Comm Check ...
The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia
Cabbage, Michael - Harwood, William
First Edition. First Edition.
A terrible sense of deja vu came over members of Kennedy's film review team as they saw the first images of Columbia's climb to orbit. A massive chunk of foam had broken away from the shuttle's external fuel tank at 81 seconds after launch and smashed into Columbia's left wing somewhere near the leading edge, resulting in a spectacular shower of particles. Exclamations and curses filled the film lab. This time, however, the impact wasn't on one of the shuttles boosters as it had been two launches earlier. It was on the orbiter itself.
The uncertainty made it more critical than ever that engineers pinpoint the precise location of the debris strike. Launch films of the impact shed little light on the mystery. Engineers rapidly were coming to the realization that it would be impossible to have any confidence in their damage assessment without photos of Columbia in orbit.
Shuttle managers saw no need. They were confident the incident posed little threat to Columbia's seven astronauts. After all, it was only foam. Foam had been coming off the shuttles tank since the first launch in 1981. It had never had been a serious safety threat in the past, only a headache for workers who had to repair the orbiters before they returned to space. NASA officials felt certain Columbia and her crew would be fine.
They were wrong.
Hardcover with dust jacket
321 Seiten / pages
photos
very good condition, with a name label of the previous owner
New York - London - Toronto - Sydney - 2004 - Free Press
Art.Nr. 25279
