The Space Shuttle: A Horizon Guide (2011) - full transcript

A remarkable chapter in space flight
is coming to an end

as the Space Shuttle awaits
its final launch.

Since the early 1980s,
the Shuttle has been the pinnacle
of manned spaceflight technology.

Columbia is a beautiful ship.
She's performing magnificently.

Horizon and the BBC have covered
every step of its story.

A mission of 37 orbits
going east from the Cape
out over the Atlantic...

Over the last 30 years

the Shuttle has contributed to some
dazzling scientific achievements.

Hey!

Oh!

Wow!



But the successes have been
overshadowed by tragedy.

He said, "I don't see her.
I don't see the Shuttle."
I said, "It's gone." And it was.

You just knew it was... You knew.

Now that it's all over, how will
the Space Shuttle be remembered?

As a great adventure
in human space exploration?

Or as a fatally-flawed
white elephant?

In the early days of the Shuttle
programme, each launch was
a thrilling event for America

and for the astronauts involved.

There's a period of time up on
the launch pad where you're standing

with all the searchlights playing up
on the Shuttle.

And here is this monster
that you're about to climb into.

Because it's fully-fuelled and
there's a certain amount of boil off
of the liquid oxygen and so forth,

it seems like it's a hissing,
breathing, alive machine.

The voice communications become



quite silent in the last minutes.
You hear the counting down

and the main engines come on.

Of course, that's about, I guess,

1.25 million pounds of thrust.

You get that kick in the pants
and you're up, up and away.

We're going something over
about 100mph by the time
we reach the top of the tower.

You're just sitting there
hoping like heck that nothing
happens to any of the engines

because your mind's thinking
all the time. "What do I look for?

"What do I need to be ready to do?"

This strange, loud, roaring staccato
is somehow punctuated

by another sound of an explosion.

That's the solid rockets
being released.

It looks like you're flying through
a fireball when those things go off.

After that point, it's very smooth.

The whole experience
is just a tremendous adventure.

I smiled from ear to ear
right when the engines went off

and said, "What an experience!
Let's go back and do that again!"

MUSIC: "Hail To The Chief"

Americans were deeply proud
of their new space programme.

CHEERING

The Shuttle was a symbol of
the very best of American ingenuity.

'Ladies and gentlemen, the President
of the United States and Mrs Reagan

'and astronauts
Mattingly and Hartsfield.'

The fourth landing of the Columbia
marks our entrance into a new era.

The test flights are over.
The groundwork has been laid.

Beginning with the next flight,
the Columbia and her sister ships
will be fully operational.

The excitement echoed the
celebration of the Apollo programme
decades before

where the story
of the Shuttle begins.

'We're go for landing.
Eagle, you're go for landing. Over.'

'Tranquility Base here.
The Eagle has landed.'

The American space agency, NASA,
had achieved a remarkable triumph

in getting men to the Moon
and back.

But even as the ticker tape fell,
NASA was in trouble.
The Moon shot had cost 25 billion.

It didn't take long for the public
and politicians to question the
price tag of future space travel.

The space programme needed
to be cheaper.

Many at NASA had long dreamed
of building a reusable craft,

a sleek, futuristic space plane,

which would launch into orbit off
the back of a vast winged booster.

Both vehicles would be able to land
on a standard runway.

Though reusable,
this design was still too costly.

So in 1970, NASA was obliged
to seek support from the Air Force,

which had already experimented
with rocket planes
that could skim the edge of space.

The Air Force agreed to collaborate,

but only if NASA made
the space plane big enough
to carry hefty spy satellites.

The Shuttle as we know it was born,

the main vehicle
an enormous delta-winged orbiter,

its vast body covered in a patchwork
of heat-resistant tiles

which allow it to withstand
the intense heat of re-entry.

Too big to launch
off the back of a booster plane,

the orbiter is instead mated
with a central fuel tank

flanked by two solid rockets
which provide the thrust
to take it into orbit.

