Original subtitles

♪

-For the second time in nasa's history,

A space shuttle has been lost along with its entire crew.

Once again, we are asking ourselves,

How could this have happened?

-Do you have any idea how big that

Piece of foam was that came off?

-We'd heard some reports that during launch

There had been some concerns that some debris

Hit the wing.

Is that true and is that any cause of concern

And that could have caused today's problems?

-It is true.

It was judged that, erm ,

That event did not represent a safety concern.

-This happened under my watch,

But I didn't have the answers.

In every public forum I'm gonna have to be in,

How am I gonna explain this to anybody?

At this time, we have no indication

That the mishap was caused by anything

Or anyone on the ground.

-Nasa never wants to look stupid.

Nasa wants to be the agency with the answers.

-My thoughts are on what we missed,

What I missed

To allow this to happen.

-But if you overlook something,

It will come to bite you one day or another.

♪

♪

-I was playing tennis in mclean, virginia.

I received a phone call saying

That I would be flown immediately

To barksdale air force base.

After challenger,

Nasa had a contingency plan in case

There was a shuttle accident.

I never really imagined that it would happen.

With columbia, we had people who had experience

With accident investigation from the military,

Navy, and air force on the team.

-I came to the investigation as a helicopter pilot

Who knew something about doing accident investigations.

I did not come to the investigation

As a space shuttle expert.

I literally knew nothing about

How the shuttle was put together.

We needed nasa's help because by definition,

Everybody who came in as an external part

Of the investigation team is not a space shuttle expert.

There was years of shuttle program knowledge

That we needed to learn very quickly.

-There's that issue of the falling foam

During the launch of space shuttle columbia.

-Very early on nasa told us

That they knew about a foam -- a debris event.

But we didn't even know enough about the shuttle

To understand that there was foam on the tanks.

The press wants to know what happened

And it's like,

"yep, so do we."

-It's a mammoth job for those taking part in a mammoth task.

-Covering many hundreds of square miles.

-It's the largest recovery effort

That has ever been attempted in this country.

-As an investigator,

I wanted as ironclad a case

As we could possibly have for the sequence

Of events leading to the cause of the crash

Of space shuttle columbia.

But if we were going to do that,

We needed to collect all the debris

And reconstruct the shuttle.

-1,200 sites have been identified.

-All those pieces of columbia will be brought

To the kennedy space center,

Where it will be reassembled

In a manner of speaking.

-Really thousands of pieces of debris

Are now pieces to a puzzle.

♪

-Under a crisp texas sky,

Thousands of mourners are gathering,

Including that man, neil armstrong ,

As nasa gathers to say farewell to seven of its own.

-Knowing that I wasn't gonna see my dad again

And losing that many people

That you love and that you're close to all at once.

It was just so heavy.

The world just became a scary place.

-Just felt like I was so, like...

Raw, just so...Exposed.

-To have your dad die in a public way,

And you have press focused in on you.

I knew I didn't want to be there.

-Just like a feeling of, like,

How are we supposed to act?

-The grief is heavy.

Our nation shares in your sorrow.

And in your pride.

-This isn't my own personal loss.

You kind of realise that this -- this is a public story,

A national grieving.

Everybody felt like they lost something of theirs.

-In your grief, you are responding

As your friends would have wished,

With focus, professionalism, and unbroken faith

In the mission of this agency.

The people of nasa are being tested once again.

-I could see outside the window all the crowd.

I had my suit and tie on.

And I said to myself, "I'm gonna go outside,"

And then I couldn't.

I just shut the door,

Locked it, and I just sobbed at my desk.

The president's talking outside, and I was just sobbing,

And sobbing, and sobbing.

Inside johnson space center,

The internal conflict was building.

-On the first day that we went in,

There were people who received us very well,

There were people who were not happy that we were here.

-I was one of the first people

To be interviewed and interrogated.

I felt ok, I felt like, "this is a good thing,

This has to happen. I hope they're thorough."

