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NASA says Columbia Rescue was Possible
nuke-alwin writes "Apparently NASA is saying that a rescue mission may have been possible for the Columbia crew. I first saw this on TV, but Chicago Sun-Times is also reporting the story. The risks would have been great, and may have endangered more astronaut's lives."
Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda. Lets work on improving our space program instead of sulking over things we COULD have done better.
I wonder if push came to shove, how long it would take them to prep an emergency launch for a rescue?
They could have kept the shuttle up there for 30 days, would that have been enough time to launch a rescue mission?
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Well NASA at the time didn't think the problem was all that big of a deal to send up a rescue crew, so they didn't.
And before people start yammering about sending them to the ISS, someone give them a physics book, they couldn't have.
I hope that NASA learns something (when something falls off a vessle it usually isn't a good sign!!!) and to be a bit more catious in the future. BUT I think they should get right back up on the horse so to speak and keep going. To quote "Enterprise" (and one of their better episodes recently) "If we are ever going to explore deep space we are going to need to take a few risks" and thats the truth of the matter.
-- It's harder to fly into the sun than out of the galaxy, go figure --
What would Kirk do?
BytesTemplar.com
I'm sure many will disagree, but the cost of the shuttle program is horrendous, and NASA's insistence on using it has led to some cataclysmically stupid decisions. One example: the ISS (which is an utter joke compared to Skylab or Mir) was placed into a rapidly-decaying orbit not because that was a good idea (it isn't) but because the shuttle could get there.
Most of the satellites that are "launched" by the shuttle suffer from the design constraint that they have to fit into the friggin' bay AND have room for the accompanying boosters that will put them into their real orbit once the shuttle lets them out. Again, the shuttle can't go high enough for real deployment.
The idea of capturing and reparing satellites is inherently absurd; most aren't where the shuttle can get 'em and the total cost of the program utterly dwarfs the expense that would have been incurred had they said of the Hubble "Well, we screwed it up...build another one and get it right this time."
The safety record sucks. After Challenger Richard Feynman put the probability of a fatal accident at one in fifty. So far, NASA's on the money and the nature of the shuttle is such that if someone dies, everybody dies.
Lest I be misunderstood, I understand the romantic and scientific appeal of manned space flight, of the visceral sense of satisfaction we can have as a species when we look up to the skies and say "We live there." I'm a strong proponent of that. I also recognize the complaints that the money spent on that is money not spent on (feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, inoculating the sick, fill in your pet cause). The manned space program is hellishly uneconomical and a great deal of that can be laid at the feet of the shuttle program.
It's a white elephant without a mission, a bastard child of a spacecraft and an airplane which like most gadgets that try to do two fundamentally different things does neither well. Its payload capacity compared to heavy-lift rockets is a joke, it's barely capable of crawling out of the atmosphere, it's presented a tremendous constraint to the rest of the space program by forcing many missions to be less than they could have been in order to be shuttle-doable, and it bears repeating that every fifty flights it kills everyone on board.
It's time to ground the shuttle fleet permanently. Space isn't going anywhere. Stop pouring the hundreds of millions of dollars into the shuttle program and pour them into a new design effort. Scrap the silly "space-plane" concept and develop a family of lifters and craft that _can_ be used for many things but don't back NASA into a corner that forces them to use it for all missions. Make crew safety an inherent feature (recognizing that there are tradeoffs and that getting out of the gravity well is a fundamentally dangerous activity). Stop throwing good money after bad on that trinity dies ISS as well, and use the collective resources of the two programs to start over. It's not true that the second design is always better than the first (see again ISS and Mir/Skylab) but you're wise to play those odds.
Let's do it over. And do it right.
There are an infinite number of things we could have done. Why live in hindsight now?
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
...when Gregory Peck was in charge of NASA. It didn't really work out too well for the astronauts.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
If you were one of those astronauts, would you have wanted many more of your coworkers to possibly lose their life just to save your's.
Is how much this whole thing is like Space Camp the movie. I was a huge spacenut as an adolescent and I worshipped that movie in all it's crappiness.
I couldn't help in the early days after the columbia disaster but thinking about that movie.
Administrators didn't want to admit the possiblity of a rescue becuase it makes the decision to not have the shuttle inspected using telescopes look even worse.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Yes, in theory it was possible... But at what risk? How do you no the rescue ship wouldn't have had the same problem on launch? And we will never know if they spy satellites could have seen the damage on the wing...
And what of the risk of sending a crew up on a mission with zero training for that specific mission? As I understand it, they practice space walks for months ahead of time... The suggest this space walk with no training at all. And rushing another space shuttle into orbit doesn't exactly sound safe.
Sure, there is a chance they could have saved them. We could also have lost twice as many people.
Really, this just sounds like a witch hunt, and someone laying the groundwork for lawsuits.
