18 PEOPLE WHO LOST IN SPACE

Has anyone been lost in space?

Yes. There are 18 Astronauts who've lost in Space. Astronauts have also died while training for space missions, such as the Apollo 1 launch pad fire.

The two worst disasters because of NASA’s space shuttle. On 28 January 1986 the Challenger space shuttle blew up 73 seconds after take-off, owing to a failure on a sealant ring that allowed hot gas from the boosters used to lift the craft in the first two minutes of flight to hit the huge main external tanks containing hydrogen-oxygen fuel. All seven crew members died, including Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from New Hampshire selected on a special NASA programme to bring civilians into space.

In 2003 a further seven astronauts died when the shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. A piece of foam insulation had broken away during launch, damaging a wing and sealing the mission’s fate almost before it had started. A subsequent report sharply criticised NASA for allowing the incident to happen and failing to intervene during the mission.