Shuttle Rescue Might Have Been Possible

[Drewcifer]

Shuttle Rescue Might Have Been Possible
May 23, 9:31 PM (ET)
By MARCIA DUNN

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - NASA could have launched another shuttle to rescue the Columbia astronauts if it had realized the severity of the wing damage early on and decided it was worth the extreme risk to the second ship and crew, the chief accident investigator said Friday.

Retired Navy Adm. Harold Gehman Jr., chairman of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, said that the question was put to NASA earlier this month and that the space agency's preliminary findings indicate that such a rescue would have been technically feasible.

But he added: "I've got no idea if it would have been successful or not."

Gehman stressed that a rushed rescue mission by shuttle Atlantis and four of NASA's best and most seasoned astronauts would have been "very, very risky - but not impossible."

In the days after the Feb. 1 tragedy, NASA managers insisted nothing could have been done to fix Columbia's wing and save its seven astronauts.

Earlier this week, however, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said he would have strongly considered sending Atlantis to the astronauts' rescue, even if it meant losing another shuttle and crew.

The investigation board asked NASA at the beginning of May to determine what emergency steps could have been taken if the space agency had known that a flying chunk of foam insulation had created a fatal breach in the ship's left wing during liftoff. NASA briefed the board on its findings Thursday.

Gehman acknowledged it would have been chancy to launch a shuttle on a rescue mission without first fixing the problem of foam breaking off.

"If you've got a pilot down behind enemy lines, we do everything and anything possible to go get that person," he said in a telephone conference with reporters. "It's kind of a contract we have with the people who go into harm's way.

"NASA and the nation have that same contract with astronauts, and it is my opinion, and from my personal background, that if there had been any erring, we would have erred on the side of taking the chance and going after them."

With drastic conservation measures, Columbia's 16-day flight could have been stretched to 30 days to give NASA time to mount the rescue mission, Gehman said.

Because Atlantis was about to be moved to the launch pad for a March 1 launch, it could have been ready to fly as early as Feb. 11 or 12, three or four days before Columbia's air purifiers would have run out, Gehman said.

Atlantis could have arrived at Columbia within 24 hours and flown in formation, 50 to 90 feet apart, with the open payload bays facing one another. Atlantis' astronauts then would have escorted their colleagues from Columbia in a series of four spacewalks, bringing them over mostly two at a time, Gehman said. Extra spacesuits would have been taken up by Atlantis.

As for Columbia, the abandoned ship ultimately would have been guided by remote control into the ocean.

The only other option would have been to try to repair the damaged wing in a spacewalk by Columbia's astronauts, perhaps by stuffing the hole with a bag of water, which would have frozen, and then covering it with Teflon tape, and hope for the best, Gehman said. But he said NASA has yet to determine if such a patch would have held during the fiery re-entry.

"It kind of comes under the category of, at least we would have done something," he said.

During the shuttle's re-entry, scorching gases entered the hole in the wing and caused the shuttle to break apart over Texas.

While Columbia was still in orbit, NASA engineers concluded that the foam had not caused any serious damage. In fact, the space agency decided not to request any special military photography of the shuttle in orbit to examine the potential damage.

The possibility that a rescue mission could have been mounted changes some of the decision-making done back then "from being kind of a bureaucratic, administrative fumbling-bumbling to a much more serious life-and-death kind of a decision process," Gehman said.

"Now those kinds of benign administrative decisions which were taken now look more ominous, because now it looks like maybe there was something you could do," he said.

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[Sr.mal]

Coulda woulda shoulda. The point is moot now, but is good to know in the future.

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

And so it begins.
Memory said it happened one way. Pride said it was an other. Pride won.

Hubris. Some problems have no workable solution.

Kobayashi Maru.

[Sea Skimmer]

From everything I've heard, the possibility was still slight that Atlantis could be made ready in time, and that it required an immediate commencement of conversation of power and supplies. Basically they needed to determine that the wing was indeed damaged by about the time it reached orbit. Hindsight can show a lot of possibilities.

[Wicked Pilot]

Hindsight is 20/20. If NASA knew the extent of the damage right after lift off, the launch could have been aborted with the crew, and possibly the orbiter saved.

[Drewcifer]

After some thought, I agree now: the article is so much pissing in the wind after the fact. Let's just hope that this plan will never need to be put to use.