By 1972, the Shuttle's
distinctive design was set,

though not everyone approved.

We have a vehicle
which rests on a huge tank

which has 750,000 gallons of fuel.

And then there are these two great
solid rocket boosters, 150 feet long,
strapped on either side of it.

And the orbiter sits on top.

That's the equivalent of riding
a broomstick made of dynamite
with two firecrackers on either side.

Despite the misgivings of some,
Space Shuttle Columbia was finally
ready to go on April 12th, 1981.

20 years to the day
after Russia's Yuri Gagarin
first orbited the Earth.

From the start, NASA planned
to make Shuttle flights routine

with launches every two weeks.

To help fund this ambitious
schedule, crews would work
with commercial satellites.

New ones would be deployed
and old ones fixed when they broke.

In April, 1984, the Shuttle faced
its first major challenge

to show that it was worth
the billions it had cost.

Its mission was to repair
the faulty electronics
in a satellite called Solar Max.

But first, astronaut George
"Pinky" Nelson had to catch it.

'Nelson on his way.
One hour and two minutes.

'You'll have to hold on to it
with both hands, I imagine.'

Unable to dock properly with
Solar Max, Nelson tried to stop the
satellite spinning...with his hands.

'If you could go in that hole,
that would be fine.'

Nelson's efforts only made Solar Max
tumble faster. It seemed a failure.

Happily, though, controllers managed
to slow the spinning satellite

enough for the Shuttle to manoeuvre
alongside and attempt to grab
Solar Max with its robot arm.

- 'OK, we've got it'
- Roger, copy that.

Outstanding!

'Roger. It's all downhill from here.'

With each passing mission,
the astronauts were learning
how to enjoy life in space.

We are given the opportunity
to carry some music onboard,

tapes to play
in a pocket stereo player.

There's a song
called the Southern Cross

by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

I remember at one point looking out
the window at the Southern Cross
and playing that.

# When you see the Southern Cross
for the first time

# You understand now
why you came this way... #

You could spend days just looking out
the window and taking it all in,
learning what continents look like.

# But it's as big as the promise
The promise of the coming day... #

I used to have little dreams
when I was a kid that I'd run down
the street and fly into the air.

That's what weightlessness is like.

We've bee having a lot of fun up here
and, of course, doing a lot of
good work for the space programme.

The first day or so,
when you're adjusting to it,

you flail around a lot, reach
for a switch and hit the ceiling.

Zero G in itself
causes you to find games.

I would be up on a flight deck,
working like a good pilot, and I'd
hear the guys laughing and roaring.

When I finally went down,
there they were doing this precision
drill team stuff. It was fantastic.

'We were constantly asking
the question, "Where's Joe?"

'And lo and behold,
what should we find...

'but...but look at that.

'We have discovered
either an alien space creature

'or... it is!
It is Dr Allan!

'Largest personality,
but diminutive in stature,

'he's managed to insert himself
in yet another crevice.'

# Somebody fine will come along
Make me forget about loving you

# At the Southern Cross. #

By August, 1984,
NASA was so confident that the
Shuttle was now a routine space bus

that it launched a new publicity
campaign - a competition
to put a teacher in space.

The BBC followed the story.

Around the country, teachers
started filling in the 48-page
application form.

Among them was a social science
teacher from Concord, New Hampshire,
called Christa McAuliffe.

Christa called us one evening
when she was at home in Concord

and she said, "I'm applying
for this teacher in space programme."
And we thought it was great.

In the first place,
we really didn't really think
she'd probably get a chance.

But it was a fun process
to even apply

and to get involved in any way.

And so then, of course,
the nearer she got to it,
the more excited we all became.

In all, 11,000 teachers applied,
but by mid-July
there were 10 left in the contest.

And the winner, the teacher
who will be going into space,

Christa McAuliffe.
Where is...? Is that you?

Christa was the first choice
of all seven judges.

She was described
as a great communicator
and composed under pressure.

