timeThe three-part documentary “Space Shuttle Falls to Earth” commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Columbia disaster, when “one of the most complex machines ever built by man” disintegrated on the way back from its 28th mission, killing all seven astronauts Distressed on board ship.
In the fullest sense, it is a memorial to the men and women who have died. Modern media interview footage, audio tapes recorded during training, and recordings made during their 16-day mission in space, including chats with family members on Earth, reveal that they were living, breathing humans almost up to that moment. The space shuttle failed. They are intertwined with present-day interviews with surviving family members, specifically Commander Richard Husband’s wife Evelyn, Mission Specialist Michael P. Anderson’s wife Sandy and daughter Kathy, Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon’s son Tal and Mission Specialist Laurel Clark’s son husband Jon and son Ian. Other astronauts who lost their lives included pilot William C McCool and mission specialists Kalpana Chawla and David M Brown. Everyone who remembered them was thoughtful, articulate, tender, and clearly felt the loss they had endured for 20 years.
Had it stayed in this familiar territory for an anniversary documentary, it would have been a deeply touching but in a sense unnecessary moment. Instead, in addition to the interviews, there are three episodes that carefully inquire about the reasons for the astronauts’ deaths, but do not overshadow the interviews. The series becomes like a Netflix true-crime drama—but without any of the sensationalism—in this case exposing the failures of the vast NASA complex rather than the police or criminal justice system.
In telling the story, the show maintains impressive control over the organization and control of the large group of people involved in the mission in various capacities. The story is complex in terms of who said what to whom and when, but at its core it’s very simple – it’s about what went wrong.
When NASA was analyzing the recordings taken during the launch, as usual, they noticed something broke away from the shuttle, struck the wing and created a cloud of dust as it bounced off. It was identified as foam insulating the external water tank. This has happened before, but the fragments were smaller and not damaged. Here, it wasn’t clear whether the wings were intact; the teams needed more data, and to get it they came up with a variety of methods, including asking crews to look out windows, using powerful ground-based telescopes and repurposing military spy satellites.
Management decided it was not worth worrying the crew. They decided that the telescope was pointless and that asking the military for help would be a difficult and (not so openly admitted) embarrassing task. According to available launch footage, foam hit the shuttle 65 times out of 75 missions, which was seen as evidence that the shuttle would never cause damage, rather than a sign that their luck might soon run out.
From there, the story focuses on how an isolated, hierarchical agency failed, and how far the steps toward disaster were: a few ignored emails, distractions from more immediate weather-related threats, a spur-of-the-moment press conference The proposition made was hard to give up and set the mission on a more determined path. Ultimately, no one wanted to accept the possibility of the worst-case scenario until it was too late, and when they did, NASA decided — if such a clear word could be used for what looked more like an emerging Consensus—Don’t tell crew members about their concerns. If their growing fears were true, then no remedial action had been taken and the best course of action was to continue with the mission – which, in a painful irony, was going extremely well – and hope for these fears It won’t be true again. Entrance.
Not a minute is wasted in these three hours, and it doesn’t feel like it’s too long. It’s a presentation and meditation that’s abysmal in its detail and clarity, illustrating our capacity for delusion (even the best and brightest minds) and the dangers of not having a fully integrated support system for reporting problems of all types and levels of employees. It pays its highest respects to the seven Columbia astronauts and their families.
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