why did the space shuttle culumbia blow up?

Answer 1

because one of the tiles that absorbs heat during reentry was out of place and the whole thing couldn't handle the heat.

Answer 2

Challenger blowed up.. Columbia disintegrated over Texas.

Challenger had 3 issues:
-Design flaw in the use of the O-rings. They now have a triple seal to keep hot gasses from leaking out of the segments of the booster.

-They launched on the coldest day of the year in Florida. None of the equipment was designed to launch on such a cold day. The O-ring became brittle and allowed the hot gasses to leak out and acted like a blow-torch on the skin of the external fuel tank (filled with Hydrogen at the bottom).

-Cultural issues. NASA was pushing too hard and not listening to the experts at Morton Thiokol and their own engineers. The engineers (by nature) are not always aggressive enough with safety issues.

The cultural issues were band-aided but not fixed until Columbia.

Columbia was hit by a piece of the styro insulation from the external fuel tank (used to keep the LOX/HY cold). A 10 pound hunk hit the CarbonCarbon wing leading edge. The leading edge of the shuttle is the highest stress point of aero Dynic friction (as with most planes) and builds up the most heat during re-entry. That is why it can’t be made of the silicone tiles. A 12” gash was gouged out of the left mid-wing. The plasma torched into the inner skin (aluminum) of the vehicle. Aluminum is not very accepting of heat and quickly failed.

The first indication was the tires experiencing a heat condition then overpressure and exploding. The tire probably contributed to the massive deformation of the wing which quickly failed leaving the craft unbalanced and uncontrollable. The assist rockets try to correct but it was hopeless with one wing. It then tumbled and broke up.


I don’t know if anyone really can conclude it was the knew non CF foam. It could also be the heads-up type roll over program aggravating something that also happened on the old foam type. The application of the foam or different cryogenic properties of this foam.


Anyway you slice it the foam needed/needs reengineering and better testing (mach 4 testing). Maybe a more brittle foam that would come apart bead by bead instead of chunks?

Both were really sad deals..

Answer 3

It was from damage to the shuttle's heatshielding. The black bottom of the shuttle orbiter is a tile-work of heat absorbant "bricks" These absorb the 1000's of degrees generated by the shuttle impacting, and moving through the atmosphere at orbital speed.-- A dime, traveling at orbital velocity, has as much kinetic power as a school bus traveling at 60mph.
The damage, weakened Columbia's heat shield and allowed a small failure of some part of it. When a piece of it's heat shield came off, it allowed a multithousand degree jet of plasma through to the fragile material of the orbiter itself. The result was the explosion we saw. It's comforting to know, though, that except for a brief thermal warning, they had absolutely no idea, and died instantly. They did'nt suffer at all. Since we all have to go someday, I'd choose that way if I could. Instant and painless after a successful mission. Being in space is an experience so profound, that everybody who goes comes back a different person. lol, not from aliens! It's from having seen our planet from the outside, all at once.

Answer 4

Insulating foam from one of the booster rockets came free during its ascent into orbit and struck a leading edge of the shuttle's protective heat sheild, dislodging several tiles. Upon re-entry, heat breached the shuttle's shell and caused a catastrophic systems failure and eventually led the shuttle itself to blow up.

The Challenger was destroyed by faulty O-rings in the booster rockets.

Answer 5

The heat shield guy is right but what mo one talks about is the fact that that DIDN'T happen before they started using PC green friendly heat shield. Astronauts DIED so some tree hugger would be happy about shuttle foam.

Answer 6

Because space craft are not known for BLOWING DOWN

Answer 7

In addition to m137pay answer, If you have e-mule search for " The last flight to Columbia" it is a great video.

Answer 8

It's a $750,000,000.00 machine with 125,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder.

Answer 9

a bad O-ring

Answer 10

Yes, it was the tile.