--T
http://www.theMediaBunker.com
I don't know much about space engineering, but wouldn't it have been possible to send one of these russian Soyuz pods they use to supply the ISS ? if I remember correctly, there's also one of these things attached permanently to the space station as an escape pod that can be used if the crew needs to bail out. And even if hatches aren't compatible between a Soyuz and a space shuttle, maybe the crew can spacewalk to it ? surely it's less dicey than docking two shuttles together and risking the lives of two crews instead of just one. Oh and yes, launching a Soyuz is a fraction of the price of a shuttle launch, but that's hardly a consideration in this case.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Red coats... lots and lots of red coats.
"If we had known the thing was going to blow up, we could have sent somebody up to get them."
Uh, duh?
rooooar
This sort of thing is easy to do monthes later when we can say, "yea there was a hole and it made the wing fail".
But at the time there was only evidence of foam falling. NASA could have had a recon sat take a look at Shuttle during an orbit but what if the damage was too small to spot? They couldn't spacewalk out there and examine that point on the Columbia.
They couldn't have said "Well there might be a hole, stop everything, we'll rush another Shuttle up there and try to do a risky space transfer that's never been done and then leave a 110 ton uncontrolled craft up there to tumble back to earth on it's own."
What if they'd rushed a second one up and there was a problem because of that rush and two were lost?
It's tragic, and the energy needs to be spent on fixing the problems with the remaining three and getting replacements.
I think I could handle the risking of the lives to attempt the rescue.
But sadly, and honestly, I would have disagreed with this approach due to the risk to the manned space program. Had both shuttles not returned (which was rather likely, I believe), I don't think we would have returned to space for at least a decade.
I guess that is a rather confusing/conflicting point of view.
In general, I'm still rather angry about things like the spy agencies not giving satellite time. This is where the root of the problem lies in our space program (by "our", I mean "man's", not the US's).
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
So, they are taking heat for the failure, and now we've got the idiots yelling "You COULD have saved them!!!!"...
This isn't like someone making a huge error, it's a small error. Nasa designs their parts to be probability-tolerent. IE, they build a part, test it 1000 times, figure out how many times it will fail then improve on it. They get their parts down to a 99% fault tolerency and then they put 8 or 9 of them on the shuttle to lessen the chance of them breaking.
It isn't like the crew didn't know about it and didn't take a look at the damage before re-entry and figure it was minor. Sometimes accidents just happen, miscalculators lead to deaths and we aren't perfect. But you're an idiot for saying that these people are a bunch of dumbnuts for not sending up a shuttle for every little incident.
The problem with Nasa is that they are low on funding and are run (as in, leaded by, not as in the people donig the work) by a bunch of idiots. This wouldn't have happened if they weren't going up in a 20 year old rickety tin can, and they probably do have the funding to build new shuttles they just waste so much that they don't have the recources to do so.
Buerocracy is a bitch.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
Well I guess that almost everything is possible in theory.
Agreed it's a tragedy, but why risk the lives of another set of crew members, and why is it that people tend to focus so much of the loss of seven lives, who knew it was a dangerous mission and propably were prepared to die in the name of science.
I mean. For the cost of such a rescue mission...how many lives could you save by using the money on eg vaccines in the 3. world.
How many people die in the traffic in the US? How many lives could be saved by investing money in car safety?
You could propably have invested in something with a better money-lives saved ratio, but people don't seem to be very intereested in that or what?
The Washington Post gives more details on two plans. The first would involve a launch of Atlantis with a four man skeleton crew to an orbit within 20-30 meters of Columbia and a transfer of the stranded astronauts using spare spacesuits. The second would have two astronauts "don the two space suits aboard their craft and attempt to patch a hole in the left wing using odds and ends, including stainless steel parts, insulation, soft tiles ripped from the side of the shuttle, an ice pack and heat resistant tape."
DO NOT READ the second to last line of the last paragraph. He snuck in a Matrix spoiler.
Dirty BASTARD! I HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM YET!!!!
Talisman
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
I have worked on the shuttle program
...
as what, a janitor ? since you read slashdot, methink you weren't in the top decisional sphere
A) Soyuz Capsules have a maximum crew capacity of 3.
B) Soyuz Capsules have such a severe reentry and landing profile that each crewmember must have a specially designed seat liner to avoid serious injury on landing. ISS Crews take their seat liners up with them on the Shuttle incase they have to use the Soyuz docked there to escape.
C) Soyuz Capsules don't have an Airlock, they have a simple hatch. So they would have had to depressurize and repressurize the capsule multiple times for the crew transfer. No idea how many repressurizations a Soyuz capsule is rated for, nor if enough consumables are available onboard for multiple repressurizations.
D) Russia can barely build enough Soyuz capsules to fulfill their current committments. Firing off one (they would have needed 4 due to the 7 member crew and the requirement for at least 1 cosmonaut in each one) would have been technically and physically impossible under the time constraints they were operating under. Even if they DID Have 4 spare Soyuz capsules lying around, it's doubtful they would have had 4 launch vehicles available and able to be prepped and launched in rapid succession.