-I think the folks that were probably

Less interested in our help

Were more at the management level in nasa.

In some cases, we're asking for data,

And then they'd be like, "I can't give you

That information right now, you're gonna have to

Go up through a very formal

Nasa chain of command to be approved."

-I call it the managers' club.

It's a type of a culture

Where there are rules of behaviour and ways of talking.

You don't jump the chain of command.

Don't -- and that's insulting to go up to

Someone higher and ask directly.

You're supposed to coordinate all your questions.

-Are you going to risk your career in nasa

By standing up and arguing with the chain of command?

-You don't talk bluntly or pose questions like that

To a nasa manager.

-Because that can be very career limiting

And you find yourself shuffled off into a windowless room,

Just going through paperwork.

-I want the system -- I want the nasa manager culture confronted.

♪

-Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome

To the johnson space center

For today's briefing.

Again, joining me is

Shuttle program manager ron dittemore.

-Today I brought with me a piece of foam,

And I think we've made some foam available to you

So that you can get an understanding

Of the composition of this material.

It's very lightweight, which is logical.

You would want it to be lightweight

Because the more weight you put on the tank,

The less upmass you could launch into an orbit.

So, it's difficult for us to believe as engineers,

As management and as a team,

That this particular piece of foam debris shedding

From the tank represented a safety of flight issue.

-I caught some segment that ron got into

In which he said in a declarative voice...

-Right now, it just does not make sense to us

That a piece of debris

Would be the root cause

For the loss of columbia and its crew.

There's got to be another reason.

-Well, how can he say that?

Where is he getting that from?

What a big denial.

-To be certain it was foam is nonsense, right?

But to be certain it wasn't foam is equally nonsense.

Right? And that's what they were saying.

"it's not foam." well, how do you know?

-I know from

The accident investigation team's perspective,

No one was gonna go public

And say, "we know what didn't happen."

-You get that shot right there?

That's a nasa official.

He's holding a piece of foam,

Which he is now saying

Could not have had enough impact

'cause it's too light to have damaged those tiles

That we've been talking about.

-I knew ron. I had respect for ron.

Ron was linda ham's boss

And a good manager.

But what's always the first step in grief?

Denial.

-I called ron and I said,

"ron, let me just remind you, ok?

We had a clear understanding

That we are not gonna eliminate anything

Until the data has come in

To definitively eliminate it."

-To bring that out

And dismiss it, you know, pre-emptively,

I think speaks volumes.

At the very least they had to acknowledge it.

But it was acknowledging their own mistakes

And that's hard to do.

♪

-Each week there was a new trailer load

Of debris showed up,

Came right in this hangar through those doors,

And it would be catalogued and then put out on the floor.

I want to know what the debris is telling us,

I want to know what the aerodynamics are telling us,

And I want to know what the sensors are telling us.

You follow the debris, what's it telling you?

♪

And if you follow the logic,

You begin to see pieces that are telling you a story.

As we were progressing through the left-wing reconstruction,

You can see these burned tiles,

This reinforced carbon-carbon,

Looks like it's been burned

In a way that's very different than everything else.

All of that data pointed to a problem at rcc panel 8.

Something very different

Happened in this location on the orbiter.

And so, let's go see if we can understand what that was.

-Ok, so, as the vehicle is entering the atmosphere,

These black tiles are protecting the structure,

The aluminium of the vehicle, in high-heat areas.

And the grey is the wing leading edge

Reinforced carbon-carbon, rcc panels.

Those protect the vehicle from the highest level of heat,

Those 3,000 degree temperatures,

So that you don't get metal melting.

But we had never had any experience in breaking a panel.

-What was starting to join up was you've got video analysis

That says the strike on the orbiter

Created a hole in the wing.

And you can see that there had been

Some sort of penetration

Against the rcc panel.

Hot gas had entered in,

The shuttle had lost aerodynamic control and crashed.

But I think the challenge for a lot of folks at nasa

Was believing that foam had done that.

They would say foam can't break reinforced carbon-carbon.

