Narrator: Through engineering,
Humans shape and mold our world.
Man: ...15, 14...
Extraordinary breakthroughs
Have changed the course of history
And taken us further than our ancestors
Could have ever imagined.
Man #2: And liftoff.
But with every new frontier comes unknown risks,
And pushing the limits can have devastating consequences.
Lock the doors.
On the morning of February 1, 2003,
The space shuttle columbia
Was reentering the earth's atmosphere
When it suddenly disintegrated over texas.
Hale: There's this sense of horror
That just came over everyone here.
Reporter: The truth is, some parts of columbia
May never be found.
Narrator: The disaster sent shock waves through the country
And caused the world to question, what went wrong?
And on July 6, 1986,
An oil rig suddenly burst into flames
Off the coast of scotland.
The horrific incident killed more than 200 people
And remains to this day
The worst offshore oil disaster in history.
Both of these tragedies occurred
Under very different circumstances.
Yet both happened while operating
In uniquely demanding environments.
What were the mistakes and misjudgments
That caused these disasters?
And could they have been avoided?
-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com
Captions paid for by discovery communications
Space is our newest frontier.
Incredible leaps in engineering and technology
Have allowed humankind
To push beyond the boundaries of knowledge...
Explore further than ever before,
While also scaring us in equal measure.
Man: We have ignition.
[ rumbling ]
♪♪
Man #2: In the race for space,
Scientists find progress in every failure.
♪♪
Prior to the space shuttle, all rockets were throwaway.
Essentially, the rocket flew into space,
Leaving only the very top part, the capsule or the satellite,
And all the rocket pieces fell to earth,
Disposed of in the sea.
America decided that they wanted to come up with
The equivalent of a space truck.
That would not only deliver things to the destination,
But would turn 'round, come back down again,
Land and would carry on.
Man: The unique advantage of the space shuttle itself,
It's going to make it --
It's going to make space accessible
And it's going to make it economically possible
For a lot more people to use that tool of space.
Narrator: When the space shuttle challenger broke apart
73 seconds after takeoff,
The horrific incident cost the lives of seven astronauts
And was a major setback for nasa's space program.
Man: And liftoff.
The tragedy put the program on hiatus for almost three years
And caused the world to rethink the ambitious task
To give people from all walks of life
A chance to experience space flight firsthand.
The investigation following the challenger disaster
Found so many weak points in the shuttle design
That nasa made 400 changes.
Nasa obviously had a complete appraisal of the situation,
And one of their conclusions was that perhaps
They were being a little bit optimistic
About the frequency of the shuttle launches.
The space shuttles didn't fly again till 1988.
Narrator: Columbia is part of the original fleet of space shuttles.
At 262 feet long and 14 feet wide,
It has a crew compartment and a payload bay
That could hold large cargo going to the space station.
Adam: It was an enormous, great tank full of liquid hydrogen
And liquid oxygen, enormous quantities of fuel.
The entire assembly weighed over 1,000 tons
On the launch pad.
There were miles of wiring.
There were multiple computers.
There were all manner of components
That still had to work exactly right.
Narrator: In its earliest days,
Columbia carried dozens of astronauts into space.
But after the challenger accident,
The shuttle was mainly used for scientific missions.
As nasa achieved the approval to build a space station,
Of course, the shuttle came into its own
With the assembly of the space station.
Space stations are very important in low-earth orbit
Because they can observe the earth.
So you can manufacture things
That you can't do on the surface of the earth.
Part of the reason the shuttle was designed
And built was the access to low-earth orbit
Could be accomplished by more or less ordinary people.
It didn't have to be superman.
You could employ scientists
Who would be specialists in their own fields,
And thereby we could advance the science to a greater degree.
Hale: As we come up to space shuttle flight number 107,
That was the scientific flight for about two and a half weeks.
It was a launch like many others that had gone before
In the 17 years since the challenger disaster.
They lit the engines, and launch proceeded near perfectly.
♪♪
Man: America's mightiest spacecraft,
The shuttle orbiter columbia,
Is poised on pad 39a here at cape canaveral,
Ready to put american men back in space
After a gap of nearly six years.
Preparations are said to be going so well
That some technicians in the mission control rooms
Have been sitting around with nothing to do.
It was a really beautiful day in florida.
Everything appeared to be normal.