Inshort, completely impossible.
People really need to get a grip. These people signed up for this shit. What's with this joy of deciding FOR people "It's dangerous for you, you can't do it" instead of giving them a choice.
Ask the other astronauts, "We're looking for someone to go up to try and rescue these guys." I doubt one of them would say no, regardless of the danger. They would hope that those other astronauts would do the same for them if the tables were reversed, eh? It's part of the job. Hell, it's part of the human spirit.
It's not just the space program that they like to enforce "safety" upon, but that's been the clearest indicator recently. All the "oh no it's dangerous can't do it" anal-retentives of the world need to loosen up. Little of the research that has gotten us this far could be classified as "safe". So stop making decisions for others based on their safety.
There are stupid risks, and then there are just risks. Leave it up to the people whose lives are on the line to decide. Except, of course, if the risk is clearly a very stupid one, you might not want to waste an orbiter on it. That's fair. But to go up to save astronauts from certain death? Yeah, that's worth an orbiter.
Regardless, other posts are correct -- this is all 20/20 hindsight now. Time to move on. I just wish the lesson learned from this wasn't "Space travel is dangerous, we'd better be much more careful to the point of making everything we're trying to do only marginally useful at best", while all the people who are willing to take risks utterly blow them out of the water.
Random and weird software I've written.
If the Columbia crew had adopted some serious resource-conservation procedures PDQ, NASA could've had Atlantis prepped and ready to go in time to get them out alive (theoretically, anyway, since a shuttle-to-shuttle rescue is unprecedented).
However, Atlantis had already entered preparations for its scheduled March 1 launch-- if that had not been the case, Columbia and its crew would in all likelihood have been SOL. Prepping a shuttle for a launch is a tremendous, time-consuming undertaking, and it's not something you can cut corners on even if there is a "gotta get it up there quick" type situation. Perhaps they could institute round-the-clock operations via multiple shifts, but I don't know if they have enough qualified workers to be able to handle something like that.
Also keep in mind that hastily laying on a rescue launch increases the chance of something going catastrophically wrong on that mission. If NASA lost a second shuttle while trying to save the crew of a stuck-in-orbit first shuttle that would then be destroyed on re-entry, confidence in the space program would plummet. Congress would yank even more funding from NASA, and they might as well just deorbit the ISS a few days later-- maybe we could all get a free taco out of it this time.
~Philly
I never bought that a rescue mission wasn't possible. If they knew that Columbia would burn up, they would've found a solution. 1,000,000 engineers across the country, including all 10,000+ Aerospace engineers in this country would have been working on solutions. We would've figured it out, and it would have been much more clever than the limited scenario they have reightfully been exploring.
Basically, all the engineers did their jobs, but they were making assumptions about how others would do their jobs, and what the options were.
One team analyzed the foam impact. They didn't think it would be serious, but there was some uncertainty. In general, rocket engineers, especially those working for NASA and the Air Force, are paid to make conservative analyses and decisions. So, if they were operating in a vacuum, the engineers would likely have requested better test data on foam impact of different parts, and better assessment of the damage.
Now, these engineers believed that getting better foam impact test data was unlikely. So they didn't ask for it. They had already made the 1st assessment that it was OK (based on un-wetted foam hitting tiles), even though they probably knew this wasn't a conservative analysis. So they asked for photos, to improve their assessment. Someone at NASA decided photos were not necessary since the intial analysis made it look like Columbia was OK. Plus, these managers assumed that the photographs would not be helpful, but that was based on 1) capabilities of a few years ago, and 2) probably what was unclassified; could an NRO spy satellite have taken pictures? Plus, the NASA manager has it in his head that a rescue is impossible anyways, so why push the issue?
I also wonder whether the foam-impact engineers knew about the piece that detached? Probably not. I'm sure someone had all the info, but it probably sounded like, "The foam impact analysis said there was no problem. Therefore this object is probably just ice."
And the point CAIB keeps hitting on, NASA got comfortable with risks b/c they turned out to be OK. But when you aim for 99.9% reliability, it should preclude using flight history to clear anomalies until the anomaly has occured 1000 times. NASA should've always been looking at objects neat STS.
All in all, it's a tough nut to crack. It took a lot to bring down Columbia, a sequence of events that took over 2 weeks to play out. Like Apollo 1, the biggest failure was probably a lack of imagination, and not realizing what our capabilities really are. The Shuttle is a true engineering marvel, on par with the great construction projects, and light-years ahead of any Stealth bomber (which cost almost as much as a shuttle!), aircraft carrier, dumb booster or any race car. The shuttle is a global asset, and the improvements we make to it will reep rewards for decades to come.
imagine the tv movie possibilities
Do you really think there's someone at a high enough level at NASA (or anywhere, for that matter) who would have had the brass cajones (that's "brass balls" for you gringos) to take accountability for approving such a rescue mission? If a rescue were successful, he'd have to answer to the bean counters and outrage over having risked *two* crews. And if it weren't....
