Une fusée de 68 TONNES et son équipage détruits à cause... d’un peu de mousse.

tragedy these will be Laurel Clark's last words to her 6 year old son on February 1, 2003 the shuttle Colombia is preparing to leave its orbit its landing is scheduled in just over 2 hours at this time no one can imagine the worst that There were never any big problems during the previous descents than usual and then the belief at that time was that there was more risk and that 24 hours earlier they could already be partying in Houston in the control room to monitor the shuttle's TER hinting at its presence around ten. engineers, the flight director and the so-called cap, the capminu of the capsule, communicate that he is always an astronaut and that he is the only one authorized to speak with the crew at 8:10 am.

He is the one who gives the green light to the Colombia shuttle to begin the first maneuvers. The Bur diorbit is the first step in the reentry phase to leave its orbit. Colombia therefore reduces its speed, so we are behind us. We turn on the shuttle's engines. We will lower the speed approximately 100 m and once the speed is set by the engines, it will return. to return the nose forward with 40°r of incidence it is placed in an ideal orientation for re-entry with the right angle in relation to the airstream which is approximately 40°r has a margin of plus or minus 1 degree but beyond of 2°gr or so it is a disaster if the angle is greater than 40° the shuttle will bounce off the layers of the atmosphere a bit like a bounce off water if it is on the other hand it is less than 40° the orbiter will burn but this angle is controlled by onboard computers to ensure the greatest precision and at this moment for Colombia everything is perfectly executed.

It is 8:44 a.m. when Colombia enters the first layers of the atmosphere. Inside the orbiter, astronaut Laurel Clark is also quite relaxed, filming the first minutes of her hypersonic descent at more than 27,000 km/h, 12 times the maximum speed of the Concord. Laurel is located on the right in the cockpit, she films and talks, she even jokes and it is really strange be

cause

when filming the first plasma the plasma burns here it is behind the porthole it is superheated air that surrounds the shuttle when it enters the atmosphere when the shuttle enters the atmosphere the energy is converted into heat extreme heat good, you are in a fireball a fireball that reaches 1600° or particularly at the leading edges of the wings precisely where Colombia has a hole of 25 cm but the crew doesn't know anything.

Commander Rickb is even amused by seeing this plasma around the shuttle, it is very calm, everything is sure to be fine 140 km below in Houston the engineers look at their screens where all the shuttle's sensors are referenced at first nothing indicates a possible problem we see lights turned on well nothing that bad we see a fairly low temperature increase, around 4 degrees per minute, but at 8:54 a.m. everything changes in the control room, an engineer alerts the flight director of the appearance of several error messages, one by one the parameters fell at P, it is normal to have perhaps a limit of sensors h, but there are too many sensors in this scenario and all that doesn't make sense, but it's normal be

cause

, in fact, all these sensors that are on board the space shuttle are melting and the shuttle itself is warping the plasma.

It rushes towards the wing and acts like a blowtorch. What the engineers do not see is that the plasma has infiltrated through the hole in the leading edge. The sensors are not resistant to heat, but it is worse. The interior of the wing is made of aluminum. which is 600 20 minutes left until landing Colombia flies over the west coast of the United States fans film the descent of Colombia they are the first witnesses of the progressive disintegration of the orbiter flashes of light stand out from Colombia begins on the left to come out in small pieces inside of the shuttle the crew is not yet aware of what is happening if the onboard computer observes overheating on the left side it will try to "adapt its trajectory" the computer ordered the shuttle to move like this in order to protect the left wing so that it is at temperatures lower but nothing works the autopilot no longer has any authority the autopilot says I'm reaching the limit of my control surfaces I don't know how to do it anymore the temperature in the wing continues to rise dangerously leading to a devastating chain reaction all sensors indicate clearly abnormally high temperatures inside the left wing and that's when we call the aeronautical department.

They say we are lighting the Christmas tree. Many lights come on. They start to become very worried. At this moment it is 8:59 a.m. Capcom contacts the commander and then it is the pause we no longer have any contact while NASA t to reestablish communication the Colombian crew read to survive more than 2000 ships at this moment the crew resumes the command manual, it is Willy who pilots , then tries to restart the engines and without efficiency and then instantly understood that he was lost until the end, the ESS crew to save the shuttle Enong from inside by the flames can no longer resist. the considerable aerodynamic forces, the wing structure becomes too unstable, so the wing detaches, the shuttle goes out of control, but the mission center in Houston still tries to reconnect with Colombia again and again, they try to contact the shuttle with the only response being silence.

A few miles away amateur videographers are still filming the shuttle when suddenly, very quickly, the shuttle depressurizes at which point the crew knows the shuttle is wrecked and PARPi on the ground it's 9:3 AM. m. Colombia disintegrates in the sky at 60 km altitude a rain of Then, debris falls on Texas immediately emergency services receive numerous calls of concern, huge debris falls, there are engine parts, including one that falls on a golf course , massive debris in the control room, the flight director then pronounces the most feared words in NASA, that means the accident is very serious ignoring all the drama in CAN in Florida the families are still waiting for the return of their nearby Colombian lands in minutes but on the shuttle we hear a sonic boom it is very loud like a double shot these two sonic booms is the nose that passes the sound barrier, then the tail of the orbiter has no sound, there is no sonic boom, nothing and the clock starts ticking advance.

Also, my son Matth holds my hand and my daughter asks me if dad is okay, I look into her eyes and tell her no. I don't believe it but I don't know what's happening they quickly take us to the astronauts' rooms everyone is on their phones it's panic I enter an office I turn on the television and I understand what is happening the television news broadcasting on a loop the disintegration of the shuttle Colombia everything happens in slow motion in my head it is real it is literally the most horrible day of my life then an unprecedented mobilization begins along more than 300 km long it was the longest major excavation ever carried out by the army NASA employees the environmental protection agency local police forces, including the C of Texas the Citizens Volunteer National Guard the American government spent 3 million dollars to recover the remains after 6 months 82,000 pieces, that is, 40% of the ferry It was recovered and assembled in a gigantic hangar for research.

At first it is very difficult to see. We clearly realize the force of the impact. The metal pieces actually move. The question remains open during the investigation. Could NASA save the crew if would the hole in the left wing have been discovered? If the space agency had the means to rescue Colombia early enough in the mission, some mentioned potential solutions. They could have prepared another Atlantis shuttle to take off and have a meeting with Colombia. The crew could have moved from one ferry to another, but the chances of the success of this operation unfortunately remained extremely low.

It could have been a great rescue story with heroes, but the reality is much more complicated. We have never tried anything similar. We have never had shuttles at the same time. In space we lost the other shuttle by 14 people instead of 7. This accident will suspend manned flights with the space shuttles for a year and a half and the program will only resume a rhythm of one or more flights per year until the total stop on the 8th. July 2011, in fact the 2003 accident sounds like a real confirmation that the space shuttle must be replaced by something else, but the Colombian tragedy is not forgotten today on the 16th floor of a NASA building in Florida, The debris is carefully stored, it serves to think about the design of the rockets. of tomorrow to build future rockets we can learn many things from the debris of Colombia what material did not hold up what material held up well what this crew gave us is allowing things to be safer in the future will allow others to live a legacy for Colombia and its crew left future generations a painful reminder that the conquest of space is and will continue to be a high-risk activity where the slightest failure can lead to an out-of-control catastrophe.