For NASA,
it was a public relations coup.

Overnight, Christa became a national
celebrity, the most famous astronaut
since Neil Armstrong.

You kids out there, do the best
you can and get the best education
you can. That's what it's all about.

So when I'm up in that Shuttle,
I want everyone working real hard

to make education what it should be
in this country! Thank you!

Christa went to Florida to train
with the Shuttle crew and immerse
herself in the life of an astronaut.

On January 28th, 1986,

Christa and the crew
prepared for launch.

Amongst the crowds waiting
for lift-off were her parents.

'Velocity 2,257 feet per second,
altitude 4.3 nautical miles, down
range distance 3 nautical miles.'

All seemed normal
until 73 seconds into the launch.

- 'Challenger, go with throttle up.'
- Roger, throttle up.

'One minute 15 seconds,
velocity 2,900 feet per second,
altitude 9 nautical miles...

'Flight Controller is here looking
very carefully at the situation.'

He said, "I don't see her.
I don't see the Shuttle."
I said, "It's gone." And it was.

You just knew that it was...
No, you knew it was...

You knew.

'Obviously, a major malfunction.'

I guess it must have been a minute
before I realised

that the crew was either dead
or in the process of dying.

I wanted to cry.

And everybody around me.
We couldn't look at each other.

I just sat in stunned silence
for the longest period of time.

Basically, faced the wall,
sat in my chair

and tried to hold back my emotions.

- Go ahead.
- 'Vehicle exploded.'

Copy.

We're awaiting word from any recovery
forces in the down range field.

As a team of experts began to look
for the cause of the accident,
a disturbing story unfolded.

A full year before the launch,
a design fault had been discovered
in the solid rocket boosters.

These are the powerful rockets
strapped to the fuel tank

which provide extra thrust
during lift-off.

The rockets are built for NASA
by a company called Morton Thiokol,

based in Utah, over 2,000 miles away
from Cape Canaveral.

This distance led to
a crucial design problem.

Rather than have the rocket engines

built near the Cape, which would have
been the best way, and barged in,

they were built in...

out in the prairies and then
they had to be freighted all the way.

That meant being built in segments,
which meant you had the joints.

With joints you may have problems.

Each joint was sealed
using a rubber O ring

which expanded during launch
to plug the joint
and seal in super-heated gas.

Failure would mean that hot gas
would burst out like a blowtorch.

So, for safety, the designers
built in a secondary O ring.

Two minutes into every launch,
the solid rockets detach,
fall back to Earth

and are collected for re-use.

In January, 1985, one of
Morton Thiokol's engineers made
a routine examination of a booster

that had been retrieved
from the previous Shuttle launch.

What he found shocked him.

When those boosters were separated

and I inspected all six joints,
two joints had been badly
compromised.

On that January flight, the primary
O rings in the compromised joints
had failed.

Only the presence of the secondary
O rings had prevented
a catastrophic explosion.

When I saw that in real time
in January of 1985,

I almost had cardiac arrest.
I could not believe that we hadn't
blown it up at that point in time.

The January launch had been
the coldest ever.

Boisjoly concluded that the O rings
had failed because the cold
temperatures had made them brittle.

He reported back to his managers
and NASA was informed.

NASA ordered a full review
of the joints, but decided
the O ring system was safe enough

to keep the Shuttle flying.

A year later, as Challenger waited
on the launch pad,

conditions were even colder than
they had been the previous January.

NASA consulted with engineers
at Morton Thiokol

who were reluctant to give
the go ahead for launch

in such cold temperatures.

But NASA was impatient.
Its recent launches had been dogged
by last-minute delays.

This launch was already
four days behind schedule.

In a last-minute tele-conference,
under pressure from NASA,

Morton Thiokol withdrew
its opposition to the launch.

But it WAS too cold

and in one of the joints
both O rings failed.

The vehicle broke up
into hundreds of fragments.