...Bethanie....
The right stuff and can-do attitude of the early days has been replaced by bureaucrats. Which, as you seen, can cost people their lives. As you can see here, shuttle rescues used to be part of the nasa planning process.
Of courser there is this question as well
"What's to stop you from having the same damage to Atlantis? You're basically throwing the dice," Thagard said.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
we develope force drives like an anti-gravity drive.
then we can propel ourselfs into orbit and further through repeling forces.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
How much would such a rescue have cost anyway? Would it have made sense to pay it? Just think how many lives could have been saved with the millions of $$$ if they had been used to supply emergency aid after the Iraq or Afghanistan invasions, or to pay for famine victims in Africa instead.
Of course, they aren't glamorous, and aren't "heroes" with their faces splashed all over the world-wide media, but neverless saving a thousand or so of them might have been more worthy than what's being proposed here. What's more, we still have an opporunity to do something on this one...
Would have, could have, should have .... come on ... going out into space means that from time to time things may go wrong. It's exploration of space, what do you expect? That it is easy? That everyone will always return home safely? Mankind has hardly taken any step 'out there' and if every accident results in such a media hype and discussions about funding and stuff, you may ask yourself where the exploring attitude of your ancestors has gone. Do the best you can possibly do to avoid accidents, you want your people to return to tell the story, but if something goes all wrong, accept that this is the price you sometimes have to pay and learn from it. It's about exploration, not about 'handling the media'. Are the media really able to understand what exploration is about in the first place?
I keep seeing posts and news reports blaming NASA for not sending out a rescue. Read the articles people, get informed! If NASA had known the problem really was as bad as it turned out you can bet they would have put every person they could find on getting that crew home alive. Remember Apollo 13? It would have been the same scenario.
... AND we could have had two damaged shuttles in the air at one time because at the time we didn't have a clue as to what went wrong with the first one.
Though, the risk taker in me says we should've tried it if we had time to make a rescue attempt.
I'm also on board with the group that says, lets make improvements and move forward. I wish they had made the decision to take long range pictures, even if they couldn't have saved the Columbia. That information could've provided the needed piece to save future shuttle crews. Though it would've torn up the American public to know we had a shuttle that was lost before the fact.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
I think a key step is being overlooked here. Before a rescue mission is considered and planned, you have to have something to rescue. Remember, nobody at the time knew for a fact that there was a problem.
From what I understood, even if the foam issue had been investigated, no damage would have been seen. Missing tiles could not have been seen by a telescope or any other long-range imaging mechanism.
The *only* way they could have determined there was a problem was with a space walk and that wasn't possible because they didn't have the equipment.
We're now talking about sending an entire shuttle up just to *check* to see if some foam hit the wing, not to rescue a shuttle with a known problem.
Is there really any doubt that yes, *something* could have been done if the outcome we now are aware of was known? Of course NASA would have tried to prevent it. But the fact remains that there was no known problem. We shouldn't be worried about whether a rescue mission could have been created, we should be worried about how could the actual damage have been more accurately assessed!
Kinda reminds me of the movie 'Vertical Limit'. Four mountainclimbers get stranded, they send another 4 to try and rescue them, and only TWO of the total EIGHT get back alive. Gee... that was really worth it. Might as well let the original 4 die, since they were stupid anyway.
(My numbers might be a little scewed, but only a little)
The newest posting on the "NASA official Columbia Website", http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/home/index.html
is dated 4/17/2003.
is why is this even relevant now? I hate like hell that they died, but why bring this up now? I think this admission would have been better served remaining internal to the investigation than being made public. Sounds like a witch hunt to me, but what the hell do I know?
Everything in the parent post has already been said, and repeated ad nauseum by various karma whoring ACs.
n/t
An overwhelming majority of US astronauts are ex-military types. To talk about risks...these guys would gladly bear the likelyhood of their own death if it meant the possibility of saving another. I know guys who risked their lives in combat to recover corpses - dead bodies - simply because the hunk of unrecognizable flesh they were dragging back was a fellow solider/marine/airman. If a rescue mission had been organized, and volunteers asked for, you would have had no shortage of schmoes ready to hang it out on the line.
There should be pre-positioned Escape-n-Rescue devices, put all over the earth's orbit at several altitude. This would allow anyone (rocket men, shuttle crew, cosmonaught, Space Station, etc.) to use them during emergency. The U.N. should pay for this, since it would have to be international in order to avoid risk of more shuttle crews exploding like Discovery and Challenger.
