Click to play videoNew Delhi : India's first woman in space, Kalpana Chawla was burnt to death in America's worst space accident. Six years after Space Shuttle Columbia blew up; NASA finally knows what went wrong.
As the burning shuttle hurtled towards earth, cabin pressure plummeted within 30 seconds and knocked the astronauts out.
They didn't have time to seal their helmets or belt themselves into their seats. Unconscious, their upper bodies were flung around violently, causing fatal brain damage.
It took six years to ferret out these and other details. NASA admits technical faults doomed the mission and that technology to protect astronauts in such situations still does not exist.
The data will now be used by NASA to safeguard future manned missions, starting in the year 2015.
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