Space program doomed crew question

Factual Questions
1

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I am not trying to put forth any conspiracy theories, I am merely searching for a factual answer.

I am also sorry if this may have been covered before, but whenever I do searches, I cannot get it to work correctly for some reason.

Immediately after the Columbia disaster, a friend of mine and I had a discussion about this subject and I posted this question to the MSNBC website space/science guy and he never answered.

Okay, here it goes:

When it was first put forth that something may have damaged the shuttle on liftoff, some of the NASA people were saying that there was no way that the tiles could have been repaired while in orbit. Also, it was covered that had the damage been discovered in orbit, the shuttle would have been unable to dock with the International Space Station to have the crew transferred there. Basically, it was said that nothing could have been done to save the crew. Now, it’s looking as if the shuttle was actually damaged on liftoff as originally suspected.

My question is: What is the protocol for having a “doomed” crew in orbit?

If NASA had checked (somehow, via satellites or whatever) and discovered that the tiles were fatally damaged and unable to be repaired while the crew was in orbit, would NASA inform the crew or the public?

My contention with my friend was that it would not be worth if for NASA to reveal it to anyone if it was aware of a doomed flight. What do you gain by telling the crew? Why not let them think they are going to live until the last possible moment? Also, I would think that NASA would NEVER reveal it to the public while a doomed flight was in orbit. (Think of the nightly newscasts: “COUNTDOWN TO DEATH!” “I’m Dan Rather. The hearty and brave Space Shuttle crew is a mere 4 hours away from burning up in the atmosphere…”)

So, again, what is the protocol? And I imagine that all astronauts are made aware of the risks involved. That they know that when their shuttle is not configured for ISS docking or tile repair. Are they made to sign some waiver that says they will not be informed if the flight is doomed?

Anyone have any serious input on this?

Thanks.

2

First off, the mods will move this thread out of GQ because there is no definite answer to your questions.

Why?

Because NASA will not tell you if they have a rescue plan in place.

I worked on the Columbia Shuttle Recovery and had the opportunity to ask these same questions of the NASA engineers assigned to our location. The Columbia was not able to dock with the ISS under any circumstances because, as the first Shuttle, it was too heavy and never was retro-fitted for the procedure.

Any attempted rescue mission would have had to come from another spacecraft launched specifically for that purpose. However, where does one get a rescue craft? NASA does not keep another Shuttle on standby, nor does the Soviet Union. While it might be possible to bring online another Shuttle, the problem is not so much technical as it is time. Chances are, NASA would not have enough time to prime another Shuttle, launch it and rescue the stranded crew.

The NASA engineers never said it, but I got the impression the real reason may very well be is they do not plan for a rescue mission in the first place. It’s not so much a cocky attitude as it is a supreme confidence in the Shuttle, backed up by testing, testing, testing, along with redundant systems, and extensive training.

The Shuttle is the most sophisticated machine ever created. It had to work from the start because there was no second chance. Had Columbia failed back in 1981 on the Shuttle program’s maiden voyage, NASA would have lost its entire manned space program right then and there.

That said, I am quite sure NASA would attempt a rescue mission. From the start, NASA would probably be operating under the premise that a successful rescue would not be possible. At that point any attempt would be a plus for them. Maybe they could get a rescue Shuttle launched, but not in time. Maybe they could get to the stranded crew, but unforseen technical difficulties prevent a rescue. And so on. The point is, NASA would have to launch a rescue mission if only to be seen by an ignorant public who pays for the space program that they tried. The failed mission wouls result in Congressional hearings and may very well doom the space program anyway. But attempting a mission, regardless of the outcome, would mitigate to some degree the criticism against NASA.

And yes, the astronaunts know the risks. They do sign waivers. After all, most are just government employees.

3

I think the engineers are aware of how dangerous the flights are. They’re the ones who really understand how difficult it is to fly a spacecraft.