Too, maybe NASA will learn from the experience, and take warnings from their own people a little more seriously.

[Stormbringer]

"It kind of comes under the category of, at least we would have done something," he said.

That somes it up, it seems like a lot of crap to me. The kind of vague "they should have done this, they should have done that" shit that happens after every accident. It's couch potato quarterbacking.

[The Dark]

I'm posting this again since it got lost in the hack:

The possibility of a rescue mission from Atlantis was discussed very rapidly. In fact, it was considered before the Columbia incident. (I live roughly 30 minutes from the Cape, heard from an astronaut's daughter I'm friends with). However, in order to launch Atlantis, all standard pre-flight checks would have had to be waived, from O-rings and fuel lines to computers and heat tiles. Given the information known at the time, the additional risk to two crewmembers (the minimum the shuttle can fly with) would not have been balanced by the benefit. Indeed, Atlantis would probably have been at more risk than Columbia.

Additionally, Columbia did not have MMUs (Manned Maneuver Units, the chair-like propulsion units) or an airlock to allow a transfer of astronauts. Indeed, I believe they did not even have spacesuits beyond the basic shipsuits they wear, which are not rated for travel outside the orbiter. Such a transfer without any sort of proper equipment would have been extremely dangerous at best and lethal at worst, due to heat or cold or radiation. It is my opinion that a rescue mission with Atlantis was in no way probable or even feasible, and that this article is merely nonsense.

[RadiO]

This is an interesting excerpt from the sci.space.shuttle Columbia Loss FAQ v1.1.
If this infromation is on the money, it would put to rest the confusion I've been experiencing for a while now, namely:
If Columbia didn't have an airlock or suits on board, why did those leaked E-mails by engineers during the mission discuss the merest possibility of a spacewalk - and why is the potential of a rescue mission still being explored if it was so patently impossible?

* Why didn't they do a spacewalk to inspect the underside?

First off, NASA officials have seen insulation and ice break off and
impact tiles on the underside on previous flights. In fact, one of
the tasks assigned to the STS-107 crew was to take photographs of the
External Tank immediately after tank separation to see just what
broke off, where it broke loose, and how big it really was. Those
photos were taken, but sadly they will probably not be recoverable.

With this in mind, no danger was perceived at the time by either the
crew or NASA, and was explicitly stated as such shortly after Columbia
achieved orbit. Even if there had been some suspicions, there was
simply no way for the crew to perform any sort of check of the
underside of the shuttle. For these missions, the CANADARM is
usually removed for weight savings as it won't be used. Regardless,
the CANADARM simply cannot be manouvered so the camera on the
grappler end can see the underside. It simply lacks the joint
structure to allow for this.

Even if the CANADARM was available, and the arm could have been
manouvered to show the underside of the Shuttle, and tile damage had
in fact been found, there was little if anything the crew could have
done to rectify the situation. While the SPACEHAB was mounted in the
cargo bay, Columbia's normal internal airlock and the upward hatch in
the tunnel between the airlock and SPACEHAB would still have allowed
for EVA. However, there was no way for an astronaut to make his/her
way underneat Columbia without special equipment not present onboard.

These facts were confirmed at the initial press debriefing when the
Shuttle program manager specifically stated that the crew had no
capabilities to to tile repairs. Even if they could perform an EVA,
because there is nothing around that area for the astronauts to hold
onto, they would have had an impossible task of even getting under
the Shuttle to get a good look. And even if they could have gotten
underneath and secured themselves. they did not have the tools or
materials onboard to allow them to perform any repairs.

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

There is a school of thought, that says that all bad things that happen are under controle. Thus, when something bad does happen, it is because of the evil/stupidity/selfinshness/negligence of some person(s).
America is lawsuit crazy because of this idea, and greed.


The what iffers will say, "but couldn't they have sent a mission up that brought the needed equipment with them? Then one rescue'naut could ferry the suits over."


The only way to make sure this couldn't happen, would be to have 3 ready to launch shuttles, and only use one. The other 2 would be backup, and final emergency backup. This is not fea$able.

Everyone in the field knows that safety costs money. How $afe do you want to be? (apologies to the hot rod crowd)

We would need 10+ shuttles for this stratagy to work. $$$$$$$$$!

"You know what makes this fly? FUNDING! No bucks, no Buck Rodgers!"