Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster Pt 2: Final descent - BBC

Part two of six. This clip begins with the astronauts on board preparing for the shuttle's descent to earth and ends with the haunting scenes at NASA's Mission Control at the moment disaster struck. Moving footage from the BBC Horizon programme The Last Flight of the Columbia. Watch more high quality videos on the new BBC Worldwide YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/bbcworldwide

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• BBC
• Space
• Flight
• Columbia
• NASA
• Documentary
• Video
• Disaster

[2003SCT]

@crossy70 Hey, my taxes had to pay for your education and that was a waste since you aren't even able to spell shuttle correctly. I want my money back for that. :)

[luckyStrike89ru]

@dowlad100 So? Israeli government shot it down to make it fall on a city called Palestine in Texas? And? Whats the point. There are cities in US called Moscow, Paris etc. No one needs your conspiracy theories here you islamist freak so fuck off.

[mahwishnaveed2000]

Space. Shuttle. Columbia

[0091paddy]

Tragedy, even more so when this could have been avoided. Does anyone know the music playing at the start? thanks.

[Sealy57]

I'm far from a conspiracy theorist, but one has to wonder about how much NASA knew about wing damage incurred during launch. The mood prevalent among launch control staff as reality set in that the shuttle was lost, seemed to be one of confirmation that their worst fears were realized. Ultimately, even if mission control knew beforehand that chances were good the shuttle would break-up on re-entry, they also knew there was nothing that could have been done to save the crew.

[HailAnts]

The Brits do a good documentary, but the shot of it 'exploding' is inaccurate. Columbia first spun violently out of control and simultaneously broke apart, like a high-speed jet would. Very high speed as it was traveling at like Mach 14 when it finally lost it.

[DeltaV2TLI]

@DeltaV2TLI Duh, I apparently can't pull my head out of my arse to type...the part of the tape closest to vehicular breakup was completely destroyed or damaged so badly that none of it was viewable.

[DeltaV2TLI]

@snico Uhh no, the footage was recovered in the search for debris...they were using a handheld video camera to record. The portions of the tape close to vehicular breakup were damaged by the heat of reentry and the part of tape closest to reentry destroyed.

[DeltaV2TLI]

Are they really playing music from Alien?

[snico]

@MrComputergeek3 The footage was downlinked to control...not physically filmed in the cockpit.

[MegaAROx]

ESOS CONTROLADORES DE VUELO, TAN REALES....

[65FALCONSG]

Most importantly, terrible waste of seven lives and secondly, terrible waste of money with just a little gained over what we (US space program) had already learned from gemini and appollo. Almost one billion dollars per space shuttle flight when you look at the total real cost?! C'mon, man!!!!