IIRC, the sub-stratta of material below the dark black outer carbon material is mid to dark dull grey. Not exactly high contrast in any world, even under direct lighting. Now, if they had a spy bird up there with a VHD radar, they could have done a surface topographical mapping of the wing leading edge and discovered any out of the ordinary un-even bits. That would have been handy.
I also believe that Columbia hade VERY limited rendezvous capabilities on its own. No EVA suits and no arm. The only other possibilities for getting things to columbia were in an arian rocket that was in the early to mid stages of prep work for a launch (though, I think that is was suffering from some sort of budgetary hangup). Japan had the capability of launching a light payload in about two weeks notice. Russia is in no position to change what their progress or soyuz were going to do. China, though quite secretive, is believed to have the capability of putting a medium weight payload in Columbia's vicinity in a three week window, though, that's largely speculation. We do know fer certain that they are pressing hard for their own manned space program. It would have been a massive coup for them to have mounted a resupply mission with their first space flight.
About the only other possibilities were classified military assets, but the airforce doesn't use their own facility much and likely didn't have anything prepped. I also believe that Boeing and its partners have a prototype ready to go for a test launch for their commercial program, but, it is virtually mothballed due to the global economy. Also, I believe that it is the sea launched system that I read about a while back and would have taken almost a month to get into position.
In the end, there just isn't a whole lot out there to help these guys out aside from a drastic crash course in re-outfitting an ICBM, and that's just plain crazy talk.
Redundant mission control isn't the point. They consider the Russia Space Agencie's mission control to be redundant for the ISS, and they have a few places in the US with LIMITED capabilities to support a shuttle in orbit, but, that's not where the limitation lies.
Its all in the telemetry limitations. They don't have the full facilities to support full telemetry from two active shuttles and the ISS. This was initially planned in the original space exploration plan as laid out when the ISS was originally conceived and proposed, but, the evil budget monster chewed lots of this up.
So, now, they can support two full feeds, ISS and shuttle, and several partial feeds (stuff like hubble, the Soyuz capsules, launch and repositioning telemtry for various smaller missions) but can't fully support two shuttles and the ISS. Now, this isn't to say that this would have stopped them from flying the mission. If Columbia had been in hibernation mode to keep as much resources for the life support systems and essential systems, it wouldn't have been broadcasting as much telemetry, nor would it all have been needed. You would, however, need every last bit of it from the undermanned rescue vehicle.
IMHO, NASA could have pulled off a ship to ship rescue, but, it would have been horribly expensive, risky, and could have potentially resulted in the loss of both ships. Atlantis would have required a night launch with the same kind of external fuel tank in similar launch conditions. The rendevous would have to have been done manually as there would not have been time to build an automated routine for it. Re-entry would have been dicey as at least two of the astronauts would have had to improvise seating arrangements for the trip back, unless they intended to attempt to save Columbia by having two volunteers bring it back in with field repairs.
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Thanks, I didn't know. They weren't OMU suits were they? Just traditional tethered EVA suits?
IIRC, the sub-stratta of material below the dark black outer carbon material is mid to dark dull grey. Not exactly high contrast in any world, even under direct lighting. Now, if they had a spy bird up there with a VHD radar, they could have done a surface topographical mapping of the wing leading edge and discovered any out of the ordinary un-even bits. That would have been handy.
I also believe that Columbia hade VERY limited rendezvous capabilities on its own. No EVA suits and no arm. The only other possibilities for getting things to columbia were in an arian rocket that was in the early to mid stages of prep work for a launch (though, I think that is was suffering from some sort of budgetary hangup). Japan had the capability of launching a light payload in about two weeks notice. Russia is in no position to change what their progress or soyuz were going to do. China, though quite secretive, is believed to have the capability of putting a medium weight payload in Columbia's vicinity in a three week window, though, that's largely speculation. We do know fer certain that they are pressing hard for their own manned space program. It would have been a massive coup for them to have mounted a resupply mission with their first space flight. About the only other possibilities were classified military assets, but the airforce doesn't use their own facility much and likely didn't have anything prepped. I also believe that Boeing and its partners have a prototype ready to go for a test launch for their commercial program, but, it is virtually mothballed due to the global economy. Also, I believe that it is the sea launched system that I read about a while back and would have taken almost a month to get into position. In the end, there just isn't a whole lot out there to help these guys out aside from a drastic crash course in re-outfitting an ICBM, and that's just plain crazy talk.
Redundant mission control isn't the point. They consider the Russia Space Agencie's mission control to be redundant for the ISS, and they have a few places in the US with LIMITED capabilities to support a shuttle in orbit, but, that's not where the limitation lies. Its all in the telemetry limitations. They don't have the full facilities to support full telemetry from two active shuttles and the ISS. This was initially planned in the original space exploration plan as laid out when the ISS was originally conceived and proposed, but, the evil budget monster chewed lots of this up. So, now, they can support two full feeds, ISS and shuttle, and several partial feeds (stuff like hubble, the Soyuz capsules, launch and repositioning telemtry for various smaller missions) but can't fully support two shuttles and the ISS. Now, this isn't to say that this would have stopped them from flying the mission. If Columbia had been in hibernation mode to keep as much resources for the life support systems and essential systems, it wouldn't have been broadcasting as much telemetry, nor would it all have been needed. You would, however, need every last bit of it from the undermanned rescue vehicle. IMHO, NASA could have pulled off a ship to ship rescue, but, it would have been horribly expensive, risky, and could have potentially resulted in the loss of both ships. Atlantis would have required a night launch with the same kind of external fuel tank in similar launch conditions. The rendevous would have to have been done manually as there would not have been time to build an automated routine for it. Re-entry would have been dicey as at least two of the astronauts would have had to improvise seating arrangements for the trip back, unless they intended to attempt to save Columbia by having two volunteers bring it back in with field repairs.