The crew compartment
plummeted towards the ocean,

but at seven miles up, it took
nearly 2.5 minutes to descend.

Later, NASA calculated
that some of the crew might have
been conscious on descent

and that all were probably alive.

The seven astronauts perished
when the stricken craft hit the sea
at more than 200 miles an hour.

The destruction of Challenger
and its brave crew
greatly affected America.

The media appetite for Christa
McAuliffe meant the nation knew
this Shuttle crew like no other.

Commander Dick Scobee.

Pilot Mike Smith.

Dr Judith Resnik.

Dr Ron McNair.

Lieutenant Colonel Ellison Onizuka.

Captain Greg Jarvis.

And teacher Christa McAuliffe.

The tragedy grounded the Shuttle

and paralysed NASA's
manned space programme.

But Americans could not give up
the dream of exploring space.

NASA set about a major redesign.

Clearly, the solid rockets
would have to be re-engineered,

but NASA also seized the chance
to make a host of other
safety improvements.

The astronauts appointed
to fly the next mission followed
every part of the redesign closely.

Morton Thiokol, Utah.

The first in a series of tests

of the redesigned solid rocket.

The critical path begins.

The crew is here.

Their success and, ultimately, their
lives depend on the work of many.

We're obviously interested
in witnessing the test firing.
It's step one, as was said earlier,

in getting us back into manned
spaceflight. In the solids,
two rubbery O ring seals

were supposed to stop a leak of
hot gas. Now they're experimenting
with a third O ring.

This was its first test.

Six, five, four,

three, two, one.

Fire!

The ascent phase of this mission
will be like a test flight.
We have new solid rocket motors,

the motors themselves have been
greatly re-engineered,

including parts of the booster.

And all those things together,
this will be the first flight test.

Landing and stopping can be just as
chancy as lift-off in this business.

June last year. They roll the
Shuttle slowly into a safety net.

And also last summer, they finally
had time to improve the spacecraft's
unreliable brakes and tyres.

'There are always going to be
problems and glitches.
That's what you expect.

'Certainly all of us as crew are
aware that this is a risky business

'and the crew of the Challenger
was no different. All we can do now
is regroup and rebuild

'and press on. We have to live
with what happened and keep going.'

We designed the Space Shuttle in
the '70s without an escape system.

And I think

everyone realises that was a mistake.

I don't think we'll ever see a rocket
built again without an escape system.

Hurricane Mesa, Utah.

They're using a dummy
to test a new escape system.

The tractor rocket concept is
an adaptation of the ejector seats
used in military jet aircraft,

only here the astronauts will be
pulled, not pushed to safety.

The engineers say it is a tested
system with a 90% success rate.

Pinky has come to watch.

The most thing that goes through
my mind is I hope I never do it.

The orbiter has to be flying
so the vehicle has to be intact
and flying through the atmosphere.

We couldn't bail out when the engines
were running or if we lost control

or if the vehicle was badly damaged.
This system would not work for that.

The system provides a narrow margin
of safety at best.

Escape is only possible
under limited circumstances.

Privately, some astronauts tell you
the whole thing is a sop
to public anxiety.

'Three, two, one.'

Whatever NASA's motives,
an escape system was
eventually included,

along with
a further 345 modifications.

Only then was the Shuttle considered
safe enough to go back into space.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

For over two years now...

..each one of us here tonight
has had a dream

that one day

a Shuttle would once again
make its way to the launch pad
to launch Americans into space.

'Start. Three, two, one, zero.

'And lift off! Lift off.

'Americans return to space
as Discovery clears the tower.'

The Challenger disaster had shown
conclusively that space flight
was not a routine activity

and the refit had cost
over 20 billion

so the Shuttle would never again
be described as cheap.

It needed to do something
spectacular to prove that it was
no white elephant.

Soon it got its chance.

In 1984, Horizon reported on plans
to build the world's
most ambitious telescope.

The Hubble Space Telescope will see
much further into the universe

than has ever been possible before.

