SPACE — Space flight is anything but safe. Attempts to explore the final frontier pose major risks for the astronauts leading the missions.
To date, dozens of people have died in space flights, both before and after touching the outer limits of our Earth. “Yes, 21 people died in space,” Nigel Packham, NASA’s Associate Director of Mission Safety and Assurance, told Live Science.
Five spaceflight missions, three by the US NASA and two by the Soviet Union ended in fatalities. “Accidents are usually a combination of unusual circumstances, equipment errors, human error, politics and management,” said Jim Hermanson, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Two of the deadliest disasters involved NASA’s space shuttle missions. In January 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven crew members.
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One of the victims was Christa McAuliffe, a teacher in New Hampshire who took part in NASA’s Teachers in Space Project. The accident was caused by unusually cold temperatures at Cape Canaveral, which caused some of the rocket’s layers to lose their flexibility.
“Hot gas leaked and ignited the propellant tanks and caused a large explosion,” Hermanson told Live Science.
The management was also partly blamed for the incident. Because the leaders continued the launch without heeding warnings from several NASA scientists.
Another deadly spaceflight accident occurred in February 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia broke up during reentry to Earth. The accident killed seven crew members.
Before the Columbia disaster, reentry, descent, and landing missions were considered harmless parts of space flight. Moreover, when compared to the launch conditions which were full of challenges.
“Columbia suffered damage during launch, when a piece of foam insulation broke off, something that happened at nearly every launch before and after Columbia,” said Packham, who is helping investigate the cause of the disaster.
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But in Columbia’s case, he said, the foam hit the shuttle’s wings and damaged them. The damaged wings were unable to withstand the high temperatures they had to pass through when reentering Earth’s atmosphere. This caused the plane to be destroyed.
2023-10-01 02:19:00
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