Space Shuttle Columbia display sparks emotion

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - It is flat-out the most moving flight safety display in the history of U.S. space exploration.

Encased in a glass triangle is one of the cockpit windows the lost crew of Columbia would have looked out as the ship's payload bay doors swung shut prior to an ill-fated atmospheric re-entry in February 2003.

There's a charred piece of the wing panel that was struck 82 seconds into flight by a wedge of external tank foam insulation, blasting open a six- to 10-inch hole that went undetected in flight.

There's a severely damaged thermal tile from the shuttle's left wing — one that burned from the inside out as the orbiter encountered extreme reentry temperatures that topped 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

And there the commander's Translational Hand Controller — the "stick" shuttle skipper Rick Husband fought mightily with in a hopeless bid to steer his crippled spaceship back to safety at its Kennedy Space Center homeport.

The names of the 17 astronauts who died in the 1967 Apollo 1 launch-pad fire, the 1986 shuttle Challenger disaster and the Columbia accident are inscribed in the display, along with the following message:

"Everyone that touches a mission, on every level, is responsible for what it represents and the lives that are involved."

More than a few of the people got choked up when they took in the display during a recent stay in an office building in the Launch Complex 39 area at KSC.

"The fact that NASA is using, for the very first time, recovered Columbia pieces — that obviously has real impact when people see it," KSC spokesman Allard Beutel said. "People have had an emotional response."

A cockpit switch panel is displayed behind the glass.

The Columbia crew would have used it to control the fuel drain and purge system on the shuttle's lefthand orbital maneuvering engine, which propelled the spaceship onto its final trajectory.

The Crew Module Side Hatch Pyro-Initiator THandle also is displayed. It would have been used to jettison the orbiter's side hatch had the astronauts been able to bail out of the shuttle.

The display was quietly unveiled in the lobby of the KSC Operations and Support Building No. 1 on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Columbia accident. It traveled to Johnson Space Center in Houston late last week.

During the next nine months, it will tour 11 additional NASA field centers and facilities for thousands of workers to see.

"This is intended for the entire NASA community — both civil service and contractors," Beutel said. "We wanted to have a safety message that had a real impact on the employees."

This one, no doubt, does.