Three years ago today saw the loss of the Space Shuttle orbiter Columbia and her crew during re-entry at the end of mission STS-107. <\/p>\n
While the names of the seven brave astronauts that perished during re-entry will be honoured today, Columbia\u2019s loss \u2013 despite being a \u2018machine\u2019 \u2013 continues to be grieved alongside her fallen crew. Crippen was alongside John Young on board Columbia for the test flight on STS-1. The bond between Crippen and Columbia remained solid 22 years later when Crippen choose to pay tribute to the fallen orbiter. <\/font> <\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m sure that Columbia which had travelled millions of miles, and made that fiery re-entry 27 times before, struggled mightily in those last moments to bring her crew home safely once again,\u2019 said Crippen. \u2018She wasn\u2019t successful.<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n \u2018Columbia was a fine ship. Many said she was old and past her prime, still she had only lived barely a quarter of her design life. In years she was only 22. Columbia had a great many missions ahead of her, she along with the crew, had her life, snuffed out, in her prime.\u2019<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Known as the most \u2018steady\u2019 of the orbiters on the pad by engineers that worked with her, Columbia paved the way for improvements to be made throughout the fleet during the four test flights she undertook during the early 1980s.<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Her legacy continues, with new inspection techniques being implemented into checking orbiter TPS (Thermal Protection System) for debris strikes \u2013 one of which was responsible for the loss of Columbia during re-entry on STS-107. <\/p>\n Improvements to the External Tanks (ET) continue to be made to avoid foam liberation striking the orbiter during the ride uphill.<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n But it was her final moments that solidify the love people have for Columbia, as she fought past the expected boundaries of her capabilities, as super-hot gases on re-entry breached through the hole created by a debris strike, ripping her apart from the inside. <\/font><\/p>\n \u2018It is an engineering mystery to how those last few minutes and seconds transpired,\u2019 said one United Space Alliance engineer, who wished not to be named in this article. \u2018Take the example of the potential concern the two gap fillers (two small slices of fabric) had on aerodynamic changes to the entry interface profile (during STS-114), yet Columbia somehow fought with a whole wing totally misshaped and collapsing. <\/font><\/p>\n Space Shuttle models (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n \u2018There is still some debate to what happened with a number of \u2018steering\u2019 commands and her continued fight to correct the drag. Columbia did surpass herself during those final moments. The way she tried to correct and keep flying was past her design and her programming. She was amazing and I\u2019m so very proud of her. <\/p>\n \u2018There\u2019s enough engineers here who went to Texas to bring her home and there\u2019s enough here that have had a quiet moment with her remains to say thank you and goodbye.\u2019<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Another engineer spoke about the impact of the day Columbia\u2019s debris was brought into the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for storage.<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n \u2018It was fitting she finally made her last journey home, for here (KSC) is home for the orbiters,\u2019 he said. \u2018The loss of the STS-107 crew was a national tragedy, but the loss of Columbia deserves the same level of grief.<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n \u2018Columbia\u2019s debris didn\u2019t register with me for a while. We\u2019re so used to this huge spacecraft being in an OPF (Orbiter Processing Facility), this larger than life, beautiful ship that so many of us spent so much time and effort on. She was so calm and graceful until she was ready for launch. Then she\u2019d be hissing and making all manner of rude noises on the pad as she built up to the explosive power of launch.<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n \u2018A larger than life character, part of the NASA family, as are all the orbiters, but she was something special.\u2019<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Confirmation of her place as part of the fallen crew became a fitting tribute from Crippen. One that should be remembered today as we pay tribute to the pioneers of space travel.<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2018Just as her crew has, Columbia has left us quite a legacy. There\u2019s heavy grief in our hearts, which will diminish with time \u2013 but it will never go away \u2013 and we won\u2019t ever forget. Hail Rick, Willie, KC, Mike, Laurel, Dave and Ilan. Hail Columbia.\u2019<\/p>\n To view videos paying tribute to Columbia and her crew, click here: <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three years ago today saw the loss of the Space Shuttle orbiter Columbia and her crew during re-entry at the end of mission STS-107. While the names of the seven brave astronauts that perished during re-entry will be honoured today, Columbia\u2019s loss \u2013 despite being a \u2018machine\u2019 \u2013 continues to be grieved alongside her fallen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42164"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe flagship of the NASA shuttle fleet \u2013 and arguably the best known spaceship ever to have been built \u2013 was hailed as one of the fallen heroes during Robert Crippen\u2019s memorial speech, which portrayed rarely seen emotions for a vehicle that has forever earned herself a place in history.<\/p>\n
<\/em><\/font>http:\/\/forum.nasaspaceflight.com\/forums\/thread-view.asp?tid=1411&start=1<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n