Review: Comm Check...: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia by Michael Cabbage and William Harwood

Title: Comm Check...: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia
Authors: Michael Cabbage and William Harwood
Publisher: Free Press
Publication Date: December 1, 2009 (first published January 27th 2004)
Edition: ebook (336 pages)
Genres:

• Nonfiction
• History
• Science
• space

My Rating: 4 of 5 stars

On February 1, 2003, not long before it was scheduled to land, the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up over Texas and Louisiana. Seven NASA astronauts were killed and Shuttle Columbia was lost. Michael Cabbage and William Harwood, two long-time space journalists, wrote this book to chronicle this tragic event, how it happened, why it happened, and the results of the investigation that followed.

As with most tragic events, this one is absent a single cause. I thought Michael Cabbage and William Harwood did an admirable job explaining everything from the engineering dynamics of the space shuttle, NASA culture, the minute-by-minute events culminating in the loss of Columbia, and the life histories and personalities of Columbia's final crew. This is a very emotional and intense book. I believe it makes a most valuable contribution to history. It also points out the risks of manned space flight and exploration, as well as human error and shortcomings--some avoidable, and some not.