There were a lot of people that said there's something else

That explains this.

-We decided to ask nasa about the history of foam strikes,

Which had never been done.

-I was asked by the accident investigation team

To help find that type of information.

I went through a database,

There's a historical database of all the space shuttle missions,

From the very first shuttle mission up until that day.

I called the investigators

And I said, "you're not gonna believe this.

Take a look at this."

♪

-I was shocked to find

That there were over a half a dozen occurrences

Of foam strikes recorded.

So, we turned that in into the investigation board.

-1983 was the first bipod ramp foam loss.

1990, 1992,

'92 again, 1994.

As well as those bigger pieces,

We saw small pieces of foam

Fall away all the time.

What we call "popcorning".

When popcorn pops, it pops up and comes out

And so that's what we call it, popcorning.

They weren't very big so you're not talking about

Much damage to the tiles.

And so, it had become the norm at nasa.

This mantra -- "it's only foam,

It's only foam.

Hey, we see foam loss all the time.

And it never did any damage to the vehicle.

We don't have to worry about it,

It's only foam."

Two missions before columbia it happened on sts-112 atlantis.

A significant strike hit the skirt

Of the solid rocket booster and actually put a dent in it.

-Prior till the launch of columbia,

And a couple of the meetings,

The topic of foam coming off 112 came up.

There's probably, erm...

15 to 20 people around the table

And then there's a lot of other people at nasa in the room.

We talked about starting to look into this a little bit more

Because we've seen it come off on, you know,

More than one flight now.

We should understand if there's a way to prevent it.

-Late October of 2002, after sts-112 atlantis,

I went to a meeting about that flight.

I had put together a report about the foam loss

And the damage to the solid rocket booster.

And I presented the case that said,

"that amount of foam,

That mass,

In one chunk coming off shuttle atlantis --

This was the vehicle telling us something is wrong,

Here's your warning."

At risk of being insubordinate,

I said to the heads of the shuttle program

Sitting around the centre table,

I was adamant at that meeting,

"either fix the problem

Or don't fly an external tank on the next launch,

Which is impossible."

From that meeting,

I never heard any discussion of

"let's get a better understanding of this

Before we schedule the next launch."

-In other words, again, they were thinking

It was more of a turnaround issue.

And so, it wasn't preventing shuttle flights

From going forward.

-The pressure on the management team to stay on schedule

And the concept of, "it's just foam"

Is leading the charge through all of this.

-So, it wasn't like they weren't talking about issues at all,

But there certainly was a big focus on the -- on the schedule.

-Here's an e-mail, it's Tuesday January 21st,

This was sent six days into the columbia mission.

This is a private exchange between

Linda ham and ron dittemore,

Two of the top managers in the program.

"the rationale for flight for the sts-112 loss of foam

Was lousy.

The rationale states, 'we haven't changed anything,

We haven't experienced any safety

Of flight damage in 112 flights.'"

The concluding sentence --

"the rationale was lousy then and it still is..."

What I take that to mean is that

Linda ham is raising a concern,

But they appear to rely on the fact that previous flights

Which had suffered this foam loss,

Had returned safely.

In other words, "we've gotten away with this".

This is a failure to learn from past similar events,

Simply because those flights

Did not have catastrophic consequences.

The classic -- the classic normalisation of deviance.

-You have to make sure

That every incident is thoroughly investigated

And properly assessed.

And that wasn't done for the 112 foam loss.

-People were saying they were willing to accept the risk.

What they didn't understand is

How much risk they were accepting.

After the 112 loss, people were starting to say,

"maybe we're accepting too much risk."

-We should have never launched columbia

Until we fixed that problem.

-Yeah, I was concerned, you know?

We were moving in the right direction,

We just didn't get there in time.

♪

-Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to

The johnson space center for today's briefing.

♪

-Lisa starke with abc news.

When you realized that you had this debris

That had struck the shuttle and you started your analysis,

What was the discussion about trying to take a look

Either through satellites or these large telescopes

That the military has and why was the decision made

Not to try that?

