Over at The Corner, Rod Dreher has what he calls “big news” about Columbia, with a link to a Florida Today article, that resurrects the notion that the Columbia astronauts could have been saved, had NASA been more diligent in gathering data and understanding the true situation.
An internal NASA study done at the request of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board indicates it may have been possible to mount a rescue mission that could have had a chance of saving Columbia astronauts.
A senior investigator familiar with the study told Florida Today the plan would have to have been predicated on an immediate post-launch recognition by NASA that the shuttle was so badly crippled it could not make it home.
That would have allowed the crew to strictly conserve its life-sustaining supplies, hunker down and wait for the rushed launched of shuttle Atlantis, which was on its way to being ready for liftoff March 1 on another flight.
Atlantis’ crew then could have rendezvoused with Columbia and tried to bring the crew aboard through a series of daring spacewalks.
We’ll never know if this Hollywoodesque scenario would have worked. Frankly, it takes a great leap of faith to think it would have. But it was never even considered, because NASA managers failed to thoroughly examine the extent of Columbia’s damage.
I’ve written on this subject before, and pointed out that there was the potential here for a flight director’s nightmare, and there certainly may have been a subconscious reluctance to look for bad news, because they knew that broken tiles meant a lost Orbiter and dead astronauts. The problem here was not the Shuttle design per se, but the fact that our orbital infrastructure is essentially non existent, and we sent Columbia off into the wilderness, where a breakdown meant death.
That was the reality, as NASA understood it. Was it “possible” to somehow rescue the Columbia crew, given early understanding of the problem, and a sped-up Atlantis launch, and heroics on orbit?
Perhaps.
Was it realistic, or sensible, to make such an attempt?
Almost certainly not, but that’s where we have to put astronauts’ lives in the balance against, well, other things.
Many have compared this to what happened a third of a century ago, and claim that NASA missed an “Apollo XIII moment.” But that’s an oversimplistic comparison–there are many differences between Apollo XIII and Columbia.
First, the obvious one, of course, is that in the case of the latter, Houston didn’t know “we have a problem” until the vehicle started to come apart over the western United States. The critique here implies that that’s the only difference, and that had they known right after launch, the crew could have been saved, as it was then. This ignores several other significant differences.
Apollo XIII was fortunate enough to have a great deal of margin, in both time and equipment. Had the oxygen tank exploded on the way back from the Moon, the crew would have died, regardless of derring do and heroics on the ground. Their vehicle was essentially in good shape, and didn’t require repair–just reconfiguration. And for all of that, it was still a very close thing. While we should be thankful that we could save that crew, it’s had a bad side effect of presenting NASA as being ominipotent in the public mind, and capable of overcoming any adversity (despite abundant evidence to the contrary in the three decades since). The fact was, it takes nothing away from the skill and brilliance of actions at mission control to say that they were also damned lucky.
We now know that Columbia was badly broken during launch, and that the fate of the crew and vehicle were sealed once the decision was made to press to main engine cutoff, and orbit. They might have been saved by a trans-Atlantic abort, but there was no time at all to gather the information to make that decision, which occurs during launch itself. There was nothing in the vehicle that could be reconfigured, or duct taped, that would repair what was a broken primary and vital subsystem (the thermal protection system)–one that absolutely had to work in order to bring the vehicle back.
Some will argue (and apparently do, according to the article linked) that the vehicle could have been reconfigured to buy more time, but that’s not sufficient, because of the next, perhaps even more important difference, because it raises very uncomfortable ethical issues.
Apollo XIII had nothing to lose.
Other than lost sleep and fatique among mission controllers, there was no cost or risk to doing everything possible to bring that command module back from its misbegotten journey. Because all of the resources needed were already (at least in theory) aboard the vehicle, there was no need to send anything else up to it.
What the second guessers are proposing in the case of the Columbia disaster was to hasten the launch of Atlantis. Even they admit that without doing this, the chances of a rescue were probably non-existent. That means that we would have had to launch (and risk) another vehicle (one third of our remaining fleet, not counting the doomed Columbia) and, at a minimum, another two-person crew.
