Kind: captions
Language: en
After more than two weeks conducting
experiments in [music] orbit, Space
Shuttle Colombia disintegrates on
re-entry, killing [music] all seven crew
members.
Those are my friends. [music] You know,
I knew them personally. I knew them
professionally.
Some of them were in my class. I miss
them every day.
It caused us to lose seven very
incredible people. And believe me, they
were incredible.
>> This is amazing. It's really getting
really bright out there.
>> Yep.
>> Yeah. You definitely don't want to be
outside now.
The Columbia disaster, we later found
out, [music]
was due to foam shedding off of the
external tank.
During launch, a falling piece of
insulating foam struck the shuttle's
left wing,
damaging the [music] thermal protection
tiles designed to shield it from extreme
heat during re-entry. And what that did
was that allowed a very hot plasma to
get inside of the wing and basically
melt the inner structure of the
spacecraft.
>> Test simulations back on the ground
reveal the devastating impact of this
seemingly small briefcase-siz chunk of
foam traveling at high speed.