The Human Side of the Columbia Mission

Space shuttle Columbia’s STS-107 mission was a milestone for space life science, but the mission’s vast accomplishments were overshadowed by the mission’s tragic end. Embedded within this mission are may human stories - not only of the crew, but of the thousands of people on Earth whom the mission touched. This exceptional panel brings together three individuals who will share their human stories of Columbia’s last mission. Jon Clark shares the most personal connection to the mission - his spouse, NASA astronaut Laurel Clark, was one of the crewmembers lost on the flight. Doug Hamilton was a flight surgeon who worked with the crew and participated in their recovery, and John Connolly led one of the many teams who searched 3000 square kilometers of east Texas to recover the remains of shuttle itself. The human stories of Columbia range from the seven families of the STS107 crew, to the mission’s flight controllers, and support staff, to the 22,000 individuals would take part in the largest search and recovery in spaceflight history. The number of individuals touched by the loss of the seven crewmembers made the Columbia mission a truly human story.