the story of columbia disaster

                                                      
     It was on 1st feb 2003, World was waiting fro them. Just 16min more to reach the surface of earth. But suddenly they lost receiving signals one by one. Its the blast that took 7 lives. One of the biggets disaster in the history of space exploration.There are people who witnessed it with their modern instruments.This disaster placed many questions in front of NASA and US administration.

                                                            

           They started digging for clues and reasons. Each and every scientist involved in the mission re caped the complete story since from launch to the blast. They have indulged about 20,000 people to collect each and every part of the debris of the plane for 3 months. Surprisingly they have collected the debris of 80% of the total weight of plane.they have also found an audio recorder in a forest which was undamaged ,but still no clues were extracted from that recorder. They examined the vedios and pictures of the launch. In that course they got to know that a small peck of foam parted from the booster and had hit the wing of the plane during the initial seconds after the launch.

                                                               

            Now they started a model simulation of the peck hitting the wing and the result shocked every one who were watching it. that small peck had made a hole of about 25cm diameter to the wing. This hole had not affected the plane during the journey in space. But while returning into the atmosphere , it started making difference. The speed of vehicle during the journey and during the reentry was about 28,000km/hr. And that speed resulted in the increase in temperature of the plane to about 1400 degrees Celsius. The external surface of the wing is thermal resistive but the damage was caused due to the hole occurred during the launch . The hot gases entered through the hole and started affecting the internal structure of the plane. slowly the heat sensors damaged one by one. The surface started melting , resulting the blast, 7 scientists lost their lives with in fraction of seconds. World witnessed the biggest ever disaster in the history of space race.

                                             

             family members of the astronauts  and the other people who were watching eagerly for the return , became stunned , they can`t believe what was going on at that time, but its the destiny and one should accept it.   

The details of the crew:

1) Michael P. Anderson
    Lt. Colonel, U.S. Air Force             
    Payload Commander

    Dec. 25, 1959–Feb. 1, 2003

    Birthplace: Plattsburgh, New York
    Age: 43
 2) David M. Brown
    Captain, U.S. Navy
    Mission Specialist
   April 16, 1956–Feb. 1, 2003

   Birthplace: Arlington, Virginia
   Age: 46

3) Kalpana Chawla
   Mission Specialist  July 1,1961–Feb.1, 2003                                    
    Birthplace: Karnal, India
    Age: 41

4) Laurel Blair Salton Clark
    Commander (Captain-Select), U.S. Navy
    Mission Specialist
    Oct. 3, 1961–Feb. 1, 2003
    Birthplace: Ames, Iowa
    Age: 41

5) Rick D. Husband
    Colonel, U.S. Air Force
    Shuttle Commander
    July 12, 1957–Feb. 1, 2003
    Birthplace: Amarillo, Texas.
    Age: 45

6) William "Willie" McCool
    Commander, U.S. Navy
    Shuttle Pilot
    Sept. 23, 1961–Feb. 1, 2003
    Birthplace: San Diego, California
    Age: 41

7) Ilan Ramon
    Colonel, Israeli Air Force
    Payload Specialist
    June 20, 1954–Feb. 1, 2003
    Born: Tel Aviv, Israel
    Age: 48