-We certainly had that discussion.

We believe that taking a picture ,

Looking for tile damage,

It does not show us the depth of tile

That may have been shaved off.

We cannot make a determination conclusively

Whether that represents a concern or not.

- Well, linda, reading through the transcripts,

In hindsight were you sufficiently open to the idea

That this was a really serious problem?

-You're asking 20/20 hindsight or what --

What my thought was then?

-Well, it sounds like you were just kind of

Seeking reassurance that everything was ok,

As opposed to digging in and saying,

'how do we know this? '

-I didn't have a preconceived notion on the damage

Or the possible consequences, and I needed to wait for them

To complete their work.

-The best experts at our disposal concluded

That it was a minor problem, not a significant problem.

-And when you added all that up,

There was no need to take pictures

To document any evidence

Because we believed it to be superficial

And it to be a turnaround issue

And not a safety issue.

And so we -- we didn't take any pictures.

-Had we known that there was

A catastrophic situation on orbit,

We certainly would have done everything we could.

-Absolutely.

-I...

I'm not aware of anybody else during the mission

Asking for a photo request and when.

I only learned later

That there really were

People outside of our team

That were trying to do something about it.

-I had no idea what was happening

Because there was no communication.

I'm not in the loop, I'm not in the know,

Nobody's talking to each other,

So nobody knows what's going on.

-The problem that we had in nasa culturally

At the time was people would not speak up with their concerns.

It was the most anti-dissenting opinion place that I know of.

People were scared silly to speak up.

-Nasa is a series of fiefdoms,

And there isn't necessarily a lot of exchange of knowledge

Across those silos, you know, frankly,

The system is not designed for good communication.

But that's not an excuse,

Because this foam problem was a not a new problem.

It was ignored right up until an opportunity

To intervene presented itself,

And then that opportunity to get a spy satellite

To take a look was dismissed.

To sort of stick to your guns of convincing yourself

That it's ok...

...It just made matters worse.

-I-I could -- I could only deal with the data

That was presented to me.

The whole situation was a case of people doing their jobs

As they understood them.

But I think everybody was operating with good faith.

There was no, er...

I wouldn't say malfeasance, but negligence.

There may have been --

I don't even think there was negligence,

I just think that the actions we took

Were inadequate for the problem we were facing.

-I think there was a mindset and sort of a hope

That we've seen foam strikes before

And it's never caused a safety of flight issue.

So, we're assuming that's the case here,

But not a sure thing.

It seemed like by staying ignorant

Of the degree of damage,

The mission management team

Perhaps didn't want to know about the worst-case scenario.

-At this point, from our work in the hangar,

I think we have enough information

To say we found the physical cause of the shuttle crash.

But there were still people at nasa

Who didn't believe that foam

Could break reinforced carbon-carbon.

-We're here at southwest research institute

In san antonio, texas, to conduct a test

To show whether foam could create a hole big enough

To destroy the vehicle.

-Everything came down to whether or not

The foam shot was gonna break an rcc panel.

But if our investigative analysis is wrong, then what?

-Five, four, three, two, one.

-Whoa!

[ indistinct chatter ]

♪

-Ok. Foam will break reinforced carbon-carbon.

-I mean, there was no doubt at that point, right?

Case closed.

There's no denying it.

You know, there was there was foam falling from day one.

They should have had that test on day two.

-This was a known failure.

But I think the failure to imagine being wrong,

The failure to imagine the consequences of failure

Were catastrophic.

And I think it's this whole notion of the failure

To imagine failure.

-Nasa's trying to move forward

After Tuesday's blistering report,

Blaming it for failing to prevent

The shuttle columbia tragedy.

-Nasa stands accused of complacency

Of a flawed safety culture

Of major management failures.

Technical failures, but also about a human failure.

-Nasa had conflicting goals of cost,

Schedule, and safety.

It's our view that clearly there is still evidence

Of a silent safety program with echoes of challenger.

-They knew about the foam,

They could take pictures, and people chose not to.

