On this day Fabuary 1st 2003

On February 1st 2003, the Columbia space shuttle exploded over Texas, killing all seven crew members aboard the shuttle. The shuttle disintegrated at about 231,000 feet above ground and pieces of debris were found all over the state. The explosion was caused by heat panels on the left wing being damaged or missing entirely, this caused heat to enter the wing and break it apart, the rest of this shuttle soon followed. Two people in a search helicopter were also killed while looking for debris. The seven crew members were confirmed dead when their remains were found amongst the debris.

The world was watching as Columbia exploded. Most people nearby had reported hearing the booming sound and seeing the debris fall down to earth that morning. For a while, people suspected foul play, such as terrorism, or as some kind of sabotage act. It was later revealed however that the issue that caused the explosion was a constant problem for the mission, and partially contributed to the constant delay of the mission for about two years, as the mission was originally supposed to launch on January 11th of 2001. The family of the seven crew members were devastated of course, and NASA had to quickly scramble to figure out what went wrong and learn from it. Which they eventually did figure out, and took extra precautions on future missions to prevent this issue from happening again.

Today, NASA still remembers and honors those who died on the Columbia that day, saying that the crew members "Gave their lives for the discovery and exploration of the cosmos.". NASA also takes extreme precautions even now to ensure that this never happens again. However, in space missions like this, the smaller variable can cause something to go catastrophically wrong, but they still try to be extra sure with almost all aspects of these missions.