Ascension

On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia and her crew of seven astronauts were lost as STS-107 broke apart during reentry minutes before Columbia was scheduled to land at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The Columbia orbiter had suffered a catastrophic failure due to a breach that occurred during launch when falling foam from the External Tank struck the left wing. The tragedy grounded the Space Shuttle Program and a thorough mishap investigation with a congressionally authorized board was initiated. After two and a half years and crucial technical and organizational changes at NASA, the Space Shuttle Program returned to flight.

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In this firsthand account, author Steven R. Hirshorn details his experiences over those two and a half years as the operations representative to the Space Shuttle Orbiter Project Office, charged along with others with the safety and success of NASA’s human spaceflight endeavors. With technical expertise and deeply human, visceral insight, Hirshorn’s perspective on these events as they unfolded—and the lessons he draws from them—provide insight for the engineers, managers, and leaders now charged with advancing human spaceflight today.