I suggest you read Slashdot
Wouldn't NASA wait to determine the cause of the problem before launching a second crew into space? What if Atlantis gets up there and discovers "Hey, same thing happened to us...can you send ANOTHER rescue ship?". It took several weeks just to start narrowing down the cause from all the theories, and even now that they have plenty of info NASA still isn't sending shuttles up into space.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
That's where it would be handy to have a traditional space capsule on standby. Of course, given the fact they can only fit three people max, it would require three launches, or a single launch vehicle with three capsules. The capsules would then be able to dock with the shuttle to let everyone out and would then return to Earth as the Soyuz does. This is a knee jerk idea, so there are probably limiting factors that I have not taken into account.
BTW does anyone know what the minimum crew required to fly a shuttle?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
OK -- 2 BIG differences that I see right here.
....Bethanie....
1) Of course the marines would do it. In a war, that's what you do. And soldiers fighting are in a much more autonomous position to enable them to take such heroic measures.
2) You are talking about a frigging MOVIE. Would you pay to go see a movie that was about a big bureaucratic cluster f*** that didn't get any positive results, and the good guys die in the end, without any heorism involved?
I made this point in a separate post below, but the folks in the most senior positions at NASA (and anywhere -- I'm not just picking on NASA) did NOT get there by being heroes. They got there by luck and by making the right political decisions -- the SAFE decisions.
The question I posed wasn't about whether the guys on the ground would be willing to mount a rescue -- it was about whether those who were in danger would really want to be rescued, at the risk of all those other lives.
It's just thinking from the other guys' perspective, see?
To make a reference to your movie there, remember the burden it placed on Private Ryan to have had all those guys lose their lives to save his? ["Earn this!" -- if that's the line -- been a long time since I've seen it.] When faced with it, what choice would one make?
That's all I'm saying.
Actually, I'm glad you pointed that out.
....Bethanie....
In my search for a reference to back up my use of the slang term, I found information that pointed me to the correct spelling of the word. It's "cojones" with an "O" (used in Spain -- huevos is preferred in Mexico). Live and learn!
But dude, cojones, huevos, balls o lo que sea -- they're all slang, it all works. I know what I'm talking about. Trust me.
I know this for certain: YOU sir are a Karma
__,,..~~--== W*H*O*R*E ==--~~..,,__
If they knew or even at the least *suspected* there was a problem, they could have stayed aboard the shuttle and waited for a rescue ship a day or two more, maybe longer. Why couldn't they have made it over to the ISS??
Or a Soyuz rescue could have been sent up.
Something, ANYTHING would have been better than the fatal risk they took...
Monumental stupidity if you ask me. There *was* an alternative to what happened..
If the rescue launch fails, the probability of the first vehicle returning sucsessfully is unchanged.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The Titanic had bigger casulties because they didn't have enough of them.
C3P0 and R2D2 used them in the first released Star Wars to escape the Imperial Froces.
I'm talking about ESCAPE PODS.
Lifeboats.
Why doesn't the shuttle have them? I realize "size" is an issue. But when a piece of FOAM can cause enough damage to the shuttle to bring it down, then there's gotta be an alternative. Or at least, future shuttles could be stockpiling them at the International Space Station.
(Personally, I don't think it was foam. There are faster and denser pieces of debris flying around in space all of the time. If Halley's comet is bulky enough to be swing around every 70 years, there must be smaller versions as well. I'm just surprised there aren't more cameras sprinkled throughout the ship for post-mortems or for scanning the underside of the ship. I was just at Target last night, and saw small CCD cameras for personal computers that cost a whopping $38 each.)
Then they proactively squashed any attempts to get actual pictures of the shuttle after the debris hit on launch.
I sure hope to hell we find out the name of the official who prevented the taking of photos of Columbia - because it's not enough for that dolt to have to live with tha decision the rest of his life. Everyone on the planet needs to know that he was such a fucking moron that he didn't even want to look and therefore doomed seven people to certain death.
That's the crime here - people at NASA undertook active efforts to keep themselves in the dark. That's utterly inexcusable.
Because that might be you up there in trouble next time.
Thats just brilliant!
You are making the assumption that NASA knew the shuttle was going to suffer a catastrophic failure on re-entry. Other than some speculation by some NASA engineers, I havent seen any definitive proof that NASA was negligent.
Space travel is dangerous and accidents happen. I am not saying that should exclude people from taking responsibility, but it also means that we cant suggest letting people take baseball bats to men and women who lost their friends in an accident because we assume they played fast and loose with facts.
thousands may have survived the sinking of the Titanic if only the outcome had been different.....
Really now. Let's all play the "what if" game. What if they'd sent another shuttle? What if they'd looked at spy sat. images? What if a race of friendly aliens repaired the shuttle the erased the memories of those aboard? What if we could have sent Bruce Willis up there with a team of loveable hacks? You know what? None of that happened, and Columbia is still sitting in pieces. Deal with it. Establish what went wrong, do your best to ensure it doesn't happen again, and move on with the space program.
