The cold reality here is that this will happen again. And again. And again.
The Space Shuttle was designed in the 60’s, built in the 70’s and flew in the 80’s. It is the most complex vehicle ever built in history. (I know others will claim that Doomsday plane [the presidents SIOPs 747; I can’t think of it’s name] is more complex; but that was customized with tons 'o electronics and doesn’t reenter the earth atmosphere). It is at the same time technologically obsolete, but in spite of that has been upgraded over the years to increase it capability (lighter components, faster electronics, better redundancy). It is also capable of fully flying without a pilot. (The Shuttle pilots hate this feature; they want *some[\i] input on the controls so at least the last part of landing is done manually). One could conceivably send up an empty Orbiter and redevouz with the damaged one and xfer of pilots could occur (via the giant “beachball” capsule). But so far as I know, this has never been seriously tested, nor do I recall any Orbiters that could have been furnished in time to effect a rescue.
It is naive to believe that with 10^6 parts you will not have some of them conspire to fail at the wrong time and in some cases this results in a catastrophic failure. In the case of Challenger, O rings and using segmented booster cases (rather than one continuous section) resulted in the infamous blow torch. In Apollo 13, a doubling of the Bus Voltage (from 24 V to 48 V), resulted in a rated 24 volt switch being “welded” together and allowing the cryo heaters to be stuck in the on position to the point that the LOX tank blowing open. In Apollo 1, pressuring the command module to 18 psi (?) with pure 02, and having a tiny spark or flame that ordinarily would be nothing to worry about, became a “bomb” in the caloric sense. One of the Soyuz spacecraft as it undocked had a differential valve stuck open, and the astronauts died from depressurization before reentry. The list goes on and on and on…
The Shuttle is statistically an accident waiting to happen. But remember this:
The Space Shuttle is the most successful launch vehicle in history. When compared to other launch vehicles (Delta, Redstone, Saturn 1, Pegasus, Jupiter, Proton, Ariane, etc.). The fact that it is large, reusable and it is manned makes it much more vulnerable physically and emotionally to disaster then say Soyuz or Apollo (smaller, single use, escape systems, robust heat shields, etc.).
A rescue ship, replacing the tile in an EVA, using an escape capsule, all sound relevant now, but frankly impractical. There is a cost issue associated with each one, along with weight and infrastructure penalties. Remember, in the first Shuttle mission, Crippen and Young had ejection seats. They got rid of them soon after that because of the weight and the confidence that the Space Shuttle was reliable (the fact that it didn’t burn up on reentry was a “proof” that the “theory” was correct).
The fact is this is a very dangerous line of work. And I’ll be ruthlessly cold-- that’s too bad. They knew this; I’ve met several astronauts (Apollo and Space Shuttle) and they know better than anyone else what the risk is and that they could die in this line of work. But one thing I know that perhaps compensates for this outlook-- The are extremely motivated and driven, and that even if they knew right after the launch that they were doomed, they would continue to do their jobs. Why? Because that’s the kind of people they are, they just don’t give up. (Apollo 13 is one of those great stories of endurance; the Ron Howard movie failed to convey technically just how lucky and close to physical and mental exhaustion they were at the end).
Even with the NASA propaganda machine pitching the astronauts as good, clean Americans (which isn’t always the case), up close they were inspirational in a non-manipulative way, which stuck out like a sore thumb in my Washington, DC days. I couldn’t help but be mightily impressed with the few I met.
Frankly, if I were told I was going on the next mission with even with formentioned risk, I’d jump at the chance. It’s worth the risk–even with four grandkids. It’s one of the few things I see nowadays that will inspire kids and adults to dream of something with a little more substance then the fluff of entertainment, or the solipsism of sports. (I suppose you could make the samecase for space exploration, but people who die in the former two don’t necessarily put their lives on the line to the extreme the astronauts/cosmonauts/future ESAnauts/indianauts/chinanaut do.)
Case in point: Back in the 80’s, JPL sent a van up to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA to help us on some of the management aspects of the “Get Away Special” payload which we intended to place on some future Shuttle flight. I didn’t think much about it at the time. But when I rode with the guy to the filling station with that big JPL logo and the NASA insignia, it seemed that any kid there who saw it would came up to us would ask if we were either astronauts or scientists. (mind you, these kids tried desperatly to project that they were “cool” and unaffected by anything). Even with my jaundiced outlook at those insecure kids at that time, it was mighty impressive to see how awed they were.
So in spite of all this hand wringing and hyperbole (headline: Will the Space Program go On?), there’s just too many people out there who love this stuff. In addition, with the rise of the PRC and India space program which will give us some much needed competition, this isn’t going to stop anytime soon.