Freed from the obscuring effects
of the atmosphere,

the optical system
at the heart of the spacecraft
will enable the telescope's mirror

to resolve details ten times better
than any instrument on the ground.

When it's installed
in the space telescope,

this mirror is set to revolutionise
our vision of the universe.

It will allow us to search
the stars for other solar systems
that may harbour life

and closer to home, we will be able
to study the planets

with a resolution equivalent
to the Voyager probe only a few days
away from its closest encounter.

In purely numerical terms,

it's as big or a bigger leap

than occurred when Galileo
first used a telescope,

rather than the naked eye, to look
at the universe and look at stars.

We know for sure
that every area of astronomy
will be very profoundly affected.

The space telescope will benefit
from the presence of man in space,

both to maintain its instruments
and to carry out repairs
if it breaks down.

No-one had any idea
how soon a breakdown would happen.

In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope
was deployed into orbit.

But when the telescope was used
for the first time,

the Hubble astronomers received
a profound shock.

Instead of the pin-sharp pictures
they were expecting...

..they got these smudges,

barely better than ground-based
telescopes could produce.

The problem was
the enormous mirror now seated
at the heart of the telescope.

It couldn't focus light perfectly
because it had been polished
a fraction out of shape.

Decades of work,
billions of dollars and the hopes
of a generation of astronomers

had been destroyed.

Once again, NASA was under attack.

Have we ended up with degraded
science or cancelled science?

If this aberration was
such a textbook case,

why wasn't it caught on the ground?

What are the possible things
that could have happened?

How many straws are there
on this camel's back?

It would be dishonest
to say the mood of the scientist
is very happy right now.

We're all frustrated, obviously.
And I'll stop there.

'The press conference
where we announced
Hubble's spherical aberration

'was by far the worst day of my life.
I was saying we messed it up.'

So at that point, I was convinced
the programme was dead.

People began to disintegrate.

Some had to be taken out by guards

to rehabilitation centres
for drugs and alcohol.

The astronomy community
was tearing itself apart.

I personally felt
like killing somebody

because having invested 12 years
of my life up to that point

in this project, and seeing that this
was a really major disaster for us...

..you know, the reaction is that one.

Everybody began blaming everybody
about how could this have happened,
how could such a mistake be made.

It was a very bad time.

The Hubble had to be saved
at all costs.

Scientists and engineers
began desperately trying
to find a solution to its problem.

..which we've listed as mechanical
correction or deformation.

'We formed a committee, a strategy
panel to come up with ideas
and about 30 suggestions came up.'

Number 85...

'We put everything on the table,'

even the craziest idea, to see
what we could do to fix the problem.

This is replacement
of the secondary,
just as a straight correction.

They ranged from the shuttle bringing
the spacecraft back to Earth

and replacing the primary mirror...

..to send astronauts up
and actually,
inside the tube of the telescope,

and do something to the optics,
which was crazy,
but we discussed it.

A full aperture correction...

There were ideas even to try
to re-coat or change the shape of
the primary on orbit with heaters.

To put a mirror in front of the
telescope which was slightly bent,
so you'd have the correction in it.

Trying to move the instruments back
by several metres.

Front end of the telescope...
A report... I don't have a picture.

And so on and so forth.

Among the proposals was
the ingenious solution,

an instrument that would match
the error in the mirror in reverse
and cancel it out.

This optical fix was called
the Corrective Optics
Space Telescope Axial Replacement,

or COSTAR for short.

There was no way of knowing whether
COSTAR would actually work.

But hopes of saving the Hubble
now lay with this intricate design.

Plans for an ambitious
repair mission began to take shape.

Everybody knew what happened when
we failed with Hubble the first time

and everybody knew the stakes
were very high. A second
failure would be unforgivable.

I mean, there were words
that were even...

Such as,
"This is the measure of NASA.

"This mission is the measure.
This mission defines...
Is there a NASA?"

