and broke up. However, the new report paints a more detailed picture of the crew’s final moments.
Astronaut Pam Melroy, deputy study chief, said the analysis showed the astronauts were at their problem-solving best trying to recover Columbia, which was starting to crack up as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere with a hole in its left wing, damage that had occurred at liftoff.
“There was no way for them to know that it was going to be impossible,” she said.
The crew had lost control of the motion and direction of the spacecraft. It was pitching end over end, the lights were out, and parts of the shuttle — including its wings — were falling off.
The NASA study team is recommending 30 changes based on Columbia, many of them aimed at the spacesuits, helmets and seat belts for both the shuttle and the next space capsule NASA is building.
Had the astronauts had time to get their gear on and get their suits pressurized, they might have lived longer and been able to take more actions. But they still wouldn’t have survived, the report notes.
Killed along with pilot McCool were commander Rick Husband; Michael Anderson; David Brown; Laurel Clark; Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut; and Kalpana Chawla, who earned her doctorate at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
