Comm Check...: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia

On February 1, 2003, the unthinkable happened. The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated 37 miles above Texas, seven brave astronauts were killed and America's space program, always an eyeblink from disaster, suffered its second catastrophic in-flight failure. Unlike the Challenger disaster 17 years earlier, Columbia's destruction left the nation one failure away from the potential abandonment of human space exploration. Media coverage in the immediate aftermath focused on the possible cause of the disaster, and on the nation's grief. But the full human story, and the shocking details of NASA's crucial mistakes, have never been told -- until now.

Based on dozens of exclusive interviews, never-before-published documents and recordings of key meetings obtained by the authors, Comm Check takes the reader inside the conference rooms and offices where NASA's best and brightest managed the nation's multi-billion-dollar shuttle program -- and where they failed to recognize the signs of an impending disaster. It is the story of a space program pushed to the brink of failure by relentless political pressure, shrinking budgets and flawed decision making. The independent investigation into the disaster uncovered why Columbia broke apart in the sky above Texas. Comm Check brings that story to life with the human drama behind the tragedy.

Michael Cabbage and William Harwood, two of America's most respected space journalists, are veterans of all but a handful of NASA's 113 shuttle missions. Tapping a network of sources and bringing a combined three decades of experience to bear, the authors provide a rare glimpse into NASA's inner circles, chronicling the agency's most devastating failure and the challenges that face NASA as it struggles to return America to space.

About the Author

Since 1994, Michael Cabbage has reported on more than 40 shuttle missions and covered human spaceflight on three continents. In 1998, he joined the staff of The Orlando Sentinel where he is the newspaper's award-winning space editor. He also has served as a space consultant to ABC News. A University of Tennessee graduate, Cabbage earned a master's degree in journalism from Stanford University.

From The Washington Post

What is it about the space program, anyway? When the Mars Rover began sending pictures to Earth a while ago, the NASA Web site received more than a billion hits within a couple of days. When President Bush wanted to find a national goal that would transcend everyday concerns, he chose returning to the moon. Why, in a time of war and terrorism, are our spirits lifted because a small machine millions of miles away sends back some photographs, or when our political leaders remind us of larger goals?

You won't find much attention to this intriguing question in Comm Check. What you will find instead is a gripping, detailed account of what happens when you try to translate the glowing vision of space exploration into the nuts and bolts of real-world accomplishment. The authors, both veteran reporters on the NASA beat, have taken as their subject the tragic events of Feb. 1, 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere over the southwestern United States. Starting with a short description of the horrified silence that fell on the control room in Houston when instruments lost track of the craft, the authors walk us through pre-launch preparations 16 days earlier, the disaster itself and the investigation that followed.

The story is a complicated one, involving a chain of technical and bureaucratic errors. During the launch, some insulating foam came off the external fuel tank and crashed into the leading edge of the craft's wing, opening a hole about a foot wide. The damage couldn't be seen from the spacecraft and wasn't picked up by ground cameras during launch. Higher-level executives ignored warnings from engineers and vetoed requests that damage be assessed by photographs from highly classified military surveillance satellites, although later analysis showed that even if the damage had been documented, nothing could have been done to save the astronauts once they were in orbit.

The authors' account is highly readable and largely free of technical jargon. When they introduce a new player, they always give a thumbnail sketch of the person's background to give you a sense of who he or she is. They also include a very useful appendix of acronyms to help the reader deal with NASA-speak, though sometimes the details get a bit overpowering. Closet techno-geeks like me, for example, will be absolutely mesmerized by the second-by-second account of what happened to Columbia's left wing as it re-entered the atmosphere, but the eyes of the general reader may well glaze over. Interspersed with the details are some fascinating bits of information. When President Bush was told about the disaster, for example, his first words were "Where are the families?" -- a reply I took to be a significant insight into the man's value system. Ultimately, the authors give us as complete and readable an account of the Columbia disaster and the inside workings of NASA as we are likely to get.

But in the end, the significance of this book, particularly at this moment, derives from what it has to say about the debate going on in the space program -- the questions of whether we should be sending humans into space at all. As the Columbia disaster shows, this is both risky and expensive. Wouldn't it be better, some argue, to send out (relatively) cheap robots rather than fragile humans to explore the solar system?

I suppose this argument would make sense if the only goal of the space program were to gather data on the planets. But sometimes, when I'm in a contemplative mood, I think about humanity's move away from our home planet in a different way. I wonder what history books will say about our generation 500 years from now. In that perspective, the great conflagrations of the 20th century -- even World War II -- will mean no more than the War of the Spanish Succession does to us today. The War on Terror, whether it turns out to be the start of a clash of civilizations or just the dying gasp of a fundamentalist ideology unable to move into the 21st century, will mean no more than the Crusades. In the end, I think, we will be remembered primarily for our many scientific achievements -- splitting the atom, decoding the genome. But most of all, they will say about us, "Yes, they were the first people to walk on the moon."

And I want to tell you, my friends, that there are a lot worse things to be remembered for.

Reviewed by James Trefil

Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.