The destruction of the NASA space shuttle Columbia is a tragedy which affects us all. The reason why, other than common humanity, the burden of grief should be shared across the world is that space is a frontier across which all peoples of the globe must push, not just a handful of countries with leading technologies.
It will probably be a long time before the precise cause of the shuttle’s disintegration, 200,000 feet above Texas, as it glided at 12,000 mph toward landing, will be known. When, almost 17 years ago to the day, the shuttle Challenger exploded on take off, NASA mounted a minute investigation of the disaster, which took months to complete and discovered a design flaw. All shuttle flights were stopped for almost two-and-a-half years. Yesterday, the Americans were quick to discount terrorism as the cause of this tragedy. It certainly seems highly unlikely. What is more likely is that human error is responsible. Each NASA shuttle flight with the normal crew complement of seven or eight astronauts has behind it around 10,000 individuals who stay on the ground. Though safety and checking procedures were tightened up after the Challenger crash, it remains a harsh fact that with so many people involved in such hugely complex technology, mistakes will be made.
Space exploration is hardly headline news these days. For Israel and India, both of whom had provided a crew member each, the trip will, of course, have been front-page news. However, only a fraction of the rest of the world’s population probably knew that Columbia was due yesterday to glide down across the United States to land in Florida, at the end of a 16-day mission. Even fewer probably realize that there are now still three astronauts on the International Space Station, who will probably have to be brought down by a Soyuz mission rather than a NASA shuttle.
It is highly probable that yesterday’s crash will cause a major setback in the ISS program. Even if another design flaw is not found to be at the heart of the Columbia wreck, it is certain that the other shuttles will be grounded for at least a year. Columbia was, in fact, the oldest ship in NASA’s shuttle fleet, built in 1981, five years before the Challenger tragedy. Though extensively refitted several times, most recently with a new cockpit, some sort of structural fatigue seems a strong possibility. It may well be that scientists still have much to learn about the huge stresses placed on metal which has to endure phenomenal stresses at launch and re-entry as well as the unique pressures of life in orbital space.
The immediate lesson remains, however, that this is a tragedy for everyone, not just the United States, India and Israel. We have all lost in this disaster. A technological challenge has been thrown down and once again, a warning given that in the unforgiving region of space, nothing can be taken for granted. The solutions may be a long time coming.
They will come. The struggle to conquer the space will go on. All that we can hope for is that, when the battle is won, the knowledge gained in the process will add to human happiness, not to human misery.
