Editor’s Note: Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in the Humanities and professor of history at Rice University. He is the author of “American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race.” The CNN Original Series “Space Shuttle Columbia: The Final Flight” reveals the events that ultimately led to disaster. The four-part documentary premieres Sunday at 9 PM ET/PT. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. See more opinions on CNN.
Around the turn of this century, the world had only two major players in human space exploration: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. Ten years later, the sky was crowded in comparison, with a number of private companies vying to resume the space race with Russia. Internationally, China had regular manned missions and the United Arab Emirates, Japan and European countries were nearing success.
The turning point between the two eras was an unforeseeable tragedy: the disintegration of the Columbia Space Shuttle on February 1, 2003. It happened almost exactly 17 years after a previous shuttle, the Challenger, caught fire shortly after launch.
That 1986 disaster had resulted in a skyrocketing wave of public anger against NASA, especially because top officials had been specifically advised to cancel the launch. Simply put, the weather was too cold for the equipment. America’s intrepid space program survived the Challenger horror, but NASA’s self-doubt never abated. Less than twenty years later, after the Columbia exploded during reentry, the two fatal failures shattered the trust that many among the American people had in NASA.
Seven astronauts were aboard Columbia for its 16-day mission, mainly to conduct scientific experiments. The launch in mid-January was uneventful, except for one thing. The team assigned to review the video of the journey noticed what appeared to be a loose piece of the protective foam layer that insulated the shuttle’s external tank. Shortly afterwards, a piece of foam, about the size of a briefcase, came loose and hit the leading edge of the left wing. The analysis of the failure was passed on to others at NASA, but the problem was considered minor.
Shuttles were invariably damaged during missions. It was only to be expected. “There’s a term at NASA called accepted risk,” explains Nancy Currie-Gregg, who has flown four shuttle missions, the last in 2002. “There’s no such thing as spaceflight without risk, but how do you determine how much risk you run? acceptable?”
Because other shuttle missions had returned safely with “shredded” surface tiles — and because the stalwart Columbia had brought astronauts home from 27 previous flights — many NASA officials were lulled into complacency. They even went so far as to assure the pilot and commander via email that “there are no concerns… We have seen the same phenomenon on several other flights and there is absolutely no concern about getting in.”
NASA officials also decided not to use spy satellite photography to more thoroughly investigate the damage to the shuttle. If they had, it’s possible the astronauts could have repaired the spaceplane or at least abandoned it for refuge on the International Space Station. Instead, during Columbia’s descent from space, superheated atmospheric gases entered through the gaping hole left by the detached piece of foam. The structure was damaged and the shuttle broke up in mid-air. Wreckage scattered across Texas and Louisiana.
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In the wake of the disaster, NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe said in a statement: “This is indeed a tragic day for the NASA family, for the families of the astronauts who flew on STS-107, and equally tragic for the nation . .”
As the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) noted in its final report, “NASA’s organizational culture had as much to do with this accident as it did with the foam.” All NASA launches were suspended for two years. While the shuttles eventually flew again, the post-Columbia program was stymied and curtailed.
But while NASA stumbled, Elon Musk’s upstart SpaceX was planning its own launches. Musk’s venture initially proved how difficult rocket science is, although his company finally found success in 2008 with its reusable Falcon Heavy rocket. The billionaires’ club was taking over NASA in space. At about the same time, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin was developing rockets primarily aimed at suborbital flight. United Launch Alliance brought together two legacy aerospace companies, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, in a joint effort to develop and launch massive rockets. All four companies are thriving in the space industry today.
Virgin Galactic, an American company led by Sir Richard Branson, focuses more on space tourism than exploration. Similarly, Axiom Space was founded in 2016 to create a space station for adventurers. And now SpaceX has set its sights on returning humans to the moon.
Space entrepreneurs themselves took action, driven by the opportunity to make money during NASA’s lull after the Columbia’s demise. Far from feeling threatened, NASA has encouraged many private companies with huge contracts. The agency had a long history of dealing with subcontractors and using its pocketbook to direct aerospace development; that tradition has adapted seamlessly to today’s space economy.
Whether the predatory current era in space will be propelled by the idealism of President John F. Kennedy’s American Moonshot is an uncertain question. Certainly, the seven astronauts who conducted 24-hour physics experiments on the Columbia were, just as JFK had hoped, ‘set out on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be acquired, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people.”
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