NASA’s Tragedies Heal with Time 

       NASA’s worst moments are the three deadly tragedies that happened in the same week but 36 years apart.

       The deaths of 17 astronauts on the Apollo 1 moonship, the Space Shuttle Challenger and Shuttle Columbia disasters were horrible reminders of the danger of space travel.  Yet all the lives were avenged with the American conquest of the Moon in the 1960s and the construction of the International Space Station in the 2000s.

NASA 1990 Astronaut Group 13 

      In the 50 years of manned space travel, those three fatal NASA spaceships are joined by two death disasters in the Soviet Union space program that claimed four lives. That’s 21 humans killed in five space-related disasters in the dangerous job of building and riding rockets—a death ratio to manned space launches that is actually quite low over five decades.

       Each fatal incident was a hard lesson and a major setback, but the ingenuity of rocket scientists prevailed. And with the improvements made after reach tragedy, it has been since that reentry destruction of Space Shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003 that anyone has been killed in space.

       But there have been some close calls with luck on the side of threatened spacefliers.  There have also been some deaths by space workers for NASA and Russia, not to mention some major rocket explosions at the factory or on the launch pad that claimed the lives of about 60 Americans and maybe several hundred Russians.

Astronauts Shuttle Era

       As of Jan. 1, 2014, 533 individuals from 38 countries have orbited Earth, and have spent an accumulative 77 years in space, including 100 total days of space walks.    Since 1961, Russia has launched 126 manned spacecraft, America has put 170 spacecraft with humans into space, and China has five manned flights to its credit—totaling 301 spaceships leaving the Earth. 

And then you have the danger of spacewalks, the first being in 1965 by Russian Alexi Leonov. As of January 1, 2013, there have been exactly 205 humans who made a total of 778 individual spacewalks.  That includes the more than 350 individual spacewalks at the International Space Station lasting about 7 hours each.

 Compared to expected fatalities in military training flights around the world, it’s truly amazing that more people haven’t been killed in space.

       The three US space disasters didn’t have to happen—investigation boards all found human judgment errors created the problem. And in each of the three American disasters, NASA was criticized for creating an atmosphere of flying with accepted risks that stifled those people warning of the impending doom.

Those American tragedies were:

Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee at Saturn V pad January 1967

·      Jan. 27, 1967, launch pad 34B at Cape Kennedy, 6:30 pm: 

      An electrical spark in the haphazard wiring in the new Apollo 1 moonship creates an inferno in the pure oxygen, killing three astronauts. The flash fire was caused by wiring under the commander’s seat, and in only 17 seconds asphyxiated the astronauts as they struggled to open the capsule door—a five minute procedure.  Dead were Gus Grissom, veteran of a Mercury and Gemini spaceflight and the favorite to be the first man on the Moon; Ed White, who performed the first American space walk on Gemini IV; and rookie Roger Chafee.

Space Shuttle Challenger crew
Front: Mike Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair
Back: Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis, Judy Resnick

·      Jan. 28, 1986, 11:38 am:  Space Shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after lift-off just 9 miles above the Florida coast.

      This was the 25^th launch in the Shuttle program, and coldest launch conditions ever.  Freezing temperatures compromised a segment of the stacked solid rocket booster on the right side, allowing fire to breach a cold O-ring at the connection of a booster segment, erupting like a blow torch and cutting a support beam holding the rocket in place and shoving it into the huge fuel tank.  Challenger was thrown sideways and broke up at 1,200 mph, the seven astronauts surviving in their cabin segment, possibly knocked unconscious from hypoxia—but three of them tried to activate their emergency oxygen. Free-falling for three minutes, many astronaut insiders believe their colleagues were alive when the cabin hit the Atlantic Ocean at 207 mph with an unsurvivable force. The cabin wasn’t found until March 7 in 1,200 feet of water, 20 miles off shore.  The remains of the crew were returned to their families April 29^th. They are Commander Dick Scobee, pilot Michael Smith and mission specialists Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Greg Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian as part of a teacher-in-space program.  

Space Shuttle Columbia Crew
David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Willie McCool, Michael Anderson, Ilan Ramon

  

·      Feb. 1, 2003, 9 am, 35 miles above Dallas, Texas: Space Shuttle Columbia is ripped apart at 5,000 mph just 2 minutes from landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

      At blastoff 14 days earlier on its 28^th mission, Columbia was struck by a chunk of insulation that flew off the huge fuel tank, punching a football-sized hole in the right wing. Though the damage was suspected by some engineers, NASA never used spy satellites to check, and the astronauts continued their mission in the Space Lab in the cargo by, unaware of their doomed fate.  Killed were six American astronauts and Israel’s first space flier. They are Commander Rick Husband, pilot Willie McCool and mission specialists Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark and Israel’s first astronaut, war hero Ilan Ramon. Space Shuttle debris from more than 2,000 locations between East Texas and Western Louisiana included human remains.

