Monthly Archives: January 2020

Subtitle: The Untold Story of a Lost Space Shuttle and Her Crew

Rating: ***** (5/5)

Published: Arcade, 2018

Format: Hardcover

Genre: Nonfiction

Source: Personal Collection

This is an extremely powerful book detailing the great effort in recovering the Space Shuttle Columbia, her crew, and the investigation into how the disaster occurred. Leinbach’s personal connection to the accident (as Launch Director) made for an emotional narrative.

When Columbia disintegrated upon reentry, pieces of debris rained down over a huge swath of land in east Texas and into Louisiana. The most remarkable thing was that there were no casualties on the ground as a result! “Miraculously, no injuries had been reported from the shuttle’s breakup… Had the shuttle broken up only a minute or two earlier, its debris would have rained down over Dallas and the situation might have been very different.” As the recovery effort began, thousands of people contributing to it descended on rural Texas. “…forty-four different federal, state, and local organizations involved…” sounds like a logistical nightmare, when in actuality, “…interagency cooperation [w]as the key to success of the recovery effort.”

Even more inspiring was how the locals embraced the Nasa, FEMA, FBI, etc investigators despite the strain that such an influx of people put on resources. “The people of East Texas had provided the nation and the world with an enduring lesson in how to handle a crisis with dignity, compassion, and competence.” Thousands of people searched the swamps and briar patches at great risk to themselves, and there were even two deaths from a helicopter accident.

Once the crew’s remains had been recovered and pieces of Columbia were sent back to Florida for analysis, the investigation into what destroyed her could begin, but not without a heavy emotion toll. “…at some point, even the most hardened engineer or technician would break down when confronting a piece of wreckage and thinking about what it represented to them personally and to the crew.” The entire process with handled with solemn respect and exacting logistics.

The main objective of Columbia’s mission was to conduct science experiments while in orbit. Extraordinarily, descendants of nematodes (round worms) from the shuttle were found alive, “…passengers of Columbia who survived the accident.”

There was some redundancy in recounting the thousands of man-hours spent searching the area in Texas, but it all culminated in discovering how the disaster happened and how to avoid such accidents in the future. This was a great book that honored the astronauts who lost their lives and the thousands of people who helped to put them to rest.