Remembering STS-107 One Year Later
by Ian Kluft
February 1, 2004
San Jose, California

[image of sign on California Hwy 88 for Columbia Dr]
I called this "a waste of a good coincidence..." On California Highway 88 in Amador County, this just happens to be the name of the cross-street within 100 feet of where STS-107's ground track crosses the highway. It's 3/4 mile from the lat/lon coordinates NASA released as "Debris Shedding Event #5" after they analyzed video from Rick Baldridge, John Sanford and Jay Lawson. Besides Hwy 88, I also visited where the ground track crosses Highways 49 and 108 during the month after the accident, to scope out what it would take to organize a search for debris.
On this page...

See also:

The year since the accident

 It's been one year since the Space Shuttle Columbia accident, which claimed the lives of 7 astronauts and grounded America's space shuttle fleet. There were mourning and services for those lost. Debris was recovered. An 8-month investigation determined the cause.

I was an eyewitness that morning to the smoke trail Columbia left across the pre-dawn California sky. I contacted NASA with what little information I had. I got phone calls back from NASA Johnson Space Center and later also from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) to thank me. I assume that was standard treatment for all the eyewitnesses who tried to help, and it was very gracious of them.

On that day...

But on that day, Feb 1 2003, many people were concerned that it might not be possible to determine the cause. Everyone expected that there would be very little left of the debris on the ground. And no one expected the un-armored flight data recorder to be found intact. We, the few eyewitnesses on the West Coast who braved the pre-dawn fog to find a good vantage point, knew that anything we could contribute could make a difference, whether video, pictures or objective-as-possible observations.

Some observations were more signficant than others. Rick Baldridge stands alone among people who deserve recognition. He sent out information to e-mail lists telling people how to view the shuttle re-entry. As it turns out, he was single-handedly responsible for most West Coast eyewitnesses, including myself and all my friends, knowing where to be to watch it. Rick also took video from Mt Hamilton, near San Jose, California, that proved to the world that Columbia was already in trouble over California, showing 5 debris-shedding events. As an amateur astronomer, he had sync'ed his camcorder to WWV, giving a very accurately timed video. Even NASA was impressed with him. (That's what I heard during the brief phone call with NASA JSC when they called to thank me for my observations which I had submitted earlier. I mentioned that I saw it from Mt Hamilton Road near where Rick took his video. At the mention of his name, they couldn't help but praise his good work.)


[airliner view of Eastern California terrain overlaid with STS-107 ground track]
A view of some of the Eastern California terrain that someone will eventually have to scour if the debris shed over California is ever to be found. Fortunately, this turned out not to be crucial to the accident investigation. (I visited that area in March 2003 to see what we'd be up against if we were to try to organize a search. I took this photo from a Delta Airlines flight in December 2003.)

Looking for debris...

NASA was taxed to the limit just recovering debris from Texas and Louisiana. Many of us started talking about how overwhleming a task it would be to search for debris in the western states. Yet, it seemed at first that a cause might not be found if we didn't find something here. If no other clues were found, these would reveal where the first pieces started coming off Columbia. Some of us started to learn as best we could about ballistics (with generous help from ballistics expert Rob Matson) and tried to estimate search areas to look at. We put together a page of notes about looking for shuttle debris in California. Though probably all the pieces observed over California, since they separated at Mach 23, fell at least in in Eastern California, or in Nevada.

Fortunately, our worst fears for the investigation were not realized. With the finding of the flight data recorder near Hemphill TX, there was a great deal of information available to reconstruct circumstances aboard the orbiter. (It told them Columbia's thermal protection system was already breached before re-entry, from the way internal left-wing temperatures shot up after Entry Interface near Hawaii.) It was found before California's mountain highways were cleared of snow, which we'd have needed to start our search. So finding tiles in California or Nevada was reduced in priority before we even started. Many of us still hope to try. But the terrain is rough.

Though many people reported finding shuttle debris anywhere they found any garbage they couldn't recognize, nothing was confirmed as being from Columbia further west than western Texas,
[STS-107 Columbia rollout to Launch Pad 39A] [STS-107 mission patch]
[STS-107 crew portrait]
[picture of STS-107 crew arriving at KSC]
[picture of STS-107 crew entering astrovan enroute to Pad 39A]
[STS-107 Columbia launches from Pad 39A]

In memory of the STS-107 crew

While this page focuses on the experiences of eyewitnesses and efforts to help with the accident investigation, let's remember the seven astronauts who lost their lives while trying to move forward mankind's exploration of space. Here are links into NASA's STS-107 crew memorial site. Here in Silicon Valley, many people either knew Kalpana Chawla or found out after the accident that they knew people who knew her. She worked at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View before being selected as an astronaut. (All US astronauts reside in Houston, so she moved there.) In their spare time, she and her husband were also flight instructors at the Palo Alto Airport while they were in this area.

Others remember too...

Other memorials by STS-107 eyewitnesses

 Those of us who saw it probably feel even more of a connection than the average members of the public.
Unlike people who first heard it on the news, we were anticipating getting to watch Columbia crossing the sky. The crew was still alive and, in those moments, it was a happy and exciting sight. That turned to fear when Columbia failed to arrive in Florida and an emergency was declared. But the mystery lasted only a few minutes with our worst fears realized as the news reports and finally video began to arrive from Texas. With some variations, the western states eyewitnesses had similar experiences.

Chris Valentine, who videotaped Columbia's re-entry from Arizona, put together two videos to mark the anniversary of the STS-107 accident.

"...and for other purposes"
Video essay by Chris Valentine about the STS-107 crew and the accident
Real-time re-entry video reconstruction
Compilation of STS-107 videos time-sync'ed to NASA controller audio as they tried to figure out what was wrong while the systems didn't present them with enough data.
If you know of other STS-107 memorials by eyewitnesses, please let me know. I'll add a link here.
Back up to Ian's space shuttle pages