Felt almost like they had betrayed him.

-Why?

Why?

The only reason

Was because of the way

They made decisions within that culture.

-I felt angry. I mean, I just

Was extremely disappointed.

-Pure grief and sadness turned into anger and disgust.

It kind of became this inner struggle in me of,

"how can I hate this thing that my dad loved so much?"

♪

-Well, it goes without saying that we were all trying

To do the right thing all along.

We were basing our decisions

On the best information that we had at the time.

Nobody wanted to do any harm to anyone.

-If a bunch of things went really right

And they identified very early on

And got images early on

And everything went about perfectly,

Just maybe

There could have been a rescue mission.

But it's questionable whether you could get the other orbiter,

Which would have been atlantis in this case,

Processed and out to the pad in time

Without putting that crew at serious risk.

We would have had to pull together this huge effort

In the eleventh hour to figure out how to fly

One shuttle next to the other

To conduct an operation

That you'd never trained or prepared for.

It was not in the art of the possible

Given what we knew.

-The one tool we could have tried to look at

Was changing the way entry is done,

Trying to change how it enters the atmosphere.

You can change the angle of attack coming in

So you can lessen the heat in certain areas

By moving to the other side and then come back again.

-We can do all the "woulda, shoulda" all day long here.

That's easy.

When you actually have to make the decisions real time,

You're doing some really complicated stuff.

That's a lot harder.

-I think that rick would have wanted to have known

Something was very wrong with the vehicle,

So he could have the opportunity to repair something

Or fix something.

But at the same time, there was also a trust

That nasa would look out for their best interest.

-In terms of a hypothetical --

And I think other people in senior levels

That probably felt the same way --

If we knew that the crew wasn't gonna survive,

Why would we tell them?

Why wouldn't we let them just carry out their mission

And feel like they were successful you know?

-The thing I can't get past is, if we had of known

That entry was going to cause loss of the vehicle

And loss of the crew, there are things we can do

As human beings.

And that is for the families,

The chance to be able to say goodbye.

That wasn't afforded to anyone.

And that's always haunted me.

Sorry.

♪

-Yes, there were individuals who made very poor decisions.

You need to embrace dissenting opinions,

And if somebody says,

"hey, let's get better data

To make a decision,"

Why is getting better data a-a problem?

But, I mean, I was in mission control.

I was a nasa employee. I knew about the foam strike.

When there's blame that's laid out,

I am right up there saying I knew.

And I -- and I wish I could've done something differently.

But I-I can't undo that.

And it -- you can just make it better for those that follow.

-I feel ashamed.

So, who's guilty?

I'm not just gonna say

The program managers are.

We're all guilty.

If you don't speak up for your own system

And you're the victims of this environment,

We're guilty, too.

-During the mission, I could have easily done a story

Saying, "this thing happened.

While nasa is saying it's nothing,

Some engineers believe there may be some concern."

What if I had done that?

I was the one who could have --

Should have and could have

Owned that story in a way

That potentially even might have changed

The course of events.

I definitely failed at my job.

Just like they failed at theirs.

And so, I'm part of the problem.

[ applause ] -ladies and gentlemen,

The president of the united states.

- In 2010, the space shuttle,

After nearly 30 years of duty,

Will be retired from service.

-The minute columbia evaporated over texas,

The shuttle program was ready to be retired.

That's when I felt like, "wow, was all this in vain?

No more shuttle program. They died.

What did he -- what did they accomplish?"

There was not a lot positive at that point in time.

-The legacy of columbia must carry on.

The shuttle's chief purpose over the next several years

Will be to help finish assembly

Of the international space station.

-This could easily have just stopped cold,

But we made a decision to continue this exploration quest

That they just gave their lives for.

-2, 1. Booster ignition...

And lift off of the space shuttle discovery

Returning to the space station

Paving the way for future missions beyond.

-I was very quickly assigned to the second return

To flight mission sts-121.

-Steve lindsey joined on the flight deck

By pilot mark kelly, headed for six months

On the international space station.

