Columbia's Final Voyage: Uncovering the Tragic Tale of a Lost Space Shuttle and Its Crew

Jennifer J. Nanek: Absolutely enjoyed reading this book. Although it did make me tear up at times. While I remember the Columbia disaster very vividly I had no idea the level of effort involved to collect the debris and research the cause of the disaster. The author made the story very easy to understand. Highly recommend reading this to everyone.

United States on Nov 29, 2023

Garry: Powerful emotional in true accounts from all

Australia on Oct 24, 2023

SpeedReader: Bringing Columbia Home is the story of the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in which the shuttle broke up during reentry. It was written by a former NASA employee who was the launch director when the disaster occurred and published in 2018.

The beginning of the book goes through what was happening on the ground as the shuttle lost contact with the ground and how frantic people were becoming as the shuttle was not where it was supposed to be and then missed the landing (which is calculated to the second). Then the author goes through the mission from the beginning, detailing how much was known about the foam strike that occurred during the launch of the shuttle, and the debate that went on about whether the shuttle was actually in danger. The author goes into a lot of detail about the recovery effort, and how the focus at first was recovering the remains of the shuttle crew, and then after the remains of all seven astronauts were found, detailing the major effort made to find as much of the shuttle as they could.

The substantive portion of the book is 300 pages long, then there are a couple of appendices that give the names of people who were key to the recovery...

United States on Jun 19, 2023

M.B.: The content of this book is excellent and a must read. It's a not so often looked at perspective that touches so many people. Read this if you're even remotely interested in the shuttle program or disasters.

The physical binding of this book however is frustrating! It's difficult to hold as the pages never open to same spot and they constantly want to pull back from you. You're forced to excessively stretch the book open to make it comfortable to hold, but that's only for that page. Somehow due to the binding, grabbing the next page even becomes difficult. If you're easily frustrated and may get worked up by the content of this book, read it away from any windows you may be tempted to throw it through.

Canada on Apr 17, 2023

Uk1vetpatriot: A very interesting book despite the editors not cutting out the unnessary chapters.

United Kingdom on Feb 21, 2023

Mike Blagg: I enjoyed this book. It's not a compelling read, like a mystery novel, etc. It's not a space book. If fact it says that in the introduction. They do talk some about the Columbia accident and what caused it. But this book is about the recovery effort. Thousands upon thousands of pieces of Columbia were strewn over thousands of square miles in east Texas. The effort to find as many pieces of the shuttle as possible, and the remains of the astronauts, was massive. Much bigger operation than I ever imagined. That part of Texas was not an easy place to look. Very thick woods, bodies of water, snakes and alligators. The story about the white dog that showed up one day as they were recovering the remains of one astronaut is amazing. Turns out a friend of mine in the Forest Service was a part of the recovery effort, which I never knew. It's not a gripping page-turning story, but as the title of my review says, it is very interesting and informational. Very much worth reading.

United States on Jul 19, 2022

Douglas Fitl: Incredible book. Beautifully written and very respectful of the Astronauts.
Thanks Mike for the hard, emotional work to put this together. I stood in front of your Launch Director's desk at the LCC on a tour in 2018 and was able to see out to 39A & B pads where you watched all your teams depart. The only two shuttle mission plaques in the halls of the LCC not to have a return tag at the bottom is Challenger and Columbia. Very emotional hall of memories. Fantastic Book.

Canada on Sep 22, 2021

Jason: If you're a space nerd like me, you'll want to read this very detailed look at what happened to Columbia, what went wrong, the accident, the recovery operation and the aftermath.

It's a deeply personal look as much at the human tragedy as the mechanical disaster itself and there's no doubt it affected many people in very different ways. But there's only so much I can read about people trudging through marshes to collect bits of shuttle, about towns-folk making cakes for the recovery teams and how difficult it was to find the various parts of Columbia. I would say that a good half of the book is as much to do with the human element as it was to do with the accident, its cause, the shuttle's breakup and the subsequent investigation. It's definitely very important because 7 good people died that day but to be honest, I was more interested in the accident , its causes and investigation than how many breakfasts got served.

So a good book, worthy of reading for sure, but I found myself skipping through the more tedious chapters. Good detail but like I say, it focused more on the people involved than the shuttle itself and I was quite happy to get to the end.

United Kingdom on Jun 02, 2020

Jeffrey T. Munson: On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke up upon re-entry into the earth's atmosphere. Seven crew members were killed in the tragedy. The wounds of the Challenger disaster in January, 1986 were still raw at NASA. Now, another shuttle and crew had paid the ultimate price. In this fine book, authors Michael D. Leinbach and Jonathan H. Ward describe the heroic actions of over twenty-five thousand people who volunteered to search the ground, looking for remnants of the shuttle as well as locating the remains of the crew.

The majority of the wreckage fell over eastern Texas and western Louisiana. Within hours of the break-up of Columbia, people were on the ground searching for wreckage and remains of the crew. Two headquarters were established, at Barksdale Air Force Base and in the town of Hemphill, Texas.

Over the next several weeks, the searchers brought home debris that accounted for over forty percent of the shuttle. Most importantly, all seven crew members' remains were recovered and sent to their families. Hemphill and the residents there were a tremendous help in the recovery efforts. The local population embraced the recovery effort with incredible...

United States on Mar 06, 2018