Loss of the Shuttle Columbia: 5 Years Ago Today

[Matt Molnar]

Hard to believe it's been five years already. RIP to those lost.

Great video reconstruction of the last 7 minutes of Columbia's reentry:
[youtubetp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY1KPHzoYw0[/youtubeOp-ed: 5 Years Later, 5 Hard Lessons From the Columbia Shuttle Disaster (http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4247423.html)

[PhilDernerJr]

Very sad, and it does not feel like it was 5 years ago.

I always wonder what happened on the inside of it. I wonder how much they knew there was a problem and if they knew they were going to die.

Were their bodies ever recovered?

[T-Bird76]

Wow...I can't beleive this was 5 years ago? Time does fly by. I remember waking up turning on CNN and hearing about this, very sad day for space exploration.

[hiss srq]

For me it feels like longer. I lived in Jamaica at the time and we only got information in bits in peices from where I lived. (St. Elizabeth Parish)

[mirrodie]

Yeah, it was five years ago on Shosh's birthday. A Saturday morning, overcast sky here, just like today but drier.

I really do appreciate our astronauts. For all the risk they take, Virgin/Bransons spacetravel is still a real danger. Thanks for posting the link.

[lijk604]

It's one of those day's I'll never forget. It's my birthday as well and that was one of the first news stories I heard about that day. Talk about putting a damper on your mood for the day. It was a terrible tragedy; and you felt for them, their families and all those at NASA who had to deal with it directly.

[Alex T]

Amen, same here.

This happened on my 16th birthday also.

I woke up excited to get my drivers license, and mom came in crying and told me what happened. Space is big in our family because of my Uncle Neil Armstrong so it hit us all hard too to see that.

Naturally I wasn't in the mood anymore to get the license, and ended up waiting a whole nother year before I finally did.

RIP to the brave members and crew.

Alex