I'm just glad we've got experts in the media that can press home the fact that they're smarter than those in charge. "Hey, let's make NASA acknolwedge the fact that there was a super slim chance of possibly rescuing those poor, departed ratings....er...heros"
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Nobody has been talking much about resupply, but it was possible.
A Russian Progess supply craft was launched to ISS the day after Columbia was lost. Had they wanted it to, it would have been able to rendezvous with Columbia.
Like Atlantis, though, it would not have been able to dock. (Unless they recently put an ISS docking tunnel on Columbia, but I don't think they did.) They would have had to do spacewalks to bring over the supplies.
The main thing they would have needed were the canisters for CO2 scrubbing. Those can be replaced on orbit. Also, they could have sent up parts and equipment for a repair attempt.
Uggg. I'm still sad we lost Columbia.
And the US shouild have known about 9/11 beforehand as well, that was a failure of the intelligence community.
Gimme a break. YES, the information was there beforehand, and it COULD have been predicted. Just like a million other things that DIDN'T and WON'T happen. It's easy to look back and say "we should have known". It's a lot harder to look forward and say "what's going to happen tomorrow"
It's always easy to make it look like it was obvious when you have a common event to work backwards from.
Someone said 'Whats done is done'.
I agree with that sentiment. We are in the 'Find problem, fix it and move on' stage and backtracking does nothing.
However since the subject was brought up, I have the thought of how could they have known?
Okay we have said that technicaly it was feasible to rescue.
Let's say we get into a time machine and go back to Janurary and try to convince NASA that something is very, very wrong and they need to start prepping Atlantis.
Even if you could show those officials your time machine and convince them you are who you say you are they are still not going to do it without absolute proof that Columbia is in a bad, bad way.
Did we have a system available to us in Janurary to assess the damage properly?
Having an astronaut do an EVA with one of those jet packs they got is a serious step. It is very possible it would end up with the astronaut doing that 'dying' thing that they all try to avoid.
So you can't simply throw that out. Once again you have to have serious suspicions that you can back up before you go that step. I would say that is the last step before prepping Atlantis.
I remember this as a huge debate directly after the crash. I remember being thoroughly unsold on if we could have figured it out.
The big problem with any type of flight is weight. For airlines every item they carry is weighed and not just for weight/Bal. Say you have a new type of whatever and you want it on every flight your airline flys. Even if the whatever cost you nothing you still pay for the fuel used to tote the whatever on every flight. Next time you fly check out the pillows/blankets and even the serving carts. All of them are very low weight. So just find out how much "The Chute" installed and ready weighs in at. Then do the math
My mother in law is worse than yours...and yes I will trade!
God bless America!
Someone please mod this pig down to -99.
- three 1.8inch disks used as flywheels for stabilisation
- C02 cartridge from soda dispenser as gas-tank
- six exhaust nozzles coupled to the CO2-cartridge
with magnetic valves
- tilt-and swivel camera like the one guarding the ATM at your bank
- hf-video link
- six-channel RC-control
- NiCd-battery pack
Put this assembly into a clear plastic bag and leak some of the CO2 into it to get a few mbar of pressure to avoid stiction (of course, the exhaust nozzles would stick out). You might also want to replace some cheap capacitors.
At radio shack, this would set you back less than $1000 and could be assembled by any radio ham.
For a few million dollars, you could get a version of this assembled without scotchtape, weighing 1..2 kg.
The only reason I can imagine that the shuttle, threatened by tiles falling off since day one, does not carry such an inspection pod on each mission, is that NASA did not want the crew or the public to know there is a problem either on a mission doomed to failure or in advance on the missions that came back lucky.
I believe is 2. The first shuttle flight was flown by a pilot and commander only.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Sorry that I didn't put a . I figured, incorrectly it seems, that most people would realize that the second part of my comment was a facetious counter-point to the first part. I freely admit that I shouldn't have posted while still angry, but damn if it doesn't make me so angry I can't see straight.
As for the first part... Definitive proof, no. That's why I suggested that charges be filed and our legal system try to mete out some justice in this matter. While not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, it is our legal system.
I grant the point that NASA decision makers couldn't have predicted the outcome; they didn't have any data from which to make a prediction. From the admittedly sketchy evidence I've seen in the papers and elsewhere, it seems they didn't even attempt to determine the extent or nature of the damage, despite the warnings of the engineers.
My main point is that the people at the top had command responsibility for the astronauts. This is something more than just being a manager or having fiduciary responsibility. I recommend The Challenge of Command by Roger H. Nye (ISBN 0399528040; Perigee; October 2001) for further reading on the subject.
Mod me down if you must, but I stand by my conclusion: If the responsible persons at the top of the hierarchy failed in their duty, there should be commensurate consequences.
IF we knew there was a problem, we still probably couldn't get Atlantis launched in time (getting a space shuttle ready is a LOT of work). I bet we'd have better luck parking at the ISS and using the escape pod (is that thing up there yet?)or even asking Russia for help.
