CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Seat restraints, pressure suits and helmets of the doomed crew of the space shuttle Columbia didn't work well, leading to "lethal trauma" as the out-of-control ship lost pressure and broke apart, killing all seven astronauts, a new NASA report says.

In the 400-page report released Tuesday (read it), NASA revisited one of the most painful incidents in its history. The eye-opening report from NASA details what the space shuttle Columbia astronauts had to endure in their final moments.

"The members of this team have done an outstanding job under difficult and personal circumstances," said Johnson Space Center Director Michael L. Coats. "Their work will ensure that the legacy of Columbia and her heroic crew continues to be the improved safety of future human spaceflights worldwide."

After the Columbia crew started making their way home, February 1, 2003, Laurel Clark shot video (watch it) from the flight deck of the super-heated gasses flashing in the windows that would pierce a hole in the wing and doom their mission. Within seconds of the end of the tape, Columbia broke apart, killing the seven astronauts and leaving a nation in mourning.

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NASA REPORTS: Read Full Report | Actions Taken
RAW VIDEO: Inside Cockpit Before Disaster
THE ASTRONAUTS: Bios Of All 7 Astronauts
REACTION: Husband Of Fallen Astronaut Talks
TEAM COVERAGE: Graphic Details Revealed In Report

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At least one crew member was alive and pushing buttons for half a minute after a first loud alarm sounded, as he futilely tried to right Columbia during that disastrous day Feb. 1, 2003.

In fact, by that time, there was nothing anyone could have done to survive as the fatally damaged shuttle streaked across Texas to a landing in Florida what would never take place.

But NASA scrutinizes the final minutes of the shuttle tragedy in a new 400-page report released Tuesday. The agency hopes to help engineers design a new shuttle replacement capsule more capable of surviving an accident. An internal NASA team recommends 30 changes based on Columbia, many of them aimed at pressurization suits, helmets and seatbelts.

As was already known, the astronauts died either from lack of oxygen during depressurization or from hitting something as the spacecraft spun violently out of control. The report said it wasn't clear which of those events killed them.

And in the case of the helmets and other gear, three crew members weren't wearing gloves, which provide crucial protection from depressurization. One wasn't in the seat, one wasn't wearing a helmet and several were not fully strapped in. The gloves were off because they are too bulky to do certain tasks and there is too little time to prepare for re-entry, the report notes.

Had all those procedures been followed, the astronauts might have lived longer and been able to take more actions, but they still wouldn't have survived, the report says.

The new report comes five years after an independent investigation panel issued its own exhaustive analysis on Columbia, but it focused heavily on the cause of the accident and the culture of NASA.

The new document lists five "events" that were each potentially lethal to the crew: Loss of cabin pressure just before or as the cabin broke up; crew members, unconscious or already dead, crashing into objects in the module; being thrown from their seats and the module; exposure to a near vacuum at 100,000 feet; and hitting the ground.

Even the astronauts' parachutes were scrutinized. The astronauts wear them packed into the back of their flight suits during launches and landings, but since the chutes have to be opened manually, they do little good for an astronaut already knocked unconscious.

Columbia disintegrated as it returned to Earth at the end of its space mission. The accident was caused by a hole in the shuttle's left wing from a piece of foam insulation that smashed into it at launch. The breach in the wing brought it down upon its return to Earth. Killed in the disaster were commander Rick Husband, pilot William McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon of Israel.

A timeline of what was happening in crew compartment shows that the first loud master alarm -- from a failure in control jets -- would have rung at least four seconds before the shuttle went out of control.

Twenty-six seconds later either Husband or McCool -- in the upper deck with two other astronauts -- "was conscious and able to respond to events that were occurring on board."

Shortly after that, the crew cabin depressurized, "the first event of lethal potential." That would have caused "loss of consciousness" and lack of oxygen. It took 41 seconds for complete loss of pressure.

Dr. Jonathan Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon whose astronaut wife, Laurel, died aboard Columbia, praised NASA's leadership for releasing the report "even though it says, in some ways, you guys didn't do a great job.

"I guess the thing I'm surprised about, if anything, is that (the report) actually got out," said Clark, who was a member of the team that wrote it. "There were so many forces" that didn't want to produce the report because it would again put the astronauts' families in the media spotlight.

Some of the recommendations already are being applied to the next-generation spaceship being designed to take astronauts to the moon and Mars, said Clark, who now works for the National Space Biomedical Research Institute at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Kirstie McCool Chadwick, sister of pilot William McCool, said a copy of the report arrived at her Florida home by FedEx Tuesday morning but that she had not read it.

"We've moved on," Chadwick said. "I'll read it. But it's private. It's our business ... Our family has moved on from the accident and we don't want to reopen wounds.

HUSBAND OF FALLEN NASA ASTRONAUT TALKS EYEWITNESS NEWS

The bravery of the Columbia 7 will never be forgotten, especially by the loved ones who grieve for them to this day.

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VIDEO REPORT: Dr. Jon Clark Talks To WFTV

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"They were working the problem, going through checklists trying to figure out what was going on and, perhaps at the very end, she might've been holding Casey's hand," Dr. Jon Clark told Eyewitness News on Tuesday.

Astronaut Laurel Clark is the woman who shot the video (watch it) capturing the final minutes of Columbia before the shuttle disintegrated on re-entry. Tuesday, fellow NASA engineer Dr. Jon Clark spoke about the death of his wife and her colleagues.

"The crew was alive and it wasn't an instantaneous event like some may have thought. Loss of signal was the beginning of the end, not the end," he told Eyewitness News.

NASA investigators say some astronauts survived as long as 45 seconds, but were unconscious. Prior to that, Dr. Clark believes they were in a state of controlled panic as the shuttle tumbled out of control.

"The final moments were occupied with that essential, high-load, work the problem, work the problem. They would've sensed the motion and also seen this tumbling visual scene as well, so there's no question they would've been aware of it," Clark said.

For Clark and many other family members, there are no regrets; shuttle travel is arguably the most dangerous job on the planet.

"My wife knew the risks involved. I mean, space flight is very risky. She was a military flyer, so she'd seen a lot of mishaps. You don't get in this business if you're risk-averse. This is not for the timid at heart," Clark said.