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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."
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."
Um, many problems. Primarily, the Columbia had 7 people (and a shuttle can hold more), while a Soyuz just carries 3 (including the pilot who brought it up).
So it would've taken 4 Soyuz to evacuate the Columbia crew, risking 4 individual pilots. As opposed to the two pilots who could bring a shuttle up (maybe even just one could do it, but NASA'd never try that).
Satellites are no longer launched by Shuttle.
Before Challenger they were, Hubble and KH-12 have similar chasis for Shuttle launches, but after the delay from Challenger NRO/NSA/DMA switched to Titan for KH and Lacrosse.
Commerical sat launches were outlawed by Congress after Challenger and while some recce birds were launched by Shuttle after Challenger, it was due to problems with Delta/Titan which have been fixed and so for the last decade they do the launching.
Everything now is launched by the Russians, Chinese, Delta, Ariane, Titan, Sealaunch now.
Nor does Shuttle capture and repair anything anymore but Hubble.
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.
Well, Soyuz capsules can only hold three people. Since each Soyuz would need a pilot to spacewalk to the shuttle w/ spacesuits for his passengers (you're right, the hatches aren't compatible and the Columbia crew didn't have any spacesuits IIRC), you could fit two people in each Soyuz. Three in the later Soyuzes if they have an autopilot (the first would still need a pilot to get the spacesuits to Columbia). So, best case scenario you'd need three Soyuzes to get the entire crew down safely. Now, IIRC Russia only had one that was anywhere near ready to launch. Even assuming they had a couple partially completed Soyuzes and rockets under construction, it'd probably be at least another 3-4 months before they had enough ready to rescue the crew.
I think that if you're stranded in space, the faster and simpler (1 launch versus 3-4) rescue operation is the better one.
As it was, they didn't realize the wing was damaged (or the severity of the damage) until it was too late, and the accident investigation is still continuing.
Um, Sparky, Soyuz can't reach the orbit Columbia was in.
Four.
And Columbia didn't have the equipment to dock with a Soyuz.
Umm, Ron Dittemore already has resigned.
He was planning on leaving even before Columbia was lost.
The camera idea is neat. Just toss 10 or more of those spycameras sold on so many spam mails out shutles porthole. Turn shutle around and watch from TV-set if there is tiles missing or some other damage. Cheap solution preventing this kind of disaster happening un-noticed again.
jk
Well, kind of. A physics book wouldn't do much good, but an Astrodynamics book would. Hell, a geometry book would do better than a straight-up physics book. And here's why:
Even though the inclination (angle between flight path and equator when passing the equator) and semi-major axis (fancy-talk for altitude under circular orbits) were nearly the same for the Shuttle and the ISS, it is the right ascension of the ascending node (RAAN, or capital Omega) that made this impossible. In layman's terms, this value indicates the longitude (in ECI coordinates...they're similar to your typical longitude, but they don't change with the spinning of the Earth) of when the craft makes its upward pass through the Equator. For the Shuttle and the ISS, these were almost 180 degrees apart. Not exactly ideal for a rendezvous.
What does this mean? It means that the orbits only intersect at the equator. And the angle of intersection, IIRC, was greater than 85 degrees. The change in velocity for this type of rendezvous is approximately equal to the amount needed to get into orbit. And that's not an amount of fuel you like to keep on a shuttle "just in case."
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.