NASA reports more details on Columbia
— -- The astronauts on the space shuttle Columbia knew for no more than a minute, if at all, that they were in grave danger before they blacked out, according to a report NASA released Tuesday nearly six years after Columbia broke apart above Texas.
Before losing consciousness, at least one crewmember fought to restore control of the shuttle, which was tumbling toward Earth. Pilot Willie McCool tried to restart the crippled hydraulic system, showing "remarkable aplomb" and "excellent knowledge" of the shuttle's complex systems, the report said.
"Of course we were relieved" to determine once and for all that the crew hadn't suffered, astronaut Pam Melroy, deputy director of the group that wrote the report, said Tuesday. "It's a very small blessing, but we'll take them where we can find them."
The seven-member crew of Columbia died as the ship re-entered the Earth's atmosphere Feb. 1, 2003. Investigators later traced the shuttle's demise to a chunk of foam insulation that peeled off the shuttle's fuel tank. The foam smashed into Columbia's wing during launch, leading to a large hole.
The damage to the wing was not detected during Columbia's stay in orbit, and NASA engineers told the crew the foam was no worry. The first hint that the return to Earth was not proceeding normally came less than two minutes before the air seeped out of the crew cabin, causing the crew to lose consciousness, the report says.
NASA released the report to help spacecraft designers learn from the accident, Melroy and others said. Nations around the world are eager to build their own spaceships, and a bevy of private firms are racing to be the first to launch tourists into space.
"We need to learn all these lessons and not repeat the mistakes of the past," said NASA's Wayne Hale, who headed the shuttle program after the accident. "It's an extraordinarily hazardous thing to go into space."
That first hint was an error message that, though not serious by itself, prompted the crew to start troubleshooting. Within 90 seconds, the shuttle had begun an uncontrolled plummet to the ground, but the astronauts probably didn't know their lives were on the line, NASA officials said.
That's because the period between the loss of control and Columbia's break-up was short, Hale said. Besides, the shuttle was in a disorienting tumble, alarms were sounding, and the crew was focused on regaining control of the ship.
The cabin depressurized so quickly that the astronauts blacked out before they could lower their helmet visors, which would have started the flow of oxygen inside the crew's pressure suits. The visors are kept up during a normal descent.
The crewmembers died from either the depressurization or trauma without regaining consciousness, the report said.
The findings, which NASA has been working on since 2004, are changing the agency's procedures and plans for sending humans into space:
•The Columbia astronauts' safety harnesses malfunctioned during the violent descent. The harnesses on the three remaining shuttles have been upgraded.
•The Columbia crew was so focused on getting their spacecraft ready for re-entry that they didn't have time to ready themselves. Some weren't wearing their safety gloves, and one wasn't wearing a helmet. New policies give the crew more time to prepare for descent.
•The emergency air supply in the shuttle's successor, a space pod that is slated to carry humans for the first time in 2015, won't require manual activation, as the shuttle's system does.
Jonathan Clark, the widower of Columbia astronaut Laurel Clark praised the report. "It's something NASA ought to be proud of," said Clark, a frequent critic of NASA who helped in the early stages of the investigation. "It's a historic contribution to the understanding of space flight."
Contributing: Dan Vergano