spaceflight week 12 space disasters

Apollo 1 January 27, 1967

• planned to launch february 21, 1967

• fire during testing - ignition source was determined to be electrical

• fire spread rapidly due to combustible nylon material and the high-pressure pure oxygen cabin atmosphere

• rescue was not an option due to the hatch configuration

who died in apollo 1

ed white, gus grissom, roger chaffee

challenger, january 28, 1986

• STS - 51 - L

• one minute after launch - O-ring failure

• launch was performed in 26 degrees F weather - dangers posed to O-rings by such low temperatures

• despite vocalizing these concerns, the mission continued as planned because NASA was against delaying the shuttle’s launch any more encounter issues by members of the engineering team who knew of the dangers posed to O-rings by such low temperatures

• the disaster resulted in the temporary suspension of the space shuttle program and the creation of the rogers commission

who did in challenger

ellison onizuka, christa mcauliffe, gregory jarvis, judith resnik, michael smith, francis scobee, ronalid mcnair

columbia february 1, 2003

• STS-107

• the accident was caused during liftoff by the breaking off of a piece of foam that was intended to absorb and insulate the fuel tank of the shuttle from heat and to stop ice from forming

• the large piece of foam fell on the shuttle’s left wing and created a hole

• during re-entry, gases and smoke entered the left wing through the hole and cause the wing to break off, leading to the disintegration of the rest of the shuttle seven minutes from landing

who died in columbia

david brown, rick husband, laurel clark, kalpana chawla, michael anderson, william mccool, and ilan ramon