Man: Booster ignition and liftoff
Of space shuttle columbia
With a multitude of national
And international space research experiments.
The launch went off on time first time.
The crew was happy.
They were on orbit.
The spacecraft was operating normally.
Everything seemed to be fine.
Mccool: Our goal for the mission will be to accomplish
Hopefully all of the science objectives
That each of the principal investigators
Have outlined for us.
At the end of 16 days, we'll deorbit,
We'll come back and land,
Slowing from 17,000-plus miles per hour,
Down to 200-plus miles per hour.
Rick husband, our commander, will make a smooth landing,
And the mission will be over.
♪♪
Nasa and the astronauts had decided
They'd done all they could possibly do,
And it was time to come home.
I was actually out at the runway
Where columbia was scheduled to land
With the crew families.
As we set there, there's a loudspeaker
That's carrying the air-to-ground conversation
Between mission control and the crew.
Adam: Over the course of the next few minutes,
They started to feel some turbulence.
And then three or four of the sensors
On the port wing side then just disappear.
They stopped reading.
♪♪
On the ground, people started to notice
That things weren't quite what they seem to be.
Suddenly they realized the tire pressures
Inside the orbiter's landing gear,
Which they were also monitoring, had gone off the scale as well.
What, in fact, the viewers on the ground saw
Was essentially a shower of particles
Like a meteor disintegrating.
Phone calls started going into nasa saying,
"hey, we think you've got a problem"...
...Almost at the same time as mission control realized
That they'd lost contact with the orbiter.
We realized that things had not gone right.
♪♪
Narrator: On February 1, 2003,
The space shuttle columbia
Was returning to earth after the seven astronauts on board
Completed a two-week scientific mission in orbit.
As the columbia approached dallas
At an altitude of over 200,000 feet,
Traveling 23 times the speed of sound,
Mission control made several attempts
To contact the astronauts.
But no one responded.
12 minutes after columbia
Was supposed to make its final approach,
A mission controller received a phone call.
The caller said a television network
Was showing video of the shuttle breaking up in the sky.
As word spread of the incident,
Those who were awaiting the space shuttle's return
At the kennedy space center
Looked up at the sky in disbelief.
Hale: There's this sense of horror
That just came over everyone there.
♪♪
Pres. George w. Bush: The crew of the shuttle columbia
Did not return safely to earth.
The cause in which they died will continue.
O'keefe: Today our grief is overwhelming.
Our duty now is to provide comfort
To the brave families of the columbia crew,
The families who take so much pride
In their loved ones' remarkable accomplishments.
For decades, the american space program
Has been a source of great technological innovation,
But with profound questions now being asked
Over the performance,
Even the air worthiness of space shuttle columbia,
That hard-won reputation is looking bad.
First question was, you know, what caused this accident?
So picking up the pieces became important.
It was a large effort expended in recovering the bodies.
Narrator: Shortly after mission control lost communication
And tracking of the shuttle,
Nasa announced a contingency plan
And sent search-and-rescue teams to suspect debris sites
In texas and louisiana.
Later that day, nasa declared the astronauts lost.
But the search for debris continued.
Van treuren: The very next morning,
We flew out to dallas-fort worth area.
Our team was assigned to find that first piece
That would tell the tale.
We were getting over the shock of the loss.
That kind of blended after a while
Into the determination to find that first piece.
Reporter: Several fishermen who were here on Saturday morning
Reported seeing parts of the shuttle land here in the lake.
The truth is, some parts of columbia may never be found.
Adam: So the debris trail covered an area
Of more than 2,000 square miles,
And it was in a real range of terrain
That had hills and ravines and woods.
It was difficult. It wasn't just over flat fields.
Fortunately they were aided
By huge numbers of the general public.
Thousands on thousands of people went looking for debris,
Returned those to nasa where they could all be assembled.
They were put together in a large hangar
At kennedy space center.
Van treuren: This was a very strange experience
For anybody that participated
Because parts of the vehicle had survived reentry almost intact.
It almost looks like you could just dust them off
And reuse them.
And others were twisted and burnt beyond recognition.
The real breakthrough was the finding
Of what we call the mads recorder.
It is a recorder that had the key information.
This is very close to a black box.
It's amazing that the tape survived.
The tape could have been destroyed with a hairdryer,
But for whatever reason,
That recorder was found more or less intact in the mud
In louisiana.
