--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cause of Fiery Fall Is Unknown; Ship Was Fleet's Oldest
By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 EThe space shuttle Columbia broke up this morning on re-entry into the earth's
atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board and sending fiery debris over Texas in the second
loss of a space shuttle in 17 years.

There was no immediate explanation of what caused the disintegration of the oldest shuttle in NASA's
fleet, but there were some tantalizing clues. By late this afternoon, space agency engineers were
describing a cascading series of failures of sensors on the left side of the craft.

That led to speculation that some kind of structural damage took place Eperhaps caused by insulation
that fell loose when the Columbia lifted off 16 days ago, perhaps from some other cause Ethat
triggered a catastrophic failure about 9 a.m. Eastern time. But at a news conference,
NASA officials said that had been analyzed and found not to be a concern.

The disaster occurred roughly 40 miles above Earth as the shuttle slipped into the netherworld
between outer space and the upper atmosphere, just as it was slowing to 12,500 miles an hour
and was minutes from its destination, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Yet as the countdown clock at the landing site in Florida reached zero at 9:16 a.m., with an
eerie silence and no sign of the shuttle, flaming debris was already falling in East Texas,
and then in Louisiana.

The loss of the Columbia revived a long-simmering debate in Congress about the space program
and is certain to lead to new hearings. It also renewed questions about whether cost-cutting
and management problems at NASA may be compromising astronauts' safety.

President Bush, informed of the disaster at Camp David by his chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr.,
rushed back to the White House, his motorcade speeding down the mountain and then racing through
suburban Maryland. He appeared drawn and stricken as he addressed the nation five hours after
the shuttle broke up.

"The Columbia is lost," he said from the cabinet room. "There are no survivors." But as President
Ronald Reagan did 17 years and four days ago, when the shuttle Challenger exploded, Mr. Bush
vowed that the American space program would go on.

"The same creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today,"
he said. He told the nation that while the astronauts had not safely returned to earth, "we can
pray they are safely home."

Just minutes before the spaceship was lost, flight specialists in Houston had been communicating
with the crew, talking about tire pressure on the Columbia. Nothing appeared wrong. Then Mission
Control in Houston said, "We did not copy your last."

"Roger, uh —— " came the reply from the shuttle, and then there was silence, as if the astronaut had
been cut off in midsentence, and then just static.

By the time Mr. Bush spoke at 2 p.m., the nation knew the fate of the crew. Much as viewers around
the world knew the meaning of the terrifying images they saw on Jan. 28, 1986, when the Challenger
exploded, they understood instinctively that there was no chance any of the five men and two women
aboard the Columbia could survive a disintegration so high in the sky.

The silent confirmation of their deaths came around noon today, as the White House lowered its flag
to half-staff.

The best-known member of the crew was the first Israeli to go into space, Ilan Ramon, a colonel in
the Israeli Air Force who more than two decades ago participated in Israel's attack on a nuclear
reactor in Iraq, and has long been a national hero.

Because of Colonel Ramon's participation in the mission, security was extraordinarily tight. Experts
said it was extremely unlikely that the shuttle had been deliberately struck, noting that it was so
high in the atmosphere that it was out of range of anti-aircraft systems and missiles. A review of
satellite data, administration officials said, detected nothing untoward.

Mr. Bush called Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel this morning, and the two men Efriends from
before either took office Egrieved together, as did their nations. Other world leaders, including
several Mr. Bush has been at odds with over Iraq, called to express condolences.

Continued
1 | 2 | 3 | Next>>
Cause of Fiery Fall Is Unknown; Ship Was Fleet's Oldest
(Page 2 of 3)

The flight was under the command of Col. Rick D. Husband of the Air Force and piloted by a Navy
commander, William C. McCool. The mission was an unusual one for NASA these days in that it was
intended purely for scientific experiments, more than 90 in all. More commonly, the shuttle is
used to transport crew, equipment and supplies to the International Space Station, and to support
military missions.

The scientific payload was overseen by Lt. Col. Michael P. Anderson of the Air Force; Dr. Kalpana
Chawla, an aerospace engineer; and two Navy doctors, Capt. David M. Brown and Cmdr. Laurel Salton
Clark.

The re-entry began about 14 minutes before the breakup. Re-entry has long been considered one of the
riskiest moments in space flight, when a spacecraft is subjected to temperatures in excess of 2,000
degrees as it speeds through the atmosphere. But there is always a risk of structural failure Ethis
was the 28th mission for the Columbia and the 113th shuttle mission to date Eand, however remote,
the risk of damage from meteoroids or space debris.

In past space accident investigations, early theories often proved wrong. But several days ago,
NASA reported that a piece of what appeared to be foam insulation had fallen from the shuttle's
left tank during the launching and hit its left wing. A similar shedding of debris occurred in a
previous flight, but did no major damage.

Ron Dittemore, the space shuttle program manager, told reporters this afternoon that "we don't
believe, at this point" that the debris caused the disaster.

Seeking the cause will be the subject of two investigations, one conducted by the space agency
and another directed by someone outside NASA Ea quiet acknowledgment that the agency has been
accused of cover-ups in past disasters, including the Challenger accident.

