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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."
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.
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.
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