It gave them several tens of seconds of additional data
And a number of other sensor readings
That were not actually transmitted to mission control.
It gave them a real jump start
On actually beginning to work out what had gone wrong.
Narrator: The columbia investigation board
Began by examining the collected debris
And extensively interviewing everyone involved.
After three months,
All eyes turned to the shuttle's complex systems.
♪♪
The shuttle transportation system
Was made up of three main parts.
There was the space shuttle orbiter, solid rocket boosters.
These were two great big fireworks, essentially,
Very, very powerful, very high-thrust fireworks.
And their sole job was to lift the orbiter off the ground
And get it moving.
The third part of the transportation system,
Which is what's known as the external tank,
Because it contained liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
It was obviously full of this very, very cold propellant.
So the external tank was covered
With a thick layer of a special insulating foam
In order to keep it cold for as long as possible.
There are also some additional parts
That are designed to give some aerodynamic slipperiness
To the structure.
These are called bipod ramps.
Foam around the area of these ramps
Had a tendency to come off.
Nowell: There had been pieces of foam break off before,
And that had been noted,
But because they hadn't caused any damage,
It was starting to become, if you like,
An accepted anomaly.
Hale: Most of the shuttle is covered with tiles,
And they do a really good job of protecting the aluminum skin
Of the orbiter from about 2,000-,
2,220-degree temperatures.
But the front, the leading edge of the wings
And the nose, get much hotter than that,
Up to about 3,000 degrees.
And so those silica tiles are inadequate for insulation.
So we have a composite material called reinforced carbon carbon.
It's extremely heat resistant,
Up to almost 3,200 degrees, but it is very thin.
We're talking less than a quarter of an inch thick.
When hit, it turns out, it can crack and break.
Subsequently, some tests were actually done
Where pieces of foam, very similar
To what is actually used on shuttle flights,
Were fired at a mock-up model of the space shuttle wing
At the velocities they thought would have happened
During launch.
Man: We'll be launching a foam projectile
And we'll be launching it at a velocity of 700 feet per second.
Men: 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.
Narrator: Using the results of the high-speed foam tests,
The investigation team could determine the cause
Of the destruction of space shuttle columbia upon reentry.
And although many of the tests were inconclusive,
One test's results provided a smoking gun.
Narrator: In the wake of the space shuttle columbia incident,
The columbia accident investigation board
Conducted a series of tests
To determine whether impacts by low-density foam
Could cause the kind of damage needed
To bring down the shuttle.
Although many of the tests were negative,
One particular one managed to knock a huge, great hole
In the front portion of the wing.
And as a result, that hole during the wing
When the space shuttle was surrounded by hot gas
During reentry had allowed hot gas to enter the wing.
Hot gas had simply started to erode away
And melt the inside of the wing structure.
As a result, the orbiter then tumbled out of control
And the entire space shuttle then fell apart.
Man: We have booster ignition and liftoff
Of space shuttle columbia
With a multitude of national and international...
Narrator: Once engineers discovered evidence
That a piece of foam could crack and damage a panel,
Attention turned to the post-launch analysis video,
Which challenged nasa's conclusion
That during the flight,
The impact would pose no threat to the orbiter.
Part of the installation of the orange main tank,
The external tank, broke away
And just a slight flash is seen
As debris hits the leading edge
And underside of the left wing.
Van treuren: We all saw that video and wondered, you know,
That doesn't look right.
There was a lot of talk that investigations were being made.
But after about four days, we were told
That they didn't think it was any kind of a problem.
So shuttle management said, "you know what?
Firstly, we don't think this is a problem anyway.
Secondly, if it were a problem,
There isn't time to look at this thoroughly.
We've got to get this mission done."
And the third thing that only came out
When the accident investigation board dug really deeply
Was a fundamental belief within nasa
That actually if there was a problem identified,
Nothing could have been done about it.
David: A number of years ago, we had a program
Going back almost 20 years to the beginning of the shuttle
When astronauts were equipped with a repair kit
That could have gone outside on the spacewalk,
Inspected the exterior, remove damaged tiles
And rebonded replacement tiles.
That whole procedure, the training for it, the kit,
The opportunity as an operational contingency
Was removed from the shuttle.
To my mind, the great tragedy of the columbia disaster
Is the loss of the crew.
The nasa engineers certainly strongly suspected
That the orbiter had sustained significant damage
During launch.
