Executive Summary on the Root Cause of the Columbia Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster

On February 1st, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated around 9 am while re-entering over Texas, only 30 minutes away from landing. 7 souls were taken as a result.
January 16th 2003, at 10:39 am, the space shuttle Columbia took off for the 16 day voyage orbiting the Earth while conducting 80 different experiments in the fields of life, material, and microgravity science. The space shuttle took off at a 39° angle, an at approximately 81 seconds into the launch a piece of insolating foam from the exterior tank dislodged, striking the left wing of the space shuttle. The same day, Columbia experienced communication problems with the shuttles SpaceHAB. Through out the day’s 2-4, the shuttle again was experiencing problems. The SpaceHab module that controlled the temperature of the shuttle began to malfunction due to the water flooded inside. This caused the temperature to rise up too at most 80°, which caused the crew to rely on their back-up SpaceHAB. The crew was able to stabilize. On day 6, the shuttle again experienced problems. The shuttles cameras malfunctioned, and no repairs were ever made.
When the MMT were first aware of the shuttles situation with the foam, they had discussed the possible damage but shrugged it off and concluded that since the dislodging of foam was common, there was nothing to worry about. The imagery that shows the incident is not clear enough to see any sign that they should be concerned. A team of NASA engineers had reason to believe that there was more to the image then what the MMT believed to be nothing and that the shuttle was still in good condition for re-entering . There was never communication between the engineers and MMT, so the concern was never brought up again.
After the shuttle disintegrated, it was concluded that there must have been a hole, which would explain why the shuttle disintegrated in the first place. The hole in the left wing allowed heated vapor to enter the shuttle, which caused the frame and aluminum to melt, therefore resulting in the Columbia and her crew to parish.
Many factors contributed to the death and destruction of the shuttle and it’s crew. The main factor was the lack of communication between the members of MMT and the countless number of engineers, who are also responsible for the shuttles poor design. During the 6-18 days of the mission, the MMT members and engineers failed to construct and plan that could have potentially saved the crew.
Recommendations:
Some recommendations that could have prevented the catastrophic even that occurred:
• Sending up the other shuttle Atlantis to rescue the crew members of Columbia.
• As much of a risk it may have been, sending out 1 or 2 crew members on a moon walk to repair the damage could have saved them.

If the MMT members and engineer’s could have learned to communicate better, then maybe the Columbia and her crew could have made it all the way home.