-You know, certainly one of the legacies of columbia

And the entire space shuttle program

Is we learned how to more safely fly

The shuttle to honour its commitment

As part of the international space station.

-For that mission we did space walks

To practise repairing tile outside,

To repair the leading edge of the wing,

The reinforced carbon-carbon.

We developed techniques

To make sure that we had the ability

To repair the space shuttle

If we find another hole in the wing or the tile.

♪

-Atlantis, welcome to the international space station

For the last time.

-The shuttle had at long last served its purpose,

In building the space station.

But, as time went on, it was evident

It was time to move onto something else.

And frankly something with a fundamental redesign.

-Having fired the imagination of a generation,

Its place in history secured,

The space shuttle pulls into port for the last time --

It's voyage at an end.

-The idea of the us not having its own capability

To fly to space again was looming.

And I think if you took that away,

We would feel as if we'd lost something meaningful

And really central to our national identity.

The question for nasa was --

What happens next?

♪

-And here we go.

5. Core stage engine start...

3, 2, 1...

Boosters and ignition.

And lift off of artemis 1.

We rise together back to the moon and beyond.

♪

-By going back to the moon and eventually onto mars,

We can honour our fallen crew members from columbia

And their families.

-Artemis is a new rocket and a new space craft

To send humans to the moon.

As the mission management team chair for artemis 1,

I took lessons learned

From the columbia accident investigation report

And used that to guide the structure

Of the mission management team

To ensure we could hear dissenting opinions

And other information was being communicated

In spite of potential management or communication challenges.

It's tragic we had to go through

The columbia accident to get here.

So, I always remind myself of what's at stake

If we don't retain those lessons.

-As always, nasa's arrow is pointed up

Towards the stars as it should be.

It's about the united states ,

And our partners, remaining the leaders

In aerospace technology and exploration.

Here in the united states senate,

I've got a little say on some of these programs,

And I'm trying to make sure that nasa has the resources

It needs to fly people in space as safely as possible.

American astronauts flying on american rockets

From american soil into space once again.

It's a very exciting time for our space program.

Sending people into space is dangerous.

More dangerous than most things.

It's one of the riskiest things that people have ever done.

-To be able to experience this incredible career

Of being an astronaut was something

That we always called a calculated risk.

Rick died doing something that he was very passionate about.

In the end, I had to very purposely make a decision

That this was not gonna be something

That was gonna define me for the rest of my life.

I didn't want to go down that path of "it's your fault

Or your fault, or I'm angry about this

And I can't let go of it."

None of that was a path

I wanted to go on at all.

I want to be a great mom

And I want to be productive

And not just be stuck in that one spot.

And god has been very merciful to help me with that

Just to be able to keep moving forward.

-I was angry that my mom chose to take that risk...

...Instead of staying with me.

And I know it's probably a great benefit

To the scientific community...

...And maybe a small risk of failure,

But it's still kind of painful.

-Daddy, I'm here!

-Hi!

-Oh, my gosh.

It's crazy over here, right?

-[ giggles ]

-You need your sunglasses?

Try 'em on.

This is laurel, and she's my daughter.

She has a lot of my mom's spirit.

The same enthusiasm and positivity.

♪

I imagine...

It would be harder if she wasn't such a great kid.

So, I got pretty lucky there.

♪

-Nasa has released video footage

Taken inside the cockpit

Of the space shuttle columbia.

It was recorded in the final moments

Before the shuttle broke up.

The last part of the tape was burnt up in the accident.

-It's years since the accident,

And I've kind of reframed the way

That I look at nasa as a whole.

I forgive them.

And that my family forgives them.

I think I still feel a little bit ambivalent

About the future of space exploration.

Part of me kind of wants to keep my distance.

But I realise my dad died doing what he loved.

And there's still kind of that little bit in me

That if I got the chance to go to space,

I think I can't pass up the opportunity

To see what he saw.

It would just be so moving

To kind of put myself in his shoes.

♪

♪