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The Rescue Plan That Could Have Saved Space Shuttle Columbia
An anonymous reader writes "In February, 2003, space shuttle Columbia was lost upon atmospheric re-entry. Afterward, NASA commissioned an exhaustive investigation to figure out what happened, and how it could be prevented in the future. However, they also figured out exactly what would have been required for a repair and rescue mission using Atlantis. Lee Hutchinson at Ars Technica went through the report and wrote a lengthy article explaining what such a mission would look like. In short: risky and terribly complex — but possible. 'In order to push Atlantis through processing in time, a number of standard checks would have to be abandoned. The expedited OPF processing would get Atlantis into the Vehicle Assembly Building in just six days, and the 24/7 prep work would then shave an additional day off the amount of time it takes to get Atlantis mated to its external tank and boosters. After only four days in the Vehicle Assembly Building, one of the two Crawler-Transporters would haul Atlantis out to Launch Complex 39, where it would stage on either Pad A or Pad B on Flight Day 15—January 30. ... Once on the pad, the final push to launch would begin. There would be no practice countdown for the astronauts chosen to fly the mission, nor would there be extra fuel leak tests. Prior to this launch, the shortest time a shuttle had spent on the launch pad was 14 days; the pad crews closing out Atlantis would have only 11 days to get it ready to fly.'"
From TFA:
The foam strike was not observed live. Only after the shuttle was orbiting Earth did NASA's launch imagery review reveal that the wing had been hit. Foam strikes during launch were not uncommon events, and shuttle program managers elected not to take on-orbit images of Columbia to visually assess any potential damage. Instead, NASA's Debris Assessment Team mathematically modeled the foam strike but could not reach any definitive conclusions about the state of the shuttle's wing.
The mission continued.
"Could" is a pretty strong word. As Lee goes into some depth on exactly how much of a record breaking effort it would have taken just to get Atlantis off the ground in time to save Columbia, and how many corners would have to be not only cut but removed with a chainsaw, it would be more accurate to say that the plan proposed by the CAIB shows that even if the Launch Director had pointed to Columbia as it was launching and said "Hey, there are some missing tiles there. We need to get Atlantis ready right now", they still wouldn't have been able to do it.
The thing to take away from this is not that NASA could have saved Columbia but didn't, but that they changed the plan for every other shuttle launch so that they would always have a second launch vehicle on standby. It's about learning from mistakes, not making them worse.
Yes, but this was their contingency plan portfolio at the time:
1. Spend 12 weeks to prep Atlantis at which time the larger astronauts would have begun eating the smallar astronauts. (Proven in animal testing)
2. Request $5b in DARPA funding to develop and deploy a space elevator to retrieve astronauts in 5 years. (Plus project delays, see problem with contingency #1)
3. Bruce Willis, a long rope, and a toothpick.
4. Buy Uncle Murphy a case of Guinness, pray to several gods, and try to land the sucker anyway. (AKA: The ostrich risk assessment technique).
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
If you knew with complete assurance that the first crew would be lost if they attempted to land without repair, then it would likely be worth the risk to a second crew to mount a rescue.
If on the other hand, there’s only some chance that the first crew would be lost attempting to land, then working that risk into the risk to the second crew is reasonable. IE if there’s a 10% chance that there might have been trouble landing (and it sounds like the foam strikes leading up to Columbia’s trouble were in fact common, so could be considered low-risk) then it’s not unreasonable to decide that the risk of the second crew is an unreasonable risk. Consider also that the risk to this second crew for an accelerated launch process would likely have been FAR greater than a “normal” shuttle launch (assuming it can be said there’s anything “normal” about strapping a bomb to your ass and fleeing the planet...)
If there’s a very high chance of failure of the original crew’s landing, then the additional risk might be worth it. If not, then you really are doubling down and risking losing two crews. It’s entirely plausible that due to the corners cut for an accelerated launch Atlantis could have exploded during launch, leaving Columbia to still take their chances landing with a damaged wing.
Armchair quarterbacking is easy. Saying they should have risked a second crew *now*, knowing that it’s an impossibility and that your assertion that the risk is reasonable will never be tested is also easy. Being left to make that call in the moment, knowing that you could be sending a second shuttle crew to their deaths trying to help another crew that might not even need the help the first place. Little bit harder to live with that one...
The loss of the Columbia crew is a tragedy, but looking back based on this report, it doesn’t seem like the way it was handled was unreasonable.
As stated in the article (page 2, I know, I must be new here):
Columbia's 39 degree orbital inclination could not have been altered to the ISS 51.6 degree inclination without approximately 12,600 ft/sec of translational capability. Columbia had 448 ft/sec of propellant available.
Mathematical modelling team: "We can't be 100% sure, but the models don't look good. Recommend taking a look for damage."
Mission director: "And if we see damage what then?"
Engineering team: "Um."
Do you wish that the first Apollo mission hadn't reached the moon?
Dude, I have some really bad news for you about Apollo I. They didn't even make it off the launchpad - all dead in a fire.
There were four more manned missions, and a number of unmanned missions before Apollo 11 reached the lunar surface.
Yeah, but we're talking about Sandra Bullock here.
Fuck you. I don't normally go for insults, I like reasoned discussion. But fuck you if you think that the engineers and managers involved in the disaster weren't devastated. They made a choice, and it was the wrong choice. But you don't know jack shit about what went into that choice. How many times had there been foam strikes with no damage? How many times had they sacrificed part of the mission to do inspection, only to find no damage?
The REALLY cool kids are the ones AT NASA
rewriting history since 2109
Yes, but now they determined that with only 11 years of study first, they could launch a rescue mission in 15 days. Now there's a bureaucracy.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Don't be stupid. Anyone who's seen Gravity knows that all shuttles, space stations and satellites orbit within a fire-extinguisher's blast from each other.
Or worse, they could have gotten Atlantis into orbit, only to discover they had TWO shuttles in orbit with deadly foam strikes. Or they could have blown up Atlantis on the pad because they crammed a month worth of work into 5 days, and a weeks worth of safety and inspection checks into a few hours. Hindsight always reveals a ton of 'what if's' but in all honestly, they took option that put the fewest number of lives at risk. They lost those lives, but the call had to be made.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Welcome to the never ending lawsuits. If NASA knew about it and didn't risk a bunch of lives to attempt a rescue, you bet your ass there would be a thousand lawsuits filed within days. And the only humans to ever go into space after that would be from communist nations where they cannot be sued.
And here is where IMHO, the wrong decision was made. They elected to not take images to see the damage. If they did, and saw the damage, instead of trying to rush Atlantis back into orbit, could they not have...
The wrong decision was made decades earlier when the US chose to rest on their laurels and not improve the shuttle design by increasing the safety margin or the turnaround time:
-The turnaround time between shuttle launches should not exceed the crew's air supply.
-The cockpit should have been contained in a module that could be ejected during reentry.
There are no technical hurdles to meeting either of those goals... NASA did not design the original shuttles to accommodate these factors due to cost. They could have redesigned the shuttles to be safer after 20 years of technology development and flight experience, but that also was deemed to cost too much.
This is the reason the astronauts died. Their lives were not worth the cost of incorporating full redundancy into the shuttle systems.