The outpouring of compassion by the residents, and the commitment and courage of the searchers, were unlike anything NASA had ever seen.Īfter recovery of the last crew remains, the effort shifted to recovering as much of Columbia’s debris as possible, to protect the public and determine the cause of the accident. Telephone companies provided temporary cell towers and wireless telephones at no cost to the government. The townspeople insisted on giving NASA employees whatever they needed no one wearing a NASA hat was charged for anything in the local grocery stores or restaurants. Townspeople opened their homes to searchers and did their laundry. Other local residents donated food and served it at the VFW Hall in Hemphill, Texas, about an hour from Lufkin. However, the now-thousands of searchers were undaunted by the weather or the nearly impenetrable briar thickets of the forest. After hopes were raised by finding several of the crew in the first three days, many miserably cold and damp days subsequently passed without results. Local residents volunteered by the hundreds to participate in search efforts coordinated by the U.S. These ground crews searched every square foot of the 681,000-acre debris field in three months. Each camp held roughly 1,000 searchers, who were rotated out every two weeks. The Texas Forest Service and US Forest Service established four search camps in Palestine, Corsicana, Nacogdoches, and Hemphill during the second phase of recovery operations. It became America’s largest peacetime coordinated agency effort.įire crews gather for a morning briefing in a warehouse in Palestine, Texas on Februbefore venturing out to search for Columbia debris. FEMA, the EPA, NASA, the FBI, the Texas Forest Service-and eventually more than 150 federal, state, and local agencies-established a disaster field office in the civic arena at Lufkin, Texas. A Mishap Investigation Team from Houston and KSC flew to Barksdale Air Force Base near the Texas-Louisiana border to take command of the debris recovery effort. That first day, the astronaut corps mobilized from Houston to the debris field to aid in the search for their colleagues. Bush declared a state of emergency early in the afternoon. The magnitude of the grim situation quickly became apparent. Within an hour of the accident, the first remains of a Columbia crew member were found. Local law enforcement and emergency responders immediately began to assess the situation and protect the public. Among the 40 tons of material that made it to the ground were pyrotechnic devices and storage tanks that still held toxic chemical propellants. Pieces of Columbia fell from the sky for the next half hour along a path 250 miles long and 20 miles wide, stretching from Dallas to Ft. While managers at NASA scrambled to determine what had happened to Columbia, the residents of east Texas were jarred by a continuous cacophony of earth-shaking blasts and booms that lasted for several minutes. The scheduled landing time came and went. Meanwhile, the crew’s families and the NASA welcoming party at KSC waited and listened for the telltale sonic booms to announce Columbia’s arrival. Mission controllers at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, attempted for 16 minutes to contact the crew, but they heard only silence. Anderson, all mission specialists and Ilan Ramon, payload specialist representing the Israeli Space Agency.Ī successful re-entry burn targeted Columbia to land at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, at 9:16 am.Īt 9:00 am, communications with the ship suddenly stopped. Standing are (from the left) astronauts David M. Husband (left), mission commander Kalpana Chawla, mission specialist and William C. STS-107 crew members included astronauts Rick D. STS-107 crew members lost when space shuttle "Columbia" broke up during reentry on February 1, 2003.
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