There was enough pressure
to just do this mission,

but now suddenly,
instead of the future of Hubble,

the future of your entire space
programme is depending on success.

NASA was relying on the Shuttle
and its crew.

Along with COSTAR, they would also
have to put in a new camera
and make a host of other repairs.

It would mean a record 35 hours
of space walks over five days.

By December 1993,
they were ready to go.

'Houston, we are inspired, we are
ready. Let's go fix this thing.'

The astronauts got to work.

They knew the tiniest mistake could
be catastrophic for the mission.

'Four, five, six.

'You're clear in. You got it.'

'Look at that baby!

'Beautiful, spanking-new WF/PC.'

First came the delicate task
of putting in the new camera.

Later, COSTAR was manoeuvred into
position with less than an inch
of clearance on either side.

'Would you like to see it?

'Good work, guys.

'Whoo!'

The astronauts had completed
every task to perfection.

Now it was over to the scientists
on the ground.

Then it dawned on us - wait a minute,
this is only half the job.

Will that camera work?
Will COSTAR work?

Did we get the right prescription
for those glasses to put on Hubble?

Two weeks later, it was time
to put the repairs to the test.

First, they tried out
the new camera.

'As usual, everything on Hubble
happens at night for some reason

'and the first images were scheduled
to come down at 1am.

'The whole camera team were
around the computer screen.

'The image slowly built, so you see
the bright things first and right in
the centre was a very bright star.'

CHEERING

One bright... Right there.

CHEERING
We did it.

Wait, wait, wait.

Bring it up.
Come on, come on, come on.

Those are actually stars.
Those are real stars.

LAUGHTER

CORK POPS

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

'Everyone was thrilled.
There were cheers.'

It was black and white.

Before, we didn't know,
and afterwards, we knew. We had it.

Astronomers saw in spectacular
detail for the first time
where stars are born...

..how they die...

..and back in time
to the origins of the universe.

Without the Shuttle,
it wouldn't have been possible
to get these images from Hubble.

This incredible success was
a major milestone for NASA.

Hubble was saved and the Shuttle was
back in the nation's good books.

But the rescue mission would also
pave the way for a project
of even more extraordinary ambition.

Ideas for a futuristic space station
had been around for decades.

Many of them inhabited
the murky world
between science fact and fiction.

But NASA had firm plans
to create one for real.

In 1984, President Reagan revealed
to the world and to Mrs Thatcher

models of a permanent,
orbital space station.

One of its great...

But the plans stalled as
NASA scientists found it impossible

to decide what that space station
should be like.

The Russians meanwhile had
no such problems.

They had had Salyut 1 in orbit
since 1971.

And they had followed this success
by building the even more complex
Mir space station.

Meanwhile, by 1993,

the US had spent
an alarming eight billion dollars

on countless re-designs without
building a single piece of hardware.

Congress was threatening
to pull the plug.

But something had happened
that would give
the US space station a reprieve.

The old enemy, the Soviet Union,
had collapsed.

Russia's once spectacular
space programme was almost bankrupt.

In the new era of peace
between nations,

NASA's chief administrator had
an idea.

Dan Goldin invited the Russians
to collaborate.

This is a historic moment.
I'm just very excited.
Mr Koptev, I want to give you a hug.

APPLAUSE

It was a hug that would get
Shuttle astronauts on to Mir.

I'm Jerry Linenger, of course,
and I'm in the base block

where you see most pictures
that come out of Mir.

This is where we gather to eat...

Jerry Linenger was
the fourth American astronaut
to join the Russians on Mir.

This is the commander's station.
Vasily says hello to everybody...

'I had a sense that I was doing
something good for the country.

'I was about 14 when I saw
the moon landings and I said,
"I'd like to do that some day."'

You get lucky sometimes.

Mir has been lived in
almost continuously
since she was launched in 1986.

SPEAKS IN RUSSIAN

But life on Mir was far
from perfect.

The ageing space station
was falling apart.