>> sure hope to hell we find out the name of the official who prevented the taking of photos of Columbia
Another thought about this:
I wonder if manslaughter charges would apply to this guy, whoever he is. Because he IS responsible for those people dying. Or at least he's guilty of neglegence. He should have pushed for the photos that could have saved those astronaut's lives.
Huh?
We would of put the second shuttle at risk and it's crew but i doubt you'd have any problems gettign a crew... You'd have every single astronauts lined up at the door to volunteer and demand they at least try and resuce the crew.
Suppose you were a Columbia astronaut and you were told (which apparently was not the case) that there could be a problem with foam ice impact on the leading edge of the left wing. Having digital cameras on-board which could be preset to take numerous photos, could you figure out a way to get one of the cameras below the wing (via the cargo bay) to a position to get a photo given you had days to try and try again? Think boom, string, elastic & a cargo bay full of items you have at your command to figure out how to get that camera out there and back (again and again if necessary) until you get just one revealing photo. Can a digital camera operate in space if you could somehow get it out there to take a photo?
It seems a lot depends on the weather. BOTH shuttle disasters have been caused by weather. The first was caused by frozen o-rings and the second by rain soaked foam.
After reading most of the comments below I have to say it. If a rescue had been attempted, NASA would have needed guards to keep the Astronauts in line to apply for it. The military ones have a code of honor about not leaving anyone behind. The article stated that they would have been knocking down the doors to get the job, "and it's true". Men like John Young and Robert Crippen are still around. I met them both when the shuttle landed at White Sands, NM. I think it was the third suttle flight. They are retired but that caliber of person is still around throughout the Astronaut Corps.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I'm told they always have two suits on board. If the payload doors won't close under motor control, there is a standard procedure to go for a walk and close them manually.
Somewhere along the way, I believe a NASA person pointed out that there is only a brief time just before landing when bailout is possible. The shuttle comes in very fast, still supersonic even partway across Florida.
cool, thanks man, that's the sort of stuff I was looking for. Decent website!
zzzzzaaaaapppp!
now, the "why's?" need to be asked, who profits, and why?
Now that's much more reasonable. The first post seemed to me to be stating it as a fact that there was willful negligence. The if in your conclusion makes it much more palatable.
IF those in charge commited willfully negligent acts in the days before the Columbia de-orbit, then there should be harsh consequences.
I think people are focussing a little too much on whether a rescue could/should have been tried in this specific case.
The real importance of this finding by the board is to say that rescue missions are possible in some cases; they are not "impossible" and thus not even worth considering. Therefore, NASA has got to put some thought into planning for such contingencies.
That's the real failing here -- why hadn't NASA figured out more of this beforehand? Granted that it would have been tremendously risky and far outside the usual sorts of rules for mission planning. But consider the following:
1. It was reasonably likely that NASA would end up with a stuck shuttle but live crew someday, since several failure modes could do that to you.
2. If the NASA administrator told the White House that, "sorry, nothing to do, should they blow the hatch now or just suffocate slowly?", they would be told that response is NOT acceptable. Try *something*
3. However bad "something" is, it would almost certainly be better to have given some thought to what "something" would be and how to do it, than to come up with a plan in 24 hours.
Therefore, NASA really screwed up if they had not done some back of the envelope studies of what they could do, even if risky and kinda crazy, to save a stranded crew. "impossible" was *not* an answer they'd be allowed to give.
Consider Apollo 13. It's amazing how much of that rescue was NOT spur-of-the-moment, but was at least based on previous studies and simulations. Even the duct tape-and-cardboard air filter contraption drew from a simulation where a crew had had to build a makeshift air pump out of cabin materials after the LM fans died. They'd never considered the specific 13 scenario, but had done enough other crazy "what ifs" that they had a lot of building blocks to work with.
NASA should be doing the same today. Have at least some outlines of what they might do. They might even conclude there is some cheap/easy stuff to do in advance to make a rescue more feasible. For example, if they realize a particular fitting or tool that doesn't exist yet would be needed, they could make one in advance rather than scramble to do so during the crisis. It's not worth billions of course, but I bet you could find things to do with a couple of million in advance that would give you a much higher chance of success in a rescue contingency.
Hopefully NASA is way ahead of me, but I'm not sure that's the case.
What would the odds of success been - 1 in 10,000 perhaps. Retired Navy Adm. Harold Gehman Jr., chairman of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board is a navy man who might know something about the navy and its military aircraft, but spaceflight is a very different expertise. NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe has no business being leader of such an organization, he is a Bush crony with a background in Public Administration - he is a career politician.
