Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster Pt 5: Heat resistant tiles -- BBC

Part five of six. The investigation into the disaster quickly turned to the shuttle's heat resistant titles which covered the body of the vehicle. In particular, the tiles which coated the wings came under close scrutiny. Were these tiles truly as indestructible as everybody had believed? Clip taken from the BBC Horizon programme Last Flight of the Columbia Watch more high quality videos on the new BBC Worldwide YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/bbcworldwide

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News & Politics

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

[shflbm]

where is part 6?

[k636101]

reinforsed carbon carbon ... sound expensive XD

[Kvz2011]

I wont sub until u upload the full vid!!!

[malamagr]

@relativityprinciple They weave back and forth to break the speed, and might have been able to have chosen a different set of maneuvers to lessen the heat on the damaged area if they'd known about it before re-entry. I'm not sure if they could have stayed banked one way and gone into a spiral to take the worst heat only on the other side, but personally I'd rather have a chance at landing on a rural road on the wrong continent than burn up for sure while aiming for home. Better to know before.

[relativityprinciple]

It's really sad to lose lives in either way. launching and re-entry. just poignant.

But these people were brave ones - living out their dreams and sacrificing their lives for the cause of humanity - when most people down here all could ever think of is to cause war and misery. it's really sad.

[relativityprinciple]

@Mohibor

I'm not quite sure about this, but i heard that the shuttle has no total control for speeds, it only glides along as it re enters the atmosphere and given the velocity upon re-entry i don't think you can apply too much break to slow such a huge thing. That's why they really had to make it "anti-heat resistant" so it can stand the extreme temperature during the re-entry. So I really think the damaged wing had really cause the explosion.

[strokedmustang66]

still looking for Part 6

[Mohibor]

I'm not good at science, but could they re-enter the earth at lower speeds to prevent excessive heat?

[MrBaraniecki]

@GhosstofShadows thank you!

[smilnrt]

WOW! That would be alot of carbon! The small amount used on a Ferrari helps to make them cost over 200k USD, can only imagine what it must cost to custom build it for the wings of a space craft!!!

[Nazkyr]

@JoanCollins2009 Carbon-Carbon is a composite material consisting of carbon fibre reinforcement in a matrix of graphite, so theres the Carbon (fibre) and Carbon (graphite) :)