The fate of the seven members of STS-107’s crew was sealed within 90 seconds of launch. As Space Shuttle Columbia rose through the perfect clear sky above Florida on 16 January 2003, a lump of foam came loose from the strut holding the craft’s nose to its giant orange fuel tank. With the spacecraft climbing at more than twice the speed of sound, the foam lump slammed into the fragile leading edge of the wing with the force of a concrete block.

Seventeen days later the spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere and broke apart. The disaster killed everyone on board, and ultimately sounded the death knell for the Space Shuttle programme.

But could the astronauts have been saved? A Nasa engineer who worked on the shuttle programme from the very start, David Baker, has written official reports and books on the spaceplane. During research for a forthcoming lecture at the British Interplanetary Society, he studied plans that suggest that a dramatic and audacious orbital rescue mission could have been launched – if only Mission Control had known about the danger in time.

When Columbia lifted from its launchpad, footage captured by high-speed cameras showed foam coming loose and striking the orbiter. Several days later images taken by ground telescopes indicated the wing might have been damaged. “The big mistake was not having a sufficiently detailed and intensive analysis soon enough,” says Baker. “It just didn’t appear the damage was going to be that bad until, as evidence built day by day, it became very clear.”