However, you can’t plan for every single possible problem and prepare rescue options. Certain failures are very likely to occur and/or easy to plan for. For example, it’s very likely that the Shuttle fleet would be grounded at some point due to mechanical problems and leave the ISS crew stranded; that’s why there is always a return vehicle attached to the ISS.

On the other hand, when is it useful to launch a rescue ship? When the Shuttle is known to be damaged and cannot reenter, but the life support is fully operational. That’s not a very likely scenario - most accidents in space kill you immediately or at least cripple the life support. And even if an accident disabled only the part of the Shuttle needed for reentry, it’s unlikely that it would be diagnosed correctly in time to launch a rescue mission. In fact, it wasn’t diagnosed on the Columbia. Also consider the cost of having a second Shuttle ready for a rescue mission: you need the facilities and personnel to prepare two Shuttles at the same time. This would be an enormous expense just to prepare for an unlikely accident.

That’s the sad truth - some situations are too expensive to guard against, and sometimes people get killed as a result. It’s easy to point your finger at that one omission, but for every such incident there are a thousand other possible failures which are (or were thought to be) equally likely/unlikely and cost as much to prepare for.

I don’t know if they would have tried to launch a rescue mission. It would be an enormous risk, just because launch preparations are not something you want to rush. Look what happened the last time they tried to launch a Shuttle in time for a State of the Union address (right?). You would be risking additional crew, and imagine the negative publicity if they lost both flights.

4

I posted the same thoughts on here after the disaster myself.
Since then tho I have come to realize that between the Russians French and the US a resupply ship could of been sent probably within a week which could of kept them going until a shuttle was readied to go get them.

5

I’m sure there is a protocol in place at NASA. (We’ll probably never know about it though).
I seem to recall they eluded very lightly to this topic in the film ‘Apollo 13’. One crew member was trying to fend off panic, and said something like “They (Mission Control) are working on a plan”. Another replied “Would they tell us if they weren’t?” (paraphrase) and all 3 gave each other a look that said “Oh shit, good point”.

Did anyone read Jim Lovell’s boigraphy? This must have been a valid concern for that crew at some point.

6

Of course, you realize this means that you’d have had to previously fit the STS shuttles so they ARE capable of underway replenishment of the LOX and H2 tanks for the fuel cells, and of the RCS propellant tanks, besides food, water and air. (The thing’s not solar-powered, it uses fuel cells)

Then you would have designed a “resupply ship” that will work for an STS shuttle and rate it with the appropriate mission-capable launch rocket, or else modify the Progress-class supply drone to carry the kinds of stores used by the shuttle. AND you would have previously fit the shuttles permanently with the appropriate docking ports/mating plugs (an airlock does not a docking port make).

THEN you would need to have the “resupply system” sitting on the launch pad ready to go every time there’s a STS mission. Nobody keeps “spare” boosters sitting around ready-to-go-on-less-than-a-month’s-notice, and you DON’T just rip out a comsat and stick your orbiter on top of whatever large enough booster just happens to be closest to launch window.

:dubious:

In any case, the protocol for a case like this would end up looking pretty much like what did happen: take the slim chance that it will hold together at least until, if you can’t make a proper landing, it’s safe to bail out (they can do it, below a certain altitude/speed).

7

But couldn’t NASA have altered the re-entry of the Shuttle so that if it did break up in flight, it would have been less likely to spread debris over populated areas? I mean, it’s not just the astronauts’ lives that are at stake in these situations, is it?

If it was truly hopeless, and NASA determined that the shuttle could never return successfully, could the shuttle just have been parked in a high(er) orbit? Yes, the air would run out before a rescue could be mounted, but maybe the shuttle could have stayed in orbit long enough to allow the bodies to be retrieved intact.

8

The attachement of new tiles requires a manufacturing process that can not be carried out within the confines of a shuttle mission.

There are any number of “rescue” scenarios that might have been attempted. They could have maneuvered within docking distance of the ISS, spacewalked over, and taken one of the Russian rockets down, which is what the current crew will have to return in if the shuttle is grounded for too long. But this would have been incredibly risky.