Oxygen generators
repeatedly broke down.

There were daily chemical leaks.
Even the toilet malfunctioned.

We had many system failures
and they were in need
of your constant attention.

And many days I'd start an experiment
in the morning to get it running,

then I'd run over to help hacksaw
through a pipe and plug the ends,
then run back to my experiment.

Most dangerous of all, in the sixth
week of Linenger's stay,

a fire broke out.

I looked down the passageway
and I could see a very large flame...

..bursting out of the canister,

smoke billowing out,
and I knew we had a big problem.

The fire was blocking the exit
to one of the two escape ships.

If the crew couldn't put it out,
some of them would be left behind
to die.

Cosmonaut Valery Korzun
finally put out the fire,
but smoke continued to fill Mir.

Linenger was relieved when
his 19-week stay in orbit was over.

Watching the Shuttle coming up
underneath us at 18,000 miles an hour

was the most beautiful sight
in the world.

I was ready to go home

and for me,
it was a moment of triumph.

The Shuttle's there. I'd made it.

And when the Shuttle came and docked,
it was glorious.

Despite its faults, the Russian
collaboration was a turning point
in NASA's plans for a space station.

They now had valuable data
on how humans reacted
to long stays in space.

And it had secured co-operation
for an International Space Station.

'T minus 60 seconds and counting.

'Everything looking good for launch
of Space Shuttle Endeavour
from Kennedy Space Center.

'T minus 50 seconds.'

Now that the Shuttle had smoothed
the path for the new space station,
it was sent to build it.

'Ten, nine, eight,

'seven, six, five,

'four, three,

'two, one, zero

'and lift-off of Endeavour,

'going where East and West do meet
at the International Space Station.'

CHEERING

'Endeavour, Houston. Congratulations
to all the members of the crew.
It's a beautiful sight.'

The space station began a new era
in the colonisation of space.

Nations which were sworn enemies
only years before worked together

to build a truly
international machine.

In the first five years
of construction, the Shuttle made
16 trips to the space station,

but it was slow work.

By 2002, NASA was under pressure
to do more with the Shuttle

than just use it as a ferry
to the ISS.

Its answer was to launch
a scientific study mission,

though the lessons learned
would have more grim implications.

Columbia,
the oldest craft in the fleet,

was fitted with a state-of-the-art
space laboratory.

This mission would be the first
to use it.

It meant that for NASA
and the seven astronauts on board,
there was a lot at stake.

And for 16 days,
everything went according to plan.

The team worked round the clock
on their experiments.

If we didn't work 24 hours a day,
we'd be giving up
eight hours of sleep time

that could be used for science.

So the intent is to pack
each minute of the 24 hours

that we're on orbit with science.

After two weeks in space,
the science mission
was declared a triumph.

All that was left
was to gather their results,

re-enter the Earth's atmosphere
and come home.

The entries are a bit better
than the launch. It's a bit quieter.

It's not quite as violent
and you can enjoy it a little bit.

At the end of 16 days,
we'll come back and land,

slowing from 17,000-plus miles per
hour down to 200-plus miles per hour.

We're hoping our commander
will make a smooth landing
and the mission will be over.

ALL:
Bye-bye!

On the 1st of February, 2003,

Columbia began its descent
back to Earth.

As the Shuttle raced
over the Pacific towards the US,

the crew put on their suits,
preparing themselves
for a routine landing.

'Columbia's a beautiful ship,
performing magnificently.'

At 8.44am, Columbia re-entered
the Earth's atmosphere.

Still everything appeared normal.

'There might be some plasma now.'

GNC, Flight? Flight, GNC.

Everything look good to you? Control
and rates and everything is nominal?

Control's been stable.
We have good trims. I don't see
anything out of the ordinary. OK.

'It's noisy in there.'

Then, just 22 minutes before
touchdown at 8.54 in the morning,

there was an unusual reading from
one of the Shuttle's many sensors.

Flight, MMACS. Go ahead, MMACS.