One of the reasons that we fly Shuttles so seldom is that the turnaround process takes a long time. Since the loss of Challenger, the procedures to do so have become even more stringent, further reducing the flight rate. Prior to Challenger, NASA was still deluding themselves that they might eventually get to a flight rate of a couple dozen per year. Since then, due to increased safety concerns, six in a year is a good year, and many years have been less. Rushing to launch is exactly the opposite of the philosophy of maximizing flight safety, and many might argue that it would in itself be playing Russian roulette with few empty chambers.
So here are the options, assuming that NASA had been as diligent in getting the data as its critics would have had them do.
1) Let them come in as they are, and cross your fingers. This was essentially the option taken, except with fingers in normal configuration (that is, always slightly crossed, Shuttle flights being what they are, but digits twisted no more than normal) because they didn’t have the data.
2) Attempt to do an on-orbit repair with available crew and equipment. Despite Apollo XIII fantasies, this was never a realistic option. Even if they had the equipment and materials available (they didn’t), it still would have necessitated finger crossing on a planetary scale.
3) Try to extend life support as long as possible, put together a tile repair kit of some kind on the ground, change the next Atlantis mission to go repair the vehicle, launch it on or close to schedule, and bring it back with a minimal crew. Oh, by the way, this probably results in dead crew, but offers the possibility of returning the vehicle, albeit at the risk of two more astronauts. This is probably the one that makes the most sense, given the value of the hardware, but would be totally politically unacceptable.
4) The option suggested by the critics: extend life support as long as possible, and plan to launch Atlantis in time to get there before they run out of air. This is the highest risk, because now you’re rushing the launch. In other words, we’ve probably already lost a quarter of our Shuttle fleet. The crew is likely going to die regardless of what’s done. But in our determination to save them, we’re going to risk a third of the remaining fleet and more astronauts.
The interesting question to me is not which of the four options have the highest probability of getting the crew back (that’s probably option four), but which one has the highest probability of ending the manned space program?–a subject that is rarely very far from a senior Johnson Space Center official’s mind.
Option 4 is a real roll of the dice. If it works, NASA is a hero again, a la Apollo XIII. If it fails (worst case, Atlantis is lost due to the rush), we’ve lost several astronauts, and half of the Shuttle fleet. Is the Shuttle program viable with only two vehicles, particularly given the circumstances in which the others were lost?
On the other hand, having lost the crew and the vehicle, few people are talking seriously about ending manned space flight or even just the Shuttle program (though some, inevitably, are).
I’m not smart enough to predict what the public reaction would have been to any of these scenarios, and I doubt that anyone else is, either, though many no doubt think they are.
There’s an old saying that it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission. In a sense, by remaining institutionally ignorant of the vehicle’s plight (whether willfully or subconsciously), NASA spared itself a horrible dilemma, and one that they must now be grateful that they didn’t have to confront, painful as the loss of Columbia and crew must be.
[Update at 4:21 PM PDT]
Here’s a more detailed account from MSNBC.
But again, they miss the point.
The chairman acknowledged that any rescue mission would have been risky not only for Columbia?s seven crew members but also for Atlantis? four crew members. But he drew a parallel to military operations, where it is routine to risk scores of people to try to rescue one downed pilot.
?It?s kind of a contract we have with the people who go into harm?s way,? the retired admiral said. ?NASA and the nation have that same contract with astronauts, and it is my opinion, and from my personal background, that if there had been any erring, we would have erred on the side of taking the chance and going after them.?
He said astronauts would have been ?standing out in the hallways to volunteer? ? a sentiment that was echoed by former astronaut Norman Thagard.
?The astronaut corps would certainly sign up for a mission like that,? Thagard told NBC News. ?You don?t want to leave your buddies stranded.?
No argument, but this misses the point, because of the disastrous nature of our space program, in which we have such a trivial amount of activity that we have zero robustness in the system. If we only had three helicopters in the entire Pentagon inventory, we’d think twice about risking one for a rescue mission, regardless of how willing the troops were to go rescue comrades. It’s not risking more astronaut’s lives that’s the issue–it’s risking another orbiter, which, if you lose it, will result in having only two left. Until we develop a policy that doesn’t put us in such an untenable position, our space policy will continue to be an expensive failure.