The shuttle simply does not have enough life support on board for more than a two-week mission, which is more time than it would take to muster some other kind of rescue rocket. Sure, it might have been prudent to have some sort of back-up rocket waiting on earth for every mission, sut since there hadn’t been an accident in 17 years, what Congress was going to approve the budget to keep THAT up, given that the tiny percentage of the Federal Budget that NASA gets is the government’s favorite fish barrel to shoot into?

And anyway, the shuttle had lost a larger number of tiles on previous occasions, with no detrimental effects. This is why they initially found it unlikely that the lost tiles were the trigger of the explosion. It was a reasonably calculated risk that backfired.

9

Have you read any of the previous posts? The Columbia absolutely could not have reached the Space Station. Given the orbit it was already in, none of the Shuttles could have reached the Station, and the Columbia was the least maneuverable of the Shuttles. Or, to rephrase that: They could have gotten to the same position as the ISS, but they could not have gotten to the same position and velocity. Had they tried, the result would have been a very bad collision guaranteed to kill all ten astronauts.

For similar reasons, a Russian vehicle could not have been launched to meet them. I believe that France launches from Guiana, near the Equator, which would have been a workable launch site, but France’s space hardware is pitiful. I doubt that they had anything which could remotely be worked up to a rescue mission on short notice. And we wouldn’t have time to send them relevant equipment, either. Any attempt at re-supply would have to launch from Cape Canaveral, using American equipment.

Now, assuming that we did manage to get a rocket up to intercept the Shuttle, carrying extra oxygen tanks, I suspect that the astronauts could have worked out some way to use them. If nothing else, just take a full tank into the crew compartment and open the valve. But I suspect that we couldn’t have gotten oxygen tanks up to them in time.

10

We’re straying off topic here, the OP is assuming all possibilities have been exhausted and the crew is doomed. Can anyone take a guess at how NASA would handle it?

11

Why do you assume there is such a thing?

My belief is that NASA and the gang are going to keep trying to solve the problem as long as there’s still life. The Apollo 13 incident is a case in point - those guys were in a very very bad situation and there was no assurance they’d get back alive until they did. But that didn’t stop them from trying.

It’s a mindset in aviation (a close cousin to space travel) that you never give up, that you keep trying until the bitter end. I think that’s carried over into the space program to a large degree.

I don’t think they’d tell the whole story to the public. As for the crew… I don’t know. If they were equipped for a spacewalk and could, perhaps, have slathered something over the damage (not tiles, just some other stuff) that might have held things together long enough to get them home… yeah, I think they’d have a go at it. At that point there’s nothing to lose by trying.

Well, as a general rule astronauts tend to be pretty smart folks. If they figure out there’s a serious or even fatal problem and you keep lying to them they might get a little peeved. Also, as I said, even if it looks hopeless there’s going to be guys in orbit and on the ground who will keep hammering away at the problem until everyone’s home or in little bitty pieces. Since the guys in orbit are the ones who will have to do any required fixing or improvising it’s going to be a little hard to keep up a front of everything’s OK when you’re asking them to rearrange the spaceship’s components.

At present there is no rescue in space. You either save your own butt or you die. That’s pretty cold and blunt but it’s also reality. Everyone who goes up knows that - as I said, they’re pretty smart people as a rule.

Oh, I hate it when I do this, but… cite? I’m trying to recall Big Space Accidents, of which there have been a few.

Leaving out launchpad fires and other ground mishaps (we’re talking space accidents, right?) the only ones I can recall are as follows:

  • The Soviet re-entry where a valve malfunctioned and let all the air out, resulting in the death of 3 cosmonauts

  • Apollo 13, which did “mess up” life support but between NASA and the guys aboard they were able to jury-rig things enough to get home.

  • The collision between a Proton re-supply rocket and the Mir, resulting in decompression and some serious problems, but no one aboard was hurt. Just shook up real good.

  • There was at least one fire aboard the Mir as well, but again, no one hurt and the problem was brought under control.

