Posted 9:52 AM by Blah blah

Space Shuttle Disaster (CBS). OH NOOO!! I remember watching the Challenger explode during liftoff 17 years ago:

Look at this animated graphic! "This radar loop from the National Weather Service's Shreveport, Louisiana radar station shows a streak crossing the Texas-Louisiana border south of Shreveport on February 1, 2003 after the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up over Texas. The streak is thought to reflect the smoke plume caused by the shuttle as it disintegrated."

Photos and slideshow of the Columbia shuttle disaster.
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Space shuttle Columbia broke apart in flames as it streaked over Texas toward its landing strip on Saturday, killing all seven astronauts---six Americans and an Israeli.

"It's gone," said a senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said debris from the shuttle that fell to earth in Texas and apparently some other states, had been positively identified as coming from the spacecraft....

The shuttle was at an altitude of 207,000 feet over north-central Texas at a 9 a.m. EST, traveling at 12,500 mph, when Mission Control lost contact and tracking data.

In north Texas, people reported hearing "a big bang" at about 9 a.m., the same time all radio and data communication with the shuttle was lost. Columbia had been scheduled to land in Florida a few minutes later.

Television stations showed what appeared to be flaming debris falling through the sky, and NASA warned Texas residents to beware of any falling objects. NASA also announced that search and rescue teams were being mobilized in the Dallas and Fort Worth areas.

Residents of Nacogdoches, Texas, said debris, including bits of machinery and pieces of metal, were found strewn across the city Saturday morning, hours after NASA lost contact with space shuttle Columbia.

"It's all over Nacogdoches," said James Milford, owner of Milford Barber shop in downtown Nacogdoches. "There are several little pieces, some parts of machinery ... there's been a lot of pieces about 3 feet wide."

Nacogdoches waiter R.T. Gregory was traveling into work when he saw a group of people looking at something in a taped off section of town. It turned out to be a huge piece of debris from the space shuttle.

"There was a piece of metal. It looked kind of aluminum-looking like....It appears to be about four, five feet long, maybe two or three feet wide.

Inside Mission Control, flight controllers hovered in front of their computers, staring at the screens. The wives, husbands and children of the astronauts who had been waiting at the landing strip were gathered together by NASA and taken to secluded place.

In 42 years of U.S. human space flight, there had never been an accident during the descent to Earth or landing. On Jan. 28, 1986, space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff.

On Jan. 16, shortly after Columbia lifted off, a piece of insulating foam on its external fuel tank came off and was believed to have struck the left wing of the shuttle. Leroy Cain, the lead flight director in Mission Control, assured reporters Friday that engineers had concluded that any damage to the wing was considered minor and posed no safety hazard.

Larry Whatley lives in East Dallas and was already out watching for Columbia to fly over when he saw what was happening. He told CBS Radio Station KRLD-AM, "I got my binoculars and went out in the park right across the street from me. It comes the same way every time when it's going to land, so I knew which way it'd be coming. And when it just about got overhead I could see a big fireball."

Gary Hunziker in Plano said he saw the shuttle flying overhead. "I could see two bright objects flying off each side of it," he told. "I just assumed they were chase jets."

"I was getting ready to go out and I heard a big bang and the windows shook in the house," John Ferolito, 60, of Carrolton, north of Dallas, said. "I thought it was a sonic boom."

Security had been tight for the 16-day scientific research mission because of the presence of Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut....

CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger, who is in Jerusalem, reports Israelis are in shock and disbelief, especially because they welcomed this story as the first good news in a long time. They cheered at the launch, but now, it's like a fairytale with a bad ending, Berger says.