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NASA Releases Reentry Video
Aired February 28, 2003 - 14:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: A glimpse now into history. A videotape look inside space shuttle Columbia less than 30 minutes before it disintegrated during reentry February 1. NASA has released a 13-minute digital videotape that was found among wreckage near Palestine, Texas, five days after the tragedy.
CNN's John Zarrella standing by now live in Miami. He has got details on that -- John.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF: Leon, before we show that videotape, we want to ensure our viewers that NASA released this tape after showing the tape to the members of the family, and after the members of the families signed off on it.
They did not release this capriciously or arbitrarily, so -- and it is a tape that shows the last minutes that you -- as you said, leading up to -- about 13 minutes while the vehicle was at about 500,000 feet, passing over Hawaii, and then moving toward the West Coast of the United States.
Now the videotape was shot from the flight deck, so we see the four astronauts who are on the flight deck. And in this first piece of videotape, you will see Rick Husband and Willie McCool there, that in the distance -- in the background is Commander Rick Husband. In the closest to us is Pilot Willie McCool. We can listen in to a little bit of the conversation here, recorded from that flight deck camera.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. Good idea.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll do that. The recorder is on (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: K.C., I see, is going through the cards (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that must have been me. Going back to auto.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. While I don't think it's going to be a good idea for me to direct it, I'll just finish the third one (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: K.C., can you put that in here?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I might be able to slide it down in here (ph).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARRELLA: Now, a little bit later on, the tape, the camera is actually turned over to Laurel Clark, and she begins to shoot some video inside the cabin there, but also takes video shots outside the window, of the plasma. And now that is what hot gases that are building up on the outside of the vehicle, on the wings and on the structure of the vehicle. You see them panning down there now, and you'll hear them talking about these hot plasma gasses.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... out the left -- or right windows.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks like a blast furnace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARRELLA: Now, of course, you know through this investigation that NASA believes that it may well have been hot plasma gasses that penetrated the left wing of the shuttle, perhaps down around the landing gear compartment, because that wing -- tiles may have been damaged on liftoff, and that may have led to the disaster and the downing of the shuttle Columbia.
Now, again there's a shot of that hot plasma gas building up. Now, another shot, one other segment of tape here, we can see there again, panning around. That's Kalpana Chawla, and she is, of course, there waving and again the camera being held by astronaut Laurel Clark.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is six and a half bags (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am going to have to give this to Laurel when she is done (ph).
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... behind the seat. I think this is light enough that it will stay.
(END VIDEO CLIP) ZAHN: Now NASA has told us that in all, they sent up 250 videotapes, Leon, that went up with the shuttle Columbia, and this particular videotape, which they say probably had more on it, but was damaged, obviously, during the 200,000-foot drop to Earth, which is -- 200,000 feet is where the shuttle actually broke up at. Of the 250 tapes that they sent up, those were probably put in a separate compartment, stored for landing. This is the only tape so far that NASA or the search crews in Texas -- and this one, of course, found in Palestine, Texas, this is the only tape that has been recovered.
And, of course, these last pictures of the crew, only minutes before they began to experience problems, and the heating up of that left wing, just minutes before the shuttle would have begun to broke -- break apart -- Leon.
HARRIS: I tell you something, it just brings to mind so much when you watch this videotape, John, and to think that this tape is the only one that survived, considering the temperatures and the forces that were involved, this is nothing short of a miracle that we got that much.
ZARRELLA: Exactly, and it was literally just a piece of tape, apparently, laying on the ground in the spool. The camera is not there. The casing is not around the tape. It is just the spool of tape, and this is what was on it.
HARRIS: Well, that spool of tape now gives us something else to cement their memories in our minds and hearts. Thanks, John. John Zarrella in Miami.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 28, 2003 - 14:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: A glimpse now into history. A videotape look inside space shuttle Columbia less than 30 minutes before it disintegrated during reentry February 1. NASA has released a 13-minute digital videotape that was found among wreckage near Palestine, Texas, five days after the tragedy.
CNN's John Zarrella standing by now live in Miami. He has got details on that -- John.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF: Leon, before we show that videotape, we want to ensure our viewers that NASA released this tape after showing the tape to the members of the family, and after the members of the families signed off on it.
They did not release this capriciously or arbitrarily, so -- and it is a tape that shows the last minutes that you -- as you said, leading up to -- about 13 minutes while the vehicle was at about 500,000 feet, passing over Hawaii, and then moving toward the West Coast of the United States.
Now the videotape was shot from the flight deck, so we see the four astronauts who are on the flight deck. And in this first piece of videotape, you will see Rick Husband and Willie McCool there, that in the distance -- in the background is Commander Rick Husband. In the closest to us is Pilot Willie McCool. We can listen in to a little bit of the conversation here, recorded from that flight deck camera.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. Good idea.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll do that. The recorder is on (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: K.C., I see, is going through the cards (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that must have been me. Going back to auto.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. While I don't think it's going to be a good idea for me to direct it, I'll just finish the third one (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: K.C., can you put that in here?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I might be able to slide it down in here (ph).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARRELLA: Now, a little bit later on, the tape, the camera is actually turned over to Laurel Clark, and she begins to shoot some video inside the cabin there, but also takes video shots outside the window, of the plasma. And now that is what hot gases that are building up on the outside of the vehicle, on the wings and on the structure of the vehicle. You see them panning down there now, and you'll hear them talking about these hot plasma gasses.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... out the left -- or right windows.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks like a blast furnace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARRELLA: Now, of course, you know through this investigation that NASA believes that it may well have been hot plasma gasses that penetrated the left wing of the shuttle, perhaps down around the landing gear compartment, because that wing -- tiles may have been damaged on liftoff, and that may have led to the disaster and the downing of the shuttle Columbia.
Now, again there's a shot of that hot plasma gas building up. Now, another shot, one other segment of tape here, we can see there again, panning around. That's Kalpana Chawla, and she is, of course, there waving and again the camera being held by astronaut Laurel Clark.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is six and a half bags (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am going to have to give this to Laurel when she is done (ph).
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... behind the seat. I think this is light enough that it will stay.
(END VIDEO CLIP) ZAHN: Now NASA has told us that in all, they sent up 250 videotapes, Leon, that went up with the shuttle Columbia, and this particular videotape, which they say probably had more on it, but was damaged, obviously, during the 200,000-foot drop to Earth, which is -- 200,000 feet is where the shuttle actually broke up at. Of the 250 tapes that they sent up, those were probably put in a separate compartment, stored for landing. This is the only tape so far that NASA or the search crews in Texas -- and this one, of course, found in Palestine, Texas, this is the only tape that has been recovered.
And, of course, these last pictures of the crew, only minutes before they began to experience problems, and the heating up of that left wing, just minutes before the shuttle would have begun to broke -- break apart -- Leon.
HARRIS: I tell you something, it just brings to mind so much when you watch this videotape, John, and to think that this tape is the only one that survived, considering the temperatures and the forces that were involved, this is nothing short of a miracle that we got that much.
ZARRELLA: Exactly, and it was literally just a piece of tape, apparently, laying on the ground in the spool. The camera is not there. The casing is not around the tape. It is just the spool of tape, and this is what was on it.
HARRIS: Well, that spool of tape now gives us something else to cement their memories in our minds and hearts. Thanks, John. John Zarrella in Miami.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
