Empire of the Clouds story of the R101 airship, which crashed on its maiden voyage in northern France on 5 October 1930. The song was written entirely by the band's lead vocalist, Bruce Dickinson, who initially intended it to be about "World War I fighter airplanes;" Dickinson abandoned the idea after using the same theme for the song "Death or Glory," also from "The Book of Souls". At the time of recording, Dickinson was reading "a big, sort of encyclopedic crash report" of the R101, entitled "To Ride the Storm", which gave him the idea for the song's eventual subject. Dickinson describes it as
Columbia: The Tragic Loss Columbia: The Tragic Loss Columbia: The Tragic Loss is a 2004 documentary film about the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, who died when the Columbia spacecraft disintegrated upon reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Two months after the disaster, Ramon's diary was found at one of the crash sites and was reconstructed by the Israel Museum along with Israeli police. Interviews with NASA officials and with Ilan's family offer both expert analysis of the flight and a personal look at the tragedy. The documentary received a special mention at the Houston International WorldFest Film Festival in 2004. "Columbia" shows interviews of