Fallen astronaut memorial on the Moon

       All of the 17 killed aboard US spacecraft have been immortalized with their names adorning planetariums, science centers, schools, streets and parks. NASA has the Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s Space Mirror Memorial at Cape Kennedy.  Constructed of mirror-finished granite, the Sun’s rays are projected through the engraved names of the astronauts. 

       There are 14 dead astronauts and cosmonauts listed on a plaque left in July 1969 at Tranquility Base by Apollo 11 with a mini sculpture of a fallen astronaut. They included spacemen killed in car accidents or succumbed to illness. 

       The two Russian space tragedies could also have been averted.  They are:

        ·      April 24, 1967 – Veteran cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when his new Soyuz 1 spacecraft hit the ground at 500 mph after a doomed maiden flight.

              The one-day mission was plagued with system problems, including navigation and cabin cooling. Komarov, unable to control his spacecraft accurately, knew he was likely to die, and called the flawed Soyuz a “devil machine.”

The reentry angle was all wrong, and the parachutes were rippe to shreds, causing the fatal impact. The brave cosmonaut’s cremated remains are in the Kremlin Wall at Red Square in Moscow.

 Georgi Dobravolski, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov

·      June 30, 1971 – Russia was shocked when their new space heroes were found dead in their seats after a soft landing of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft.

      The three cosmonauts had spent three weeks aboard the new Salyut 1 Space Station, and had been on Russian national TV several times to show off their new home. They were actually the backup crew, replacing the prime crew just four days before launch when a cosmonaut was diagnosed with tuberculosis. After undocking from the Salyut 1 in triumph, they heading for a fiery reentry and a safe landing. But a cabin vent valve accidentally opened about 1/16^th of an inch during reentry, allowing the air to escape, asphyxiating the crew, who were not in helmeted space suits.  The automated landing proceeded perfectly with good telemetry. Mission control thought something was wrong with the radio, thus the silence from the cosmonauts.  When the hatch was opened, found dead were Georgi Dobravolski, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov.  They are interred in the Kremlin Wall and are the last Russian fatality.  

Soyuz 11 Funeral July 1971

       Five American astronauts and two Soviet Cosmonauts have died while training for flights, including the prime crew of Gemini 9 in February 1966.  Elliot See was piloting the T-38 jet with his partner Charles Bassett in the backseat when they crashed while landing in bad weather at the St. Louis, Missouri factory where, ironically, their Gemini spacecraft was being built. 

Friends Gagarin and Komorov hunting

       In another tragedy, Russian hero Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space on April 20, 1961, was killed March 27, 1968 when his MiG jet trainer crashed in bad weather.  Gagarin was training for a Moon mission at the time of his death, though some Russian space officials wanted him grounded because of his fame. Gagarin insisted he wanted to fly in space again instead of becoming a political trophy. Ironically, he was the backup pilot in Soyuz 1, and it's said Komorov wouldn't give up the seat despite doubts for his safety in order to keep the iconic Gagarin alive. He is interred in the Kremlin Wall at Red Square.

              The history of the Space Age has also seen many space workers killed while working on rockets or spacecraft in both America and Russia.  Some of the more tragic were:

·      April 4, 1964, Cape Canaveral

      While being mated to the Orbiting Solar Observatory in a test facility, the solid rocket motor was accidently ignited by static electricity, killing three and injuring eight people.

·      July 3, 1969, the launch pad explosion of the Soviet Union’s Moon rocket, called N-1. 

China Long March rocket launch

     A secret for decades, the sketchy details reveal a shutdown of all 30 first stage engines of the unmanned vehicle just 5 seconds after ignition, causing the huge rocket to fall back onto the launch pad.  Loss of life was not revealed, those some top rocket scientists are suspected victims. US spy satellites and seismometers recorded the aftermath, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.  

·      June 26, 1973, Plesetsk Cosmodrome, USSR

     Forty-eight technicians were killed when a Vostok 2M rocket blew up during fueling.

·      Feb. 15, 1996, Xichang, China

      A Long March rocket with a communications satellite veered off course immediately after launch crashing into a nearby village less than 30 seconds in flight.  Chinese officials officially said six people

died, but other reports estimated 100 deaths.

       Without a doubt, launching rockets into space is serious business, fraught with danger, yet the rewards are great. Just look at our 21^st Century world so dependent on satellites to provide instant information that drives modern business and pleasure. 

So, when you hear of the anniversaries of the space tragedies of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia, take a moment to think of the human sacrifice in this glorious Space Age.

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