On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas just 16 minutes before it was due to land. All seven astronauts aboard perished; the worldwide repercussions on the future of the space shuttle program were enormous. What caused the Columbia disaster? An engineering flaw? A failure within NASA? A lack of financing? Could this catastrophe have been avoided?

Through interviews with astronauts and their families, as well as with members of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, this program gives viewers a new look at the Columbia tragedy-and at NASA itself. From the creation of the agency, through decades of technical and financial compromises, Space Shuttle Disaster gets to the heart of what went wrong and explores why the shuttle program (scheduled for retirement in 2010) fell short of its ambitious goal to make space travel routine, cheap, and safe.

Special DVD features include: materials and activities for educators; a link to the NOVA Web site; scene selections; closed captions; and described video for the visually impaired.    

On one DVD5 disc.  Region coding: Region 1.  Audio: Dolby stereo.  Screen format: 16:9 Anamorphic.