The previous day at NASA was dedicated to the people who lost their lives while helping humanity reach frontiers that had once seemed to belong only to myth and dreams. The accompanying collection commemorates them.
Apollo 1
The crew of the first Apollo mission, preparing for the journey toward the Moon, died on January 27, 1967 during a ground test when a fire swept through the spacecraft cabin. The article attributes the rapid fire to flammable materials inside the spacecraft together with the pure-oxygen environment. The disaster led NASA to make major changes to the design of the Apollo command module.
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| Virgil Grissom, Edward White, Roger Chaffee :Apollo-1 |
Virgil Grissom, Edward White, Roger Chaffee — Apollo 1
Michael Adams and the X-15
Michael Adams is described as the first fatality during an operational U.S. spaceflight-related program. He was killed on November 15, 1967 during an X-15 test flight.
The investigation attributed the accident to a combination of factors: 1) pilot error in interpreting information displayed by the aircraft's instruments together with inadequate attention, and 2) electrical interference early in the flight that affected the instrument displays and reduced their effectiveness. The accident led to the use of instrumentation at ground control comparable to that available in the cockpit, with the aim of reducing the risk of human error during operations.
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| X-15 Michael Adams |
Michael Adams — X-15 pilot
Space Shuttle Challenger — STS-51-L
The crew of Space Shuttle Challenger, mission STS-51-L, died on January 28, 1986, when the shuttle suffered a catastrophic failure 73 seconds after launch.
The article explains that the investigation traced the accident to failure of an O-ring in a joint of the right solid rocket booster, allowing hot pressurized gases to escape and damage the adjacent vehicle structure. The exceptionally cold weather on launch day, and its effect on the O-ring, was also regarded as an important factor.
A major conclusion of the investigation, however, concerned not merely the hardware but NASA's organizational communication and decision-making. Problems with the booster-joint design had been known to specialists, yet the risk had been treated as tolerable and concerns did not move effectively through the organization. Even as evidence of the weakness accumulated, the launch was not postponed. The article cites a U.S. Senate investigation characterizing the disaster in terms of seriously deficient technical decision-making by senior NASA management over many years concerning the booster-joint problem.
The disaster consequently prompted fundamental changes in NASA's management structure and became a widely studied example in the redesign of management and safety systems in large organizations.
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| STS-51-L Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik Michael Smith, Francis Scobee, Ronald McNair |
STS-51-L crew
Standing: Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik.
Seated: Michael Smith, Francis Scobee, Ronald McNair.
Space Shuttle Columbia — STS-107
The crew of Space Shuttle Columbia, mission STS-107, died on February 1, 2003, when the orbiter broke apart during atmospheric re-entry while returning to Earth.
The investigation found that damage to the shuttle's thermal-protection system had occurred during launch when an object—described in the article as probably a piece of insulating foam from the external liquid-hydrogen tank—struck the heat shield. The damaged protection allowed destructive heating during re-entry.
Following the accident, NASA adopted much more careful inspection procedures for the external tank's foam and for ice accumulation. A protocol was also established for detailed inspection of the shuttle's thermal protection after launch and again after departure from the International Space Station before re-entry. The shuttle would perform manoeuvres near the station to expose its underside while station crew members photographed the heat shield with powerful cameras.
The article notes that from the resumption of shuttle flights after Columbia through the end of NASA's Space Shuttle program in July 2011, no comparable fatal shuttle accident occurred.
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STS-107
Kalpana ChawlaMichael AndersonIlan RamonLaurel ClarkDavid BrownWilliam McCoolRick Husband
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STS-107 crew, from right as identified in the original article: Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, Ilan Ramon, Laurel Clark, David Brown, William McCool, Rick Husband.