I've just lost four separate
temperature transducers
on the left side of the vehicle,

hydraulic return temperatures.

Columbia, Houston, comm check.

Columbia, Houston, UHF comm check.

TOTAL SILENCE

Columbia, Houston, UHF comm check.

Columbia, Houston, UHF comm check.

At 9.16, the truth dawned
on Mission Control.

The Space Shuttle had been lost.

61 kilometres above the ground,

the Shuttle had disintegrated,
killing all seven people on board.

Once again, NASA found itself
asking the terrible question,

"What had gone wrong
with the Shuttle?"

Within minutes of the disaster,

NASA's investigators
had swung into action.

They began to concentrate
on an event that had happened

at the very beginning
of Columbia's voyage.

It was something to do

with the Shuttle's
large, orange fuel tank.

During this particular launch,

it appears that a large chunk
of this spray-on foam broke off

at the place where the Shuttle
attaches to the tank
up by under the nose.

This video shows a piece
of orange insulating foam
falling off the fuel tank

81 seconds into the flight.

The chunk appears to be
about the size of a briefcase,
maybe a little bit bigger,

and weighs somewhere around
two and a half to three pounds.

The foam had struck and damaged
the wing's leading edge,

an area covered by ultra-strong,
grey, carbon-carbon panels
designed to be indestructible.

The leading edge, the reinforced
carbon-carbon, is hard, like a rock.

And for foam to have damaged
the RCC enough

to cause an accident
still surprises me.

But tests showed that a foam block
could indeed puncture the tiles,

inevitably leading to a catastrophic
failure of the heat shield.

Some felt that NASA could
have saved Columbia and its crew.

That they could have been brought
back to Earth alive.

NASA knew a chunk of foam had hit
the orbiter during launch.

It could have used
a telescope on Earth
to examine the Shuttle in orbit

to see if any tiles
had been damaged.

Or it could have asked
the astronauts to open a hatch
and take a look.

Once it had discovered the damage,

NASA could have asked the crew to
bring the Shuttle in at a different
angle, favouring the undamaged wing.

You might have led sort of sideways,

crabbing the Shuttle in,
scorching the good side,

protecting the damaged side.

But even if this wasn't possible,

NASA still had another
much more ambitious option -

a rescue mission.

At the time of the disaster,
the Shuttle Atlantis
was being prepared for launch.

NASA could have sent it up
to rescue the crew within weeks.

A rescue mission like this
would have been a major achievement
for NASA

and a public relations coup,

proof that they had the expertise
and skills to do remarkable things.

The tragedy is none of
these options was even considered.

Columbia was a powerful reminder
that manned space flight
is inherently dangerous.

But America was adamant that the
names of the dead should be honoured

and that the programme
must continue.

Another re-design began.

The foam insulation
on the fuel tank was improved

and systems were put in place
to check for tile damage in orbit.

Two years later, a new crew
prepared to return to space

on the 114th flight
in the Shuttle fleet's career.

But even as the Shuttle orbited,
NASA had already decided
it was time to call it a day.

Its flawed, compromised design
means there are just
too many things that can go wrong.

Since 2003, there has been
a collective crossing of fingers
every time a Shuttle has launched

and every time
one has returned safely.

With the end of the programme,
that anxiety is over.

But what a ride the Shuttle
has given us!

The programme has launched more
people into space than all previous
American space missions combined

and allowed humans to continue
to reach out beyond our planet.

The Hubble Space Telescope
has given us a view on the dawn
of time and the birth of stars.

The construction
of the International Space Station
has shown what can be achieved

when once hostile nations
collaborate.

And Earth observations
have given us valuable insights
into the changing face of our home.

But perhaps more than anything,
the Shuttle has shown us
what we are capable of.

It has provided us with a stepping
stone to the missions of the future.

Where that future takes us
will be up to the next generation

of engineers, politicians
and scientists

who take on the great endeavour
of space exploration.