Columbia Space Shuttle Essay

The Columbia space shuttle was first built in April 12, 1981 and launched in April 14, 1983. The shuttle had completed 27 missions before failure. On the 28 it was disintegrated and killed all seven crew members. This spacecraft could launch like a space shuttle and landed like an airplane. This space shuttle was the only one that couldn’t land on the international space station. All 27 missions went great they would go up do some experiments and come back down. But, on the 28th mission there were some problems. At first it was budget cuts said by President Nixon. A month later he cut all missions after this launch. The commander was Rick Husband and new crew members were Wyllie McCool, Dave Brown, and Ilan Romoan, the first Indian in space. Other crew members were Michal Anderson, Chloe Panatela, laurel Clark.

Rick Douglas Husband

The crew was on edge for a while but their worries were died down eventually. No one knew what was to come next.

1 day before reentry NASA had a plan that if damage was caused that the crew would be able to come back into outer space. Then a crew would rescue them. The plan was later decided as “not needed”.

On that day the crew was told the plan and how it is a last resort option. Hours later the crew practiced the plan and reentry. Then they were ready for descent.

The day had come all the Workers were at their stations. 30 minutes before descent and the crew had set a record. They had gone around the world in 90 minutes. After that they had been ready for descent.

Half way down the left wings system and wing a=had malfunctioned and NASA had thought of it to be a glitch. Whist the wing was failing Chloe kept a video that was found in a field still intact. Then the wing had reached a record 500 degrees more than ever recorded. The wings in side caught fire. That is when the ship