If somebody had inspected the damage,
They'd have very quickly realized
It could not survive reentry in that condition.
Nasa stands accused tonight of complacency,
Of a flawed safety culture, of major management failures.
This stinging report with its 29 recommendations
Is not just about technical failures,
But also about a human failure
At the heart of the space agency.
Adam: The columbia accident investigation board,
They looked at what could have been done
To potentially prevent the tragedy occurring.
What the caib worked out
Was that there were two possibilities
For rescuing a stricken orbiter
That had suffered the wing failure
In the same way that columbia had.
First one would have been to try to repair
The leading edge of the wing where the damage was.
Adam: Send the astronauts outside,
Get them to scavenge some scrap metal
From the inside of the orbiter,
Stuff it into the hole to brace the hole,
And then put a bag filled full of water
That would slowly solidify into ice
In the intense cold of space
And hope that that block of ice
Supported by bits of scrap metal
Could actually keep the wing intact.
Unwin: A much better option
Would have been to have launched atlantis,
Which was being prepped for its flight.
Then the crew of columbia could return safely on board atlantis.
So although within minutes of launch,
Columbia was doomed, the crew weren't.
How do you change an organization
That makes it much more diligent
To investigate nuances and discrepancies,
That ask more questions, that listen more,
That looked at all the weak signals
And the near misses?
Space shuttle flying into space had become routine again,
And nasa said, "our machine's great.
It's not going to fail again."
Challenger's accident investigation board
Found that management and attitude and program structure
Was at least as large a fault as engineering.
The same problem happened in columbia.
Engineering was the root cause of the problem,
A technical failure, but not spotting the failure
And not being willing to try and fix it
Is an attitude and a management problem
That repeated itself again with columbia.
Narrator: Columbia's destruction occurred on reentry,
But its fate was sealed during ascent.
Nasa's internal safety culture failed under extreme conditions,
Just like the damaged wing tiles.
Hale: The investigation board made about 15 recommendations
For returning the shuttle to fly.
First one was to do the very best we could
To eliminate foam shedding during ascent.
We also did something considered quite impossible at the time,
Which was to develop a method of repairing tile
And a reinforced carbon carbon on orbit
If damage were detected.
And there were a couple of close calls.
We had a couple of scares on missions
Where there were some tile damages.
At least we were able to inspect,
See what we had, do an evaluation
And take remedial action
To make sure the crew would be safe on reentry.
Adam: The space shuttle gave us a great deal of benefits,
Scientifically, politically, and internationally,
In terms of cooperation in space.
But also it was a learning path
Towards things that have yet to come.
Man: 3, 2, 1.
Booster ignition and liftoff of space shuttle endeavour
On a 21st-century mission placing earth back on the map.
♪♪
Narrator: 15 years earlier, another flawed approach to safety
Combined with engineering weaknesses
Resulted in one of the worst offshore oil disasters
In history.
Man: I can't believe I'm a survivor
From the world's biggest oil disaster.
Narrator: Over the past few decades,
Oil-drilling operations
Have gradually moved into deeper waters
And explored drilling in wells
That involved much greater internal pressures
And hazards than ever before.
These areas inherently come with more risks.
The search for oil has led companies all over the world
To push exploration faster, deeper,
And with more focus on more risky offshore rigs.
In the '70s, the main supply of oil
Was from the middle east to europe and to north america.
Man: 1973 dramatized u.S. Dependence on foreign oil.
The organization of petroleum exporting countries
Imposed its boycott and, within a year, raised prices
More than 300%.
Disruption was created by arab-israeli war.
We were 100% dependent on the middle east
For supplying us with oil.
It was in the late '60s, early '70s that they discovered
That there were significant oil reservoirs in the north sea.
Man: The oil industry has never before come up against
Quite the same combination of rough weather and deep water
That they now find out there in the north sea.
The north sea has already cost an enormous amount.
A number of lives lost.
None of these problems have yet been solved.
It'll be some time before they are.
We had no other choice.
If we wanted to have our own independent oil supply,
We had to drill for oil in the north sea.
Piper was discovered in 1973.
The platform was producing in '76, less than four years.
It's discovered by a floating rig
That drills down into the sea
And then you can drill lots of wells.
And in the end, piper had 36 wells.
Module "a" is where you actually have the wellhead,
Where all the 36 wells come out of the ground,
Which then feeds it to module "b,"
Which has two enormous tanks.
You separate the oil, the gas, the water
And anything else you've produced
And what you'll see, which is where the gas is dealt with.
Oil is relatively easy to deal with.
Gas you have to do other things with.
Gas is separated out and without compression
Is simply led to a big pipe up to a tower,
And then it's burned at the top of the tower.
It's called flaring.
Originally, piper did not export gas.
It flared it.
And that's when its output was something
Like 250,000 barrels a day.
A consortium operating piper wanted to increase the output
To 350,000 barrels a day.
Narrator: The increase in oil production
Meant more gas was collected.
The rig was retrofitted to export gas
To meet new regulations to curb gas flaring.
The retrofitting went on in several phases,
Starting with the separation of condensate.
Richardson: The condensate is basically
The heavier elements of the gas,
And you can inject that into the main oil line.
And to do that, you take it through a pump
To raise the pressure.
Macleod: In this retrofit, it was essential
That one of the two propane pumps was always operational.
If it wasn't operational, the whole rig would stop.
Piper was connected to two other platforms --
The claymore platform
And then the texaco tartan platform nearby.
Piper was by far the most prolific of the platforms,
So the other two platforms piggybacked
Onto its export system.
In any offshore environment, there's an element of risk.
You're dealing with hazardous fluids,
Hazardous oil and gas that's flammable.
Van smirren: The platform is effectively an island
That has to be self-sufficient.
It has to be able to provide
Its own hospital, medical, firefighting services.
Brookes: It's only accessible by helicopter
Or by a long, rough boat ride.
Once you're there, you're there for two to three weeks.
It's not easy to get off
And particularly if anything went wrong.
Every rig in the north sea is extremely well-designed
To contain and control any fire or explosion.
Different parts of the rig can be isolated very quickly
And people can move to safe areas very quickly.
♪♪
Narrator: On the morning of July 6, 1988,
One of piper alpha's two condensate gas pumps,
Pump "a," was due to undergo some routine maintenance.
Its safety relief valve also needed recertification.
Both jobs needed to be carried out separately
And could only be completed with pump "a" turned off.
When the safety valve was removed from pump "a,"
A temporary blind flange was added to seal the open pipe
And stop any flammable gas or liquid from escaping.
The work was to be carried out at 6:00 p.M.
But got pushed back due to the platform's busy schedule.
The on-duty engineer filled in a permit,
Which stated that pump "a" must not be switched on
Under any circumstances.
♪♪
[ thunder rumbling ]
Narrator: Within two hours after the initial explosion,
The rig collapsed.
And despite the extensive fixed fire protection system on board,
Not a single drop of water was applied
From the piper alpha itself to any of the fires.
Man: The public inquiry into exactly what did happen
Will try to find ways of preventing such a disaster
Ever happening again.
Narrator: Piper alpha, an oil-production platform
In the north sea, began production in 1976.
Within 12 years, it was producing approximately 10%
Of the north sea oil and gas,
So much so that in July 1988,
The decision was made to continue work on the platform
And not shut it down while the rig was under reconstruction.
[ explosion ]
But on July 6th, piper alpha became the site
Of the world's most lethal offshore disaster.
Richardson: There were 226 persons on board
At the time of the disaster.
Only 61 survived.
Matheson: Many of them, if not all, had been burned
And several of them had received injuries
When they either jumped from the platform
Or were blown from it in the explosion
Man: Did you hesitate before you jumped?
Did you -- or did you just go for it?
Narrator: One of the first rescue vessels on the scene
Was the silver pit,
Which saved 37 of the 61 survivors
That were pulled from the water.
Brookes: The ones who did survive were a combination
Of jumping from the top of the platform.
Some jumped from ropes.
Some actually went down a hose,
But the vast majority of the people died.
Man: The local council has set up a helpline
For the relatives of the victims.
A team of social workers
Is manning the office 'round the clock,
Helping them to cope with their distress and shock.
Man: Hundreds of mourners
Packed aberdeen's st. Nicholas church,
Joining relatives and friends of the men who died
And many of those who survived.
Some stayed away,
This painful reminder too much to bear.
Macleod: Of the 167 people who died,
121 died on piper alpha,
16 bodies were recovered from the sea,
And 30 bodies are missing or never recovered.
Man: The public inquiry into exactly what did happen
Will be chaired by judge lord cullen.