The TV reporting on this has been very inaccurate and really didn't say it had a very low probability of success. The only thing I saw that sounded close to reasonable is when one of the shows was doing a talking heads interview with an astronaut. This skewed reporting is exactly the kind of propaganda the Bush administration is good at, they have deflected the real cause. Ron Dittemore had been promised relieve of pushing his people too hard and taking shortcuts because the political correct word of the day was "Keep things on time for the space station and keep them under budget" - but it was all just a put off. Ron blames himself for what happened wondering what more he could have done and how he could have gotten O'Keefe to live up to his promises. What is very ironic about this is after the Challenger accident one of the key findings was to put technical people in managerial positions - Ron Dittemore was one of the engineers who was brought into management. If Bush ever heard such a recommendation, it must have been akin to that fuzzy math he talked about in the campaign. I studied Math and Science, and my father was on the navigation team of many of JPL's space mission, innumeracy really peeves me and Bush has done a lot to promote innumeracy.
If a rescue had been attempted, most likely we would have lost two shuttles and more astronauts.
First of all there was a known problem with impacts on the tiles. Why had no one worked out the simple procedure of when the shuttle arrived at the ISS to do a simple roll while someone on the ISS took photos of any likely damage? Two, why was the shuttle designed with not even the simplest sheet of insulating material behind the mounting points for the leading edge Carbon/carbon mouldings? With even the simplest fire door there is a back up foam that expands to fill gaps. Why was this not done? Three, why had no one thought to make up something simple such as a mix of phenolic resin foam to squirt into a small hole to prevent ingress of hot gas? Another simple back up system. Gosh! Even a small water spray into the hole would have had some likely effect. Particularly if the spray had produced an outward flow of heated water vapour to create a cussion. The previous remark about Duck tape was very probably correct. With such a small hole being catastrophic, almost anything would have helped. What really concerns me is that NASA is employing individuals that show, (by there refusal to believe things are possible), that in truth, they are mentally challenged when faced with something new and hide their lack of personal confidence behind bold statements of the impossiblility. Where are the leadership qualities that weed out such thinking? It is the clear lack of quality leadership that is so disturbing. If there are 100 astronauts prepared to fly a rescue mission, why are there not 100 NASA engineers standing in line with ideas of how to go do it??? I suspect that there is an embedded group at the highest levels that has no business being there in such an organisation. In a large company someone would make the brave decision to close it down and start again with a clean sheet of paper, but let me guess, being all government paid, they have jobs for life and a good pension too. The solution is to take 25 of the top astronauts and replace the top 25 individuals in NASA. ALL OF THEM. Clean out the top rung and give the new incomers total cart blanch. Hire a couple of big hitting head count cutting execs from industry, (they are easily found and purchased), then take the existing slow projects and make them all speed up their aiming points. Ten year projects should be two or three years. When you run a organisation with a large overhead, the only way forward is to maximise turnover of projects. Someone in a position to make some impact on this debate must realise; that statements of impossibility clearly demonstrate a flaw that has no place in a such forward moving organisation. NASA faces daily challenges to the impossible. Until it is realised that the fatal flaw is right at the top, these sort of accidents will continue to happen and that is very sad when we are talking about the leading edge of the intellect of the finest nation on the planet.
Hey, they could get two shuttles up real quick in the movie Armageddon, why not real life? :)
...those people have been watching too many Gundam movies.
``If a rescue had been attempted, most likely we would have lost two shuttles and more astronauts.''
The real question is whether this is better or worse than doing nothing. Risk versus reward. The cost of doing nothing is guaranteed to result in the loss of one shuttle and crew. Is a long shot worth no shot at all?
At least none of the astronauts were forced to be "friends forever" with an annoying, spherical robot or to have to endure the mutterings of that whiny little bastard kid. (Well, I suppose he turned out ok, growing up to become the Emperor of Rome and all...)
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
The problem was never a lack of actual capability to perform a rescue. The problem was a lack of awareness of the situation and a lack of willingness to do the unusual. I wrote about this at the time.
i concur
It happened; it was tragic; we now know why.
Let's acknowledge that we have flawed (even if brilliantly engineered) aging system. We have little choice but to limp along for now, using what we've got. Let's fix the problems we can, and continue to fly.
Let's not forget that NASA's not totally to blame. If Congress didn't cut their budgets, there might be better maintenance on the shuttle; and, there'd be a next generation shuttle flying now. And, if the Air Force hadn't insisted the shuttle be built out of Aluminum (they insisted that the available titanium go to the SR-71 program) the shuttle would have been made of more durable stuff. But that's just more woulda, shoulda, coulda stuff, and I digress.
To totally cancel the existing program would devastate any research currently being carried out. I've seen research projects, which had merit, die slow painful deaths because of program cancellations. I'm sure I'm not alone in having been the target of cancellations because of FUD: "We're not going to do ... because last time we invested money, ... cancelled the program half way through"
Obviously, we need to build a replacement system. It will take time; that's just a fact. What we've learned from the Shuttle, good and bad, will make it's eventual replacement that much better.