I'm a huge space nerd. I've written about the space shuttle here before, having witnessed a launch in early 2009, a landing in late 2009, and a final launch in 2010. In July 2011, on the occasion of the final shuttle flight, I wrote at length about why the space shuttle needed to be retired. I've been a diehard fan of space activities, both manned and unmanned, for my entire life.
I was listening in on the radio in January 1986 when Challenger was lost, and I was watching live in February 2003 when Columbia was lost.
Ten years ago this morning, I was sitting in front of my computer at home, eating breakfast and watching NASA TV. The two-week STS-107 space shuttle mission was ending and the shuttle was coming home to a landing in Florida. I have watched every single launch and landing for many years and this would be no exception.
I tuned into NASA TV a few minutes before scheduled landing, right around the point that they usually start to pick up the shuttle on long range cameras. What I saw was a lot of camera shots of the Florida ground facilities and the Houston control room, because the shuttle wasn't in view yet. But shuttles don't run late -- if there was no shuttle to see, then something was terribly wrong.
The public commentator on NASA TV wasn't saying much. I listened in and heard the control room ask the C-band system guy for an update, and he reported that they were stilling running in a wide search mode. That meant that their big antenna was sweeping the Florida skies trying to pick up the shuttle, and not finding it.
Around this time, watching NASA TV closely, there was a moment when you could see a small scrum of people in the back of the control room briefly discussing some news they had just received over the phone -- reports had started to come in from East Texas of a breakup in the dawn skies overhead. The live public coverage from that morning can be found here. Here is footage (that came out later) showing what was going on in mission control during that time -- it starts getting weird at 4m45s. Here is an excellent second-by-second timeline of what was actually happening on the shuttle.
I finished up my breakfast and headed out the door. I was attending a meeting at a neighbor's house that Saturday morning about a local issue, and intended to show up late so I could catch the shuttle landing. I didn't say anything to anyone when I arrived, but at some point someone broke away to get something from the kitchen, and must have heard about it on the radio or something. She screamed "the shuttle exploded!" That pretty much broke up the meeting.
Wayne Hale is a big name in the space business. He was rising through the ranks of NASA management when Columbia happened, and went on to distinguish himself as one of the key people to lead the Space Shuttle Program out of the darkness and back into the light. He retired a couple years ago, and as his final act within NASA he led the effort to publish a book about the space shuttle, a tome of astonishing breadth and depth. He maintains a blog and a couple months ago started a series of posts recounting his experiences in the runup to, during and after the failed Columbia mission.
Here is the first one:
After Ten Years -– Why Write Now?
... and here is the whole series. Start at the bottom of the list and simply "next" through each post.
After Ten Years | Wayne Hale's Blog
I can't reach out and force you to read these, but I hope you will. He's quite eloquent and has a unique perspective on the history of the space program.
Rest in peace, crew of STS-107.