NASA's Darkest Week Remembers Fallen Astronauts

By Mark D. Marquette

       This is NASA's darkest week as 16 Americans and Israel's first astronaut are remembered for their ultimate sacrifice in pushing the boundaries of human exploration.

       Since Alan Shepard's first sub-orbital ride into outer space 54 years ago, there have been three fatal American accidents claiming astronauts lives in their spaceships.

       Separated by decades but falling in the same week, the NASA family and all Space Age followers will be thinking of the men, women and their families as the tragic dates roll by: Jan. 27, 1967, Apollo 1; Jan. 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger; Feb. 1, 2003, Shuttle Columbia.

       A unique and beautiful memorial to the fallen astronaut corps is a centerpiece of the public grounds at Kennedy Space Center.  A huge slab of polished stone has the names of the deceased astronauts etched, the huge memorial rigged to catch floodlights shining on the structure, highlighting the names.

       There are 24 names on the memorial, though 17 died in spaceships. Seven astronauts in training are also on the memorial

       Jan. 27^th marks the 49th anniversary of three Apollo 1 astronauts trapped inside their capsule when a fire broke out during a launch pad dress rehearsal. 

       Succumbing to the searing heat sparked by an electrical spark and fueled by pure oxygen were three future Moon voyagers, space veterans Gus Grissom and Ed White, and rookie Roger Chaffee.

       Grissom was the second American in space, duplicating Alan Shepard's suborbital flight in 1961.  He then commanded the maiden voyage of the two-man Gemini spacecraft with John Young.  Grissom's command of the first Apollo spaceship put him on the short list of men NASA wanted to command the first Moon landing.

       Indeed, it could just as easily be Virgil “Gus” Grissom in the history books as the first man to set foot on the Moon instead of Neil Armstrong.

       And right there on the Moon with Grissom could have been Ed White, who's first American spacewalk in 1964 has produced the iconic image of man floating freely outside a spaceship.

       Chaffee, too, would have had a ticket punched for a Moon mission, and all three Apollo 1 astronauts are revered across the country with schools, museums and awards named in their honor.

       Their ultimate sacrifice resulted in a greatly improved Apollo spacecraft, one that literally rose out of the ashes and first flew to the Moon in December 1968 in the historic orbital mission of Apollo 8. 

       The lessons learned from the destruction of two $2 billion spacecrafts and the death of 14 astronauts in the Challenger and Columbia Space Shuttle accidents have also yielded a huge reward—the safe construction of the $100 billion ISS. 

       Sold to the US Congress as a “space truck” that would stimulate space commerce with affordable, twice-a-month launches into Earth orbit, the Space Transportation System (STS) of Shuttle orbiters and launching rockets never lived up to the ambitious dream.

       First launched in April 1981 with Columbia, the Shuttle fleet was lucky to be launched every two months, and issues were constantly cropping up in the most complicated machine every built to fly.

       The patchwork fixes of the dynamically precarious Space Shuttle caught up with NASA on the 25^th launch and 10^th of orbiter Challenger.  In NASA lingo, it is known as STS-51L

       A segment on the right side Solid Rocket Booster blew a seal and hot flame gushed out like a blow torch.  That sent the Orbiter crashing into the huge, orange External Tank, holding 500,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen.  It was 73 seconds into the 11:30 am launch when the explosion ripped Challenger apart.

       So apathetic was the public in 1986 about a Space Shuttle launch that only cable news networks showed Challenger live, the main interest coming from thousands of school children across the nation.  They were watching the first “Teacher in Space” Christa McAuliffe, the first true civilian launched into space. She was to give a school lesson to those thousands of kids from space later that week. But she never made it.

       The Challenger disaster was directly caused by below freezing temperatures at Cape Kennedy. Rubber seals were prohibited from setting up properly in the seven giant segments that were stacked to make up the Solid Rocket Boosters on each side of the Shuttle. One “O-ring” didn’t seal the gap, hot flame blew through and eventually brought Challenger down.

       A Congressional investigation blamed poor management decisions to launch Challenger under unfavorable and unknown weather conditions, while compromising human safety to keep an unrealistic launch schedule.  Pressure to launch was exacerbated by several previous delays, and President Ronald Reagan was scheduled to talk to the crew in orbit during his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 1986.

       Dead were Commander Dick Scobee, Pilot Michael Smith and mission specialists Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis, Judy Resnik and Christa McAuliffe. 

       Evidence showed that the astronauts probably survived the initial explosion when the rigid, space-proof crew cabin was blown out of the fuselage and tumbled the 7 miles to a 300 mph impact with the Atlantic Ocean.  Three astronauts had turned on their emergency oxygen packs, so they were conscious for a while before the fatal impact with the ocean.   The entire Shuttle program was revamped with several close calls being revealed.  The Solid Rocket Boosters were redesigned to prohibit another segment blow through, and other concerns were addressed.

       But what kept nagging launch inspectors was the amount of ice that clung to the big, orange External Tank—created by the -250 below zero liquid helium and oxygen inside. Video had shown many flights were ice and sometimes foam sections of the External Tanks would break off during the first minute after blast off, sometimes striking the Orbiter and its wings.

       Finally, the problem became a disaster when the matriarch of the Shuttle fleet, Columbia, was launched on January 16, 2003.  

       STS-107 was the last Shuttle mission scheduled not to visit the ISS. Instead, the Space Lab filled the cargo bay for a 16-day science mission.  Had Columbia docked with the ISS, no doubt a gaping, two or three-foot hole in its left wing would have been seen by Space Station astronauts.

       Instead, the crew of Columbia were unaware that while they performed two weeks of the most productive science ever done in a Shuttle's Space Lab, their spaceship was crippled and could not survive the blazing, 10,000 mph reentry through Earth's atmosphere. 

       Again, NASA had employees who suspected something was wrong with Columbia.

       Launch video showed that seconds into the launch a five-foot chunk of foam broke loose and smashed into the left wing.  Engineers investigated the possibility that damage may have occurred, and several managers requested that a US spy satellite be pointed at Columbia in orbit to see if any problems could be detected.  That request was turned down as unnecessary. 

       Had the damaged wing been discovered by that spy satellite, a rescue scenario would have been incredibly difficult.  Columbia would not be able to reach to ISS because of orbital differences and lack of fuel.  But food and water would have been rationed to the crew while another Shuttle was hurriedly prepared for a rescue launch—a two-month process crammed into a few weeks at best! 

       NASA never has publicly assessed if they could have pulled off a Columbia rescue mission.  And when the July 2009 final repair of the Hubble Space Telescope was added to the Shuttle manifest, orbiter Endeavour was on the adjacent pad 39-B as a rescue ship when Atlantis roared off pad 39-A   The 400-mile high orbit of the Hubble made it logistically impossible for the Space Station to be a safe haven.

       So, in another NASA comedy of fatal errors, a simple puncture in Columbia's wing brought the 10-ton spaceship to its doom as the reentry plasma tore through the fuselage, and within minutes the supersonic speed ripped the vehicle apart, debris and human remains being spread over East Texas and Southwest Louisiana. 

       Like the Challenger astronauts, the Columbia 7 had no chance, though their death was probably swift and merciful.

Lost were Rick Husband, Willie McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark. The seventh member was Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, a popular national war hero.

       NASA's darkest week always gives space enthusiasts a reflective time to assess where the space program has been and where it is going.    

       These deaths have been the price that America has paid for expanding into the Solar System, the first primitive steps away from our home planet. 

The loss of life has not been in vain.  Built on their shoulders is the incredible orbiting International Space Station, home to mankind's first serious outpost in outer space. And a place, in spirit, where we touch the stars.