Geek 24 Aug 2003 04:51 pm
Columbia
The Washington Post has an article describing in detail what caused the Columbia accident earlier this year. Reading the description of the last minutes of the ship, it is amazing that it resisted for so long, given the amount of damage it was taking during the descent. The onboard computers were able to keep the ship remakably stable, even though one of the wings was rapidly desintegrating.
According to the article, the fifth day of the 16-day mission was the deadline for NASA to do something to save the astronauts; after that, there was no time to send a rescue mission before the life-support systems failed. And there was never a chance of taking the astronauts into the ISS, since the ship was not prepared to dock.
