81.7 seconds after launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 16, 2003, a dinner-plate sized piece of insulating foam tore off the space shuttle Columbia’s orange external tank and impacted the leading edge of the orbiter's left wing at a relative velocity of 545 miles per hour. The energy from the impact was enough to shatter the orbiter’s thermal protection system - damage that would later allow super-heated atmospheric gases to penetrate the vehicle during reentry. The entire sequence was caught on camera in slow-motion, yet NASA's Debris Assessment Team failed to adequately identify the danger.

But what if NASA had conducted an in-orbit inspection of the Columbia and determined that it was impossible to get the craft back to earth? In a final report on the accident, released in August of 2003, a section titled “STS-107 In-Flight Options Assessment” laid out a startling possibility. The space shuttle Atlantis was already undergoing preflight checks for a mission to follow two-months after the Columbia launch. Could the Altantis have been sent on a rescue mission in time? It would have been a daring attempt - one never tried before, and one racing against the clock to reach the crew of the Columbia before they ran out of air...

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Dark Space features the mysterious and little told stories of US, Soviet, and global space exploration from the dawn of the space race to today... all in the cinematic short documentary format we love to create. Subscribe today, and feel free to reach out with your own suggestions for new stories that you want us to bring to life. Thanks as always for your support.

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