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'Kalpana Chawla, other Columbia crew had only 41 seconds to respond'

India-born Kalpana Chawla and six other astronauts had just 41 seconds of consciousness to respond to the impending disaster according to NASA.

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HOUSTON: India-born Kalpana Chawla and six other astronauts of the ill-fated shuttle Columbia, who perished in one of the worst US space mishaps in 2003, had just 41 seconds of consciousness to respond to the impending disaster, according to a NASA report on the tragedy.
    
Narrating Columbia's final moments on February 1, the 400-page report said the astronauts were unaware that their re-entry was compromised.
    
The Columbia crew's first warning of trouble was a cabin alarm seconds earlier that signaled a problem with the shuttle's control jets.
    
The astronauts had just 41 seconds of consciousness to respond. In a vain attempt to get the spaceship back on course, William McCool, the pilot, pushed several buttons on a control panel and tried to restart systems as the vessel  its heat shield shattered  violently spun, pitched and rolled some 200,000 feet above Texas, a little north of Dallas.
    
The compartment housing the astronauts broke apart over a 24-second period as it plummeted to 105,000 feet.
    
Things happened so fast that none of the crew were able to close the visor of their helmets -- one astronaut was not even wearing one, the report said.
    
The crew performed courageously, trying to problem-solve their way to safety. But the accident was not survivable, NASA's Spacecraft Crew Survival Investigative Team said.
    
Apart from Chawla and McColl, Columbia's crew members were Rick Husband, Mike Anderson, David Brown, Laurel Clark and Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon.
    
They succumbed to violent trauma as the crew compartment snapped away from the shuttle's body, and the life-sustaining oxygen inside rushed out through small but growing breaches in the walls above and below them.
    
The violence inside the fractured ship tore the astronauts from their seat belts and slammed their heads around in their helmets with a lethal force.
    
The air escaped so rapidly that the astronauts were unable to close the helmets' visors in time to remain conscious, Houston Chronicle reported.
    
NASA started the investigation into the fate of the astronauts within weeks of the crash at the request of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.
    
The investigation's findings were based on studies of recovered debris, computer analysis, video of the breakup and an examination of the remains.
    
The investigative team recommended 30 design and procedural changes, many of which have been incorporated into the preliminary design of NASA's new Orion moon ship. Changes have also been rolled into the shuttle, the report said.
    
"Spaceflight takes eternal vigilance," said Wayne Hale, a senior NASA official. "There is not a day I don't think about the Columbia crew, or even the Challenger crew. We know when we come into this business, it's risky and that accidents can happen. But our goal here is to prevent accidents in the future.
   
 "This is not a subject that will ever be closed."
    
The Columbia's breakup was caused by searing heat that invaded an undetected hole in the left wing. A piece of foam insulation had pierced the wing's heat shielding during the craft's launch 16 days earlier.
    
Mission managers erroneously assumed the foam fragment was not large enough to cause harm, though some low-level engineers believed otherwise.
    
As the shuttle made a landing approach, the opening in the wing quickly exposed the interior to temperatures hitting 3,000 degrees. The spacecraft was just west of California.
    
A few seconds later, Columbia's course wavered, and the astronauts lost communication with Mission Control.
    
As a result of the findings in the agency's final report in the tragedy, NASA is strengthening seat restraints, padding the helmets worn by the astronauts and improving the airflow inside their pressure suits.
    
The parachutes worn by Columbia's crew were not designed to open if the astronauts were unconscious. A new design will release the parachutes automatically. Astronauts will be equipped with Global Positioning System locater beacons.
    
The families of the Columbia astronauts were informed of the analysis and briefed privately before the report was made public on Tuesday.
    
The report was completed earlier this month, but agency officials said NASA decided to wait until after Christmas to release it so the youngest members of the astronauts' families would be out of school and close to their parents.
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