The astronauts are, from left, Gus Grissom, Ed White II and Roger Chaffee. 27, 1967, during training for the mission. The entrance to the tribute to Apollo 1 shows the three astronauts who perished in a fire at the launch pad on Jan. The damaged wing couldn't sustain the high temperatures it experienced upon reentry, which caused the ship to disintegrate. But in this case, the foam struck the shuttle's wing, damaging it. Columbia sustained damage during launch, when a piece of foam insulation broke off - something that happened during almost every launch before and after Columbia, said Packham, who helped investigate the disaster's cause. Until the Columbia disaster, "re-entry, descent, and landing were thought to be very benign" parts of spaceflight, Packham said, especially when compared with the extremely violent launch conditions. Related: Why does NASA let male astronauts stay in space longer than females?Īnother deadly spaceflight accident occurred in February 2003, when space shuttle Columbia broke up during reentry, killing the seven crewmembers. Management was also partially to blame, as leadership proceeded with the launch against the warnings of some NASA engineers, he added. "Hot gas leaked out and burned into the propellant tank and caused a massive explosion," Hermanson told Live Science. The accident was the result of unusually cold temperatures at Cape Canaveral, which caused some of the rocket's sealants to lose flexibility. In January 1986, space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds into launch, killing its seven-person crew, including Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire teacher on board as part of NASA's Teacher in Space Project. The two deadliest disasters involved NASA space shuttle missions. "The accidents are usually a combination of unusual circumstances, equipment error, human error, politics and management," said Jim Hermanson, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the University of Washington in Seattle. Five spaceflight missions - three by NASA and two by the Soviet Union - have ended in fatalities.
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