THE SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA DISASTER
Episode 210 | Historical Events
In this History episode we focus on the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster — the foam strike detected sixteen days before reentry, the requests for satellite imaging that were denied, the internal NASA emails warning of catastrophic risk, and the seven crew members who didn't know their ship was already broken. Chief structural engineer Rodney Rocha begged for outside imaging assistance. Management declined. On February 1st, 2003, Columbia disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana on reentry.
We examine the specific mechanisms of NASA's organizational failure — the…
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