Shuttle Colombia blew apart at 200,000ft killing all crew in eerie echo of Challenger

dailystar.co.uk:

NASA’s space shuttle Columbia broke up as it returned to Earth, killing the seven astronauts on board.The mission was the second space shuttle disaster after Challenger, which failed during launch in 1986 - but it turns out the problem that destroyed both shuttles was essentially the same.The Columbia disaster’s victims were named Rick Husband, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, William McCool and Ilan Ramon as the space exploration giant became highly scrutinised for the incident in the media and in congress.But just 19 years on, humans are considering commercial space travel with Space X, Blue Origin or Virgin Galactica - so, how was it solved so we could get this far?During an investigation, NASA determined that a large piece of foam fell from the shuttle's external tank and breached the spacecraft wing, a problem that had been known for years.The investigation board found that about 82 seconds after Columbia left the ground, a piece of foam fell from a "bipod ramp" that attached the external tank to the shuttle and struck the left-wing.A hole on the left-wing allowed atmospheric gases to fill the shuttle during its fiery re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.This then caused the sensors to fail before the tire pressure readings from the left side of the shuttle also vanished.The Capcom, or spacecraft communicator, called up to Columbia to discuss the tire pressure readings but when Husband called back with the word "Roger," followed by another word he was cut off.At approximately 9am, Columbia was near Dallas, Texas travelling 18 times the speed of sound and still 200,700 feet above the ground.Mission Control made several failed attempts to get in touch with the astronauts, just moments.