On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas just 16 minutes before it was due to land. All seven astronauts aboard perished; the worldwide repercussions on the future of the space shuttle program were enormous. What caused the Columbia tragedy? An engineering flaw? A failure within NASA? A lack of financing? Could this catastrophe have been avoided? Through interviews with astronauts and their families, as well as with members of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, this program gives viewers a new look at the Columbia tragedy - and at NASA itself.
“Space Shuttle Disaster” is a penetrating look at the history of the shuttle program and the political pressures that made the shuttle a highly complex engineering compromise, which fell short of its ambitious goal to make space travel routine, cheap and safe. The film brings to the forefront the uncertain future of human spaceflight after the 2010 scheduled shuttle retirement. Many questions remain, including what are the consequences if the U.S. is out of orbit for five years?
The show "Space Shuttle Disaster", which airs Wednesday June 22nd at 9pm, gets to the heart of what went wrong - and how to make sure it never happens again.
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