Space Shuttle Columbia disaster Space Shuttle Columbia disaster On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle "Columbia" disintegrated upon reentering Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven crew members. The disaster was the second fatal accident in the Space Shuttle program after Space Shuttle "Challenger", which broke apart and killed the seven-member crew 73 seconds after liftoff in 1986. During the launch of STS-107, "Columbia"'s 28th mission, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank and struck the left wing of the orbiter. A few previous shuttle launches had seen damage ranging from minor to nearly catastrophic from foam shedding, but some
Space Shuttle machine "Space Shuttle" was produced by Zaccaria and a 1984 pinball machine "Space Shuttle: Pinball Adventure" was produced by Williams and features a plastic Space Shuttle model among other artwork of astronauts on the play field. The Space Shuttle also appears in a number of flight simulator and space flight simulator games such as "Microsoft Space Simulator", "Orbiter", "FlightGear", "X-Plane" and Space Shuttle Mission 2007. Several Transformers toys were modeled after the Space Shuttle. The U.S. Postal Service has released several postage issues that depict the Space Shuttle. The first such stamps were issued in 1981, and are on display