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The Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when ''Columbia'' disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana as it reentered Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven crew members. During the launch of STS-107, ''Columbias 28th mission, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank and struck the left wing. A few previous shuttle launches had seen minor damage from foam shedding, but some engineers suspected that the damage to ''Columbia'' was more serious. NASA managers limited the investigation, reasoning that the crew could not have fixed the problem if it had been confirmed. When ''Columbia'' reentered the atmosphere of Earth, the damage allowed hot atmospheric gases to penetrate and destroy the internal wing structure, which caused the spacecraft to become unstable and slowly break apart. After the disaster, Space Shuttle flight operations were suspended for more than two years, similar to the aftermath of the ''Challenger'' disaster. Construction of the International Space Station (ISS) was put on hold; the station relied entirely on the Russian Federal Space Agency for resupply for 29 months until Shuttle flights resumed with STS-114 and 41 months for crew rotation until STS-121. Several technical and organizational changes were made, including adding a thorough on-orbit inspection to determine how well the shuttle's thermal protection system had endured the ascent, and keeping a designated rescue mission ready in case irreparable damage was found. Except for one final mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, subsequent missions were flown only to the ISS so that the crew could use it as a haven in case damage to the orbiter prevented safe reentry. ==Crew== * Commander: Rick D. Husband, a U.S. Air Force colonel and mechanical engineer, who piloted a previous shuttle during the first docking with the International Space Station (STS-96). * Pilot: William C. McCool, a U.S. Navy commander. * Payload Commander: Michael P. Anderson, a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, physicist, and mission specialist who was in charge of the science mission. * Payload Specialist: Ilan Ramon, a colonel in the Israeli Air Force and the first Israeli astronaut. * Mission Specialist: Kalpana Chawla, an Indian-born aerospace engineer who was on her second space mission. * Mission Specialist: David M. Brown, a U.S. Navy captain trained as an aviator and flight surgeon. Brown worked on scientific experiments. * Mission Specialist: Laurel Blair Salton Clark, a U.S. Navy captain and flight surgeon. Clark worked on biological experiments. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Space Shuttle Columbia disaster」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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