  • The Challenger accident, of course, which killed seven. Does that count? They weren’t in space yet. On the other hand, it’s proof that riding a rocket can be extremely hazardous.

Hmm… unless I’m missing something here, it looks like 60% of the time when accidents happen in space you still manage to get home. Given the circumstances - the most hostile environment visited by humanity, lack of rescue, limited resources, and some serious dangers like suffocation and burning up like a meteor on re-entry - that’s not bad. Better than 50/50

Columbia and/or those aboard could not have made it to the ISS. I seem to recall some mention that they were not equipped for a spacewalk. I don’t know - they boys and girls who fly spaceships, both US and Soviet, have a track record of being quite ingenious at solving problems. Maybe they could have rigged something up to extend the life support to buy time, maybe they could have worked something out from there. Maybe not. There are various hypothetical scenarios that would make excellent fiction.

The truth is, if the next shuttle (or whatever) goes up and gets into trouble it’s the same problem - either they can rescue themselves (with a little cheerleading from the ground) or they all die.

And certainly after Challenger no one had the illusion that this was a perfectly safe mode of travel.

12

All of these scenarios seem to be focused strictly only on rescuing the astronauts. I think there are other things to think about, such as:[ul][li]Discovering as much as possible about what went wrong so it won’t happen again. If people are going to die, I think it helps them to know that they did as much as they could to help prevent others from facing the same fate.[/li][li]Give people who face a very good chance of dying an opportunity to make their peace[/li][li]Minimize possible damage to civilians. As has been pointed out repeatedly, the astronauts knew the risks they were taking. On the other hand, folks in Texas probably didn’t expect they’d ever see smoking shuttle debris smashing into their backyards.[/ul]So these are scenarios that I’d propose:[/li]A small chance of survival on re-entry.

Figure out as much as you can about what’s wrong. Try to make sure that data collected during re-entry that can help diagnose the problem will be preserved and/or transmitted to ground stations.

Give the astronauts a chance to have a good heart-to-heart with their loved ones before re-entry.

During the re-entry attempt, route the shuttle over the ocean and/or non-populated areas so that if it does break up, damage on the ground is minimized.
No chance of survival on re-entry.

Work like hell to come up with some scenario that could provide a hope of survival.

When that fails, put the shuttle in an orbit that would take as long as possible to decay.

Let the astronauts say their good-byes to their families and then cut off all contact with the orbiter.

When possible, send up another mission or missions to retrieve the bodies, diagnose the problem, and see what can be salvaged from the damaged shuttle.

(Actually, I have a hard time believing NASA could ever be able to admit that there was no hope. It just seems to go against their institutional mindset.)

13

Huh. Well, the big problem I see with that is the fact that on re-entry the shuttle is a glider. If you misjudge you can’t just fire up the rockets and try again. And the darn thing isn’t designed to land on water.

Seems to me that altering the planned re-entry course might increase the danger to the astronauts. Of course, if the situation is dire enough, and chances of astronaut survival low enough, it might be reasonable to do more to protect those on the ground than in the shuttle.

Part of the problem is that to glide in from orbit you’re going to cross a lot of territory. It’s going to be really, really tough to plot a course that doesn’t go over inhabited territory.

Of course, large objects hurtle through the air at high speed every day over both wilderness and cities worldwide. They’re called “airplanes”. If they fall down they can do a lot of damage, but the odds of them hitting any one particular place are so low that society as a whole (with a few exceptions) accept the risk for the benefits provided. Does the shuttle provide equally acceptable tradeoffs? Interesting question…

I agree. You have to be amazingly optimistic to ride a rocket into a vacuum and expect to come back in one piece. These are not folks who blink when staring down risk and danger.

14

What I meant to say was, a rescue operation is only useful when:
[ul]
[li]Crew is alive[/li][li]Life support remains operational[/li][li]Safe return becomes impossible, and diagnosed as such[/li][/ul]
No such accident has ever occured, so I think it’s safe to say that it’s a highly unlