The Majestic Return of Space Shuttle Columbia
The majestic return of Space Shuttle Columbia on her maiden flight STS-1
The dream is alive!
When Space Shuttle Columbia touched down, nobody was aware of just how lucky her crew was to make it home. The orbiter's heat shield was damaged when an overpressure wave from the solid rocket booster caused a forward RCS oxidizer strut to fail.
The same overpressure wave also forced the shuttle's "body flap" that controlled pitch during the reentry phase – more than 5° out of position and into an angle far beyond the point where cracking or rupture of its hydraulic system would have been expected. Had that rupture occurred, a controlled descent would have been impossible.
.Astronaut John Young later admitted that had the crew been aware of this, they would have flown the shuttle up to a safe altitude and ejected, causing Columbia to have been lost on her first flight.
After reaching an orbital altitude of 166 nautical miles, Columbia flew 37 orbits, on a 1 million,74 thousand, 567-mile long flight, lasting 2 days, 6 hours, 20 minutes and 53 seconds.
Space Shuttle Columbia safely touched down on Runway 23 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, at 10:21 am PST on the 14th of April 1981.
My next door neighbor was part of the backup team for Columbia’s first flight and had launch day meal with Young and Crippen. Pretty cool. First flight was successful and pointed out some challenges with the tiles that were badly damaged and new adhesives and procedures were put in place for future flights. Also, NASA management decided to shave weight after that very first shuttle flight for heavier lift capacity by removing the aerodynamic protective coating that was applied over the cryogenic insulation foam by the manufacturer to mitigate loss of foam during launch that could dislodge and strike the shuttle potentually causing serious damage. Well, ironically it was Columbia that was indeed struck by aerodynamicly dislodged foam and suffered catastrophic damage to the leading edge of the left wing that NASA management had to know was fatal if an attempt to re-enter was made. However, instead of approving Story Musgrave’s rescue plan to use Discovery to rescue the astronauts from Columbia and park it in orbit till a repair mission could be made, NASA management apparently decided it wasn’t worth saving Columbia or the crew, and had them re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at 17000 miles per hour with a hole the size of a basketball in the leading edge of the left wing that NASA was fully aware of and, any pilot or engineer or anyone with commonsense, knew wouldn’t survive re-entry, as it was aerodynamicly unable to fly let alone survive the heat of re-entry; as it turned out both things were true. Result, the obliteration of a very expensive space shuttle and the death of seven oblivious astronauts that should have known it was a suicide decision to re-enter and should have demanded a rescue, as they were aware of the damage. They could have stayed in orbit for at least a month for a rescue ride from Discovery, if they rationed power and consumables. By the way, that was NASA’s third avoidable loss of life and craft tragedy (Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia). All three avoidable tragedies. Apollo 1, there were major safety concerns of that craft that went ignored. Challenger was operated way outside the designed launch specifications for a safe launch (in fact, every cold launch below the 50 degree design limit had o-ring failure, and the colder it was was the worst the failure; it was 19 degrees! As such, it was 50/50 at best that Challenger would make it to space, and I bet $20 that it wouldn’t and won, as it was a commonsense bet, easy money. I knew then, in tenth grade, the limit for safe launch was 50 degrees, and with 8ft icecycles hanging off the launch platform, it was pretty obvious, death and destruction were in the cards for Challenger. Heck, all the shuttle and launch system specs were posted in the Sentinel Star (now the Orlando Sentinel), years before that launch, which I read on microphish in my middle school’s library, also years prior to that launch. After the repeated postponed launch attempts the fridged cold hit that EVERYONE knew was coming and they just left the shuttle sitting out there on the launch pad in the elements. As such, EVERYONE with a brain said, “don’t launch”. Need I say more? Also, NASA had removed all the ejection systems and safety equipment from Challenger, prior to that launch, to again save weight for heavier payloads. Oops, turned out the crew could have survived, or at least some of them. But, no, they all drowned 150ft under the Atlantic Ocean. Yes, they were alive during the entire trip up, and after the explosion (they actually kept climbing in the crew compartment, as it was completely intact, as designed, and was only bolted to the cargo bay by four brackets), and they were still alive the entire trip down to the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, it was known that the crew was trying to fly the shuttle after the explosion, not knowing they were in the only part that was still intact. Turned out they suffocated after running out of oxygen when their tanks ran out. The crew manually switched to the auxiliary oxygen tanks after losing power, as the fuel cells were located in the cargo bay. As for Columbia, It was fore mentioned what happened, and bears repeating, that management decisions to, one, remove the designed safety coating from the fuel tank, and two, refusing a rescue attempt, and three refusing satellite imagery, and four ordering the crew to re-enter knowing the shuttle was catastrophicly damaged and not aerodynamicly stable to fly or thermally protected to re-enter. I’m no lawyer, but, in my opinion, that sure sounds like gross negligence, at the very minimum. Now NASA is going to attempt an Artemis II crewed launch in April 2026 with a heat shield on Orion that, from reports, appears to be in question. God speed Artemis. I certainly hope they have a successful mission.
This story is mostly misinformation. The SRB overpressure wave did occur and a FRCS tank strut was slightly bent and replaced before the next mission. All loads induced onto the aerosurfaces were within limits. The body flap doesn’t control pitch (it assist in pitch control as trim device) and was not pushed to almost “breaking”; it did fly about 5 degrees out of its expected position during the entry but that was due to an entry aerodynamic coefficient not being as expected (and there was no real impact). The official mission repot lists every anomaly and TPS performance was listed as nominal and overall the vehicle performed well. More on the Young comments later (I’m checking that out best I can) but my experience based on an ejection decision is you don’t make that. until it is the only option, i.e., actual vehicle breakup or loss of control) especially considering the unknowns associated with its success in the ascent environment.
My brother, Lt. Charles E. Gratch, a mission coordinator with the 4950th ARIA test wing out of WPAFB in Dayton, OH, supported the shuttle program. An EC135 was airborne upon Columbia’s re-entry. Charlie was not on that flight, but was supporting the ARIA crew from the base. He got to see the shuttle a week later at Edwards. He was very excited about the key role ARIA played and called his family to tell us all about it. I was just 12, but remember it fondly. Charlie’s career was going to take him to the shuttle program, but alas, he and 20 others aboard ARIA 328 were killed just three weeks later on 05/06/81 when there planed went down in Walkersville, MD. Charlie was so excited about the shuttle program. It wasn’t until after his death that my father had told us where his career was likely headed. At least that was his plan. Our Lord had other plans. Thank you for this story. I remember Charlie speaking of the dangers of re-entry, the inaugural shuttle launch, and how there was no margin for error. When Columbia did got down in 02/2003, the wounds opened back up. God bless you military men/women. You give up so much for us.
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