Space Shuttle Columbia:NASA faults equipment in shuttle disaster

I want to share with you this latest news from CNN about the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia. This was posted last December 31, 2008: “MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- A NASA report on the last minutes of Space Shuttle Columbia cited problems with the crew's helmets, spacesuits and restraints, which resulted in "lethal trauma" to the seven astronauts aboard.
Columbia crew members were killed when the shuttle broke apart upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere.

But the report also acknowledged that "the breakup of the crew module ... was not survivable by any currently existing capability."
The spacecraft broke up while re-entering Earth's atmosphere near the end of its mission on February 1, 2003.
The NASA report found the astronauts knew for about 40 seconds that they did not have control of the shuttle before they likely were knocked unconscious as Columbia broke apart around them.
The report also found that while crew members were wearing their pressurized suits, one astronaut did not have on a helmet, three were not wearing gloves and none lowered the visors before the module lost cabin pressure. One astronaut also was not seated.”
"In this accident, none of those actions would have ultimately made ny difference," said former shuttle program manager Wayne Hale, now a deputy NASA administrator.”

Being a space science enthusiast since my primary school days, I always try to acquire the latest news about space science and then share them with my cousins who are equally interested. During our teens, we used to spend time speculating what will be the next project after Mercury, then, Gemini, Apollo...and Space Shuttle. Oh, how we admire the Astronauts. We also used to build rocket models and space craft models out of cartons and old newspapers and show them off to our friends! That was then. Now that most of my cousins are in the US and Canada, I am just contending myself into getting the latest news from the net and posting my views in summary over my personal blog.

I have to admit I always feel sad whenever something goes wrong with NASA's manned mission, let alone, the loss of the lives of their astronauts. So, this blog is dedicated to the Columbia crew members (please see above Official STS-107 Crew Photo from GRIN) who were killed when the shuttle broke apart upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere. We love you!