He'll also try to find ways of preventing such a disaster
Ever happening again.
♪♪
Brading: It would appear that the first explosion occurred
Due to an escape of gas in the "c" module.
A series of explosions and fires quickly followed.
Richardson: Part one of the inquiry was about causation
And then escalation of the events.
Why did the disaster happen?
In the case of piper alpha,
The rig was designed for oil export.
It was retrofitted for gas export.
Many of the design decisions were less than ideal.
So citing a gas compression module next to a control room
Underneath a communication center
And underneath a personnel accommodation block.
There are two pumps that take condensate --
Pump "a" and pump "b."
They have got pump "a" out of action for maintenance,
And while they have got pump "a" out of action for maintenance,
They are going to recertify its safety valve.
Condensate injection pumps
Were located such that their safety relief valves
Were on a different floor from the pumps themselves,
So that the operators, when they went to attend to the pumps,
Couldn't see that a safety relief valve was missing.
Operators, the two of them,
When pump "b" simply refused to restart,
Decided to restart pump "a."
Narrator: It was suspected that the blind flange
Put in the place of pump a's safety valve
Had not been tightened properly.
The report suggested the explosion was most likely
Caused by the escaping gas, which then ignited.
Piper was connected to several other production facilities
In the north sea.
When communications were lost, those rigs continued pumping.
And the easiest path now for the gas and oil
Was back to the stricken rig.
So that not only was the export from piper fueling the fire,
But also the export from all the fields around it
Were back-flowing into that fire, making it even worse.
Narrator: One by one, the live gas lines
From the connected platforms ignited
And caused a series of massive explosions.
As the public inquiry into the cause of the accident continued,
Some investigators questioned
Why emergency response systems built into the platform
Didn't kick in automatically,
While others questioned whether inadequate personnel training
Was to blame.
Narrator: On July 6, 1988,
Gas leaking from a faulty condensate pump
On the piper alpha oil platform ignited and then exploded,
Sending the 226 people on board into the north sea.
Unaware of the incident due to a loss of communication,
Three nearby rigs with gas lines running to the piper alpha
Continued to keep pumping.
Two hours after the initial explosion,
The fire consumed so much of the support structure,
The platform eventually collapsed.
Man: Thick smoke and flames
Were driven towards the section of the rig
Where they'd been working to clear the debris
Left by the explosion.
34,000 tons of steel
Was used in the construction of the piper alpha platform.
Most of that now lies in a tangled ruin beneath the sea.
Narrator: Two years after the disaster,
Investigators determined
That the primary cause of the accident
Was due to maintenance work simultaneously being carried out
On one of the high-pressure condensate pumps
And a safety valve.
Additionally, the flow of gas from the other three platforms
Intensified the fire.
They also discovered other very alarming unprecedented causes.
Richardson: One of the most noticeable things about piper
Is that not a drop of water was fed
Onto the fires on piper.
The water deluge system on any offshore platform
Is there principally to be able to control the fires.
Van smirren: Deluge systems should work automatically,
But the system on piper alpha
Had been put on its manual settings.
The reason for that was it had large intakes,
It sucked up seawater,
And they were concerned that during diving operations,
The deluge system could suck one of the divers into the system.
Personal safety of the divers was put above
The safety of the 200-odd men on board the rig.
Whenever you do an operation offshore,
You have to get a permit.
Narrator: Following the tragedy,
Investigators presented over 106 recommendations
For changes to north sea's safety procedures,
Which included new guidelines
For management, regulation, and training.
The major thrust was the need for a complete re-overhaul
And a new focus on the way
That platforms were designed and licensed.
We think that when we complete our inquiry
And the government completes theirs,
It may very well be that --
That the living quarters for the men
Will have to be removed
From the precarious position they're in now.
Van smirren: However good the safety system is,
Unless you have everyone in an organization
100% engaged with that safety process,
Then the process was pointless.
♪♪
Narrator: The piper alpha disaster led to fundamental changes
In offshore oil drilling safety procedures.
The columbia tragedy grounded the space shuttle fleet
For two years,
While nasa made massive technical
And organizational changes.
Just eight years later,
Partly due to fallout from the disaster,
The space shuttle program came to an end.
Both of these tragic disasters are proof that when we explore
Dangerous, isolated, and hostile environments,
Safety must be engineered into the plan.