"We will find the cause, we will fix it, and then we will move on," said William F. Readdy,
a former astronaut who now runs the agency's manned flight operations.

NASA will activate a board of independent outside experts to oversee parts of the investigation,
according to people involved. The board is led by Harold W. Gehman, a retired admiral who was
the co-chairman of the independent commission that investigated the attack on the destroyer Cole.

Other members include James Hallock, chief of the Aviation Safety Division at the Volpe Research Center,
part of the federal Department of Transportation, and Steven B. Wallace, who is in charge of the accident
investigation branch of the Federal Aviation Administration. There are several military members,
including Maj. Gen. Wilbert D. Pearson, commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards
Air Force Base, and Rear Adm. Stephen A. Turcotte, commander of the Naval Safety Center,
in Norfolk, Va.

Whatever happened to the Columbia seemed unrelated to the causes of the Challenger disaster,
which was triggered by a failure of seals in a booster rocket as the shuttle was in its ascent.
Those rockets are shed minutes after launching, and the orbiter falls back to earth with only
minimal power, moving in S-like patterns to skip off the atmosphere and slow the craft.

The space agency, which spent tens of millions of dollars improving safety after the Challenger
accident, has estimated the risk of a calamitous event on re-entry as 1 in 350.

There is no escape from the shuttle, either on liftoff or on landing. Extensive studies of the
possibility of placing an escape pod on the orbiter, to be used either on liftoff or on landing,
concluded that there was no practical or safe way to design such a system.

It was difficult to assess how large a setback the loss of the Columbia would pose for the shuttle
program. The Challenger accident resulted not only in a redesign of the booster rockets, but also
in a major shake-up of the space agency, which had covered up evidence of longstanding problems in
the shuttle's design.

The shuttle did not fly again for nearly three years, until Sept. 28, 1988, when the Discovery
lifted off with a crew of five. With today's loss, the shuttle fleet stands at three: Discovery,
Atlantis and Endeavour.

Continued
<>

(Page 3 of 3)

The biggest impact now may be on America's contribution to the International Space Station.
Aboard the station now are three astronauts, two Americans and an Russian, who will be directly
affected by any delay in shuttle launchings while the accident is investigated. The station crew
has completed three months of a scheduled four-month tour and was to be picked up by the shuttle
Atlantis, which had been scheduled for a March 1 launching.

The station has a large stock of food, water and other supplies that would allow the crew to stay
aloft for several months. In addition, the Russian Space Agency was scheduled to launch an unmanned
cargo ship with equipment and supplies to the station Sunday. On Monday, the station's crew held a
brief conversation with the crew of the Columbia Ewho could see the space station in orbit as they
spoke.

There was no evidence today of any advance warnings about unusual risks in the shuttle's re-entry
phase. But because the orbiter is studied with great care after each landing, there is an
extraordinarily large amount of data about the shape of the Columbia after each mission.

Cameras trained on the skies for the first sight of the orbiter caught what appeared to be a normal
re-entry. But the signals being received in Houston suggested, in retrospect, that trouble was
building. At 8:53 a.m. Eastern time, a sensor for the left-side hydraulic systems fell to zero.
Five minutes later, another temperature sensor failed.

"It's as if someone just cut the wire," said Mr. Dittemore.

Two minutes after that, all communication was lost, and optimism about a smooth landing on a
beautiful day turned to fear, then panic.

NASA declared a "mission contingency," but the truth was evident to anyone looking at the live footage:
the Columbia had broken up, and pieces were flying away from the body as it whipped, in a terrifying arc,
across the sky.

But there was none of the immediate drama of the Challenger explosion, because this disaster took place
so far in the air, near where the upper atmosphere peters out, and not in full view of an assembled
multitude at Cape Canaveral.

Hundreds of square miles of Texas and Louisiana were littered, however, with debris from the shuttle.
In Hemphill, Tex., a driver came across what appeared to be part of the remains of an astronaut.

The space program today carries none of the political import it did 17 years ago, when it was still a symbol
of America's status in the cold war. Nonetheless, it is a symbol of American scientific achievement,
and the inclusion of foreign astronauts Efrom former enemies as well as allies Ebecame a piece of
American diplomacy.

That was evident on Jan. 16, when more than 300 dignitaries and guests from Israel watched as Colonel
Ramon became the first Israeli in space. "It was so moving," said Danny Ayalon, the Israeli ambassador
to the United States. "The skies were colored blue and white; these are our national colors. We are
privileged to join this very prestigious club of nations who have had astronauts in space."

Colonel Ramon, had little room to take personal items on the flight, but he did lift off with a piece
of Holocaust-era art: a small black-and-white drawing called "Moon Landscape" that he had borrowed
from the Yad Vashem Art Museum in Israel. The drawing, by Peter Ginz, a 14-year-old Jewish boy
killed at Auschwitz in 1944, was a picture by a child who dreamed of faraway places and sketched
what he thought the Earth would look like from the mountains of the moon.

This morning, nearly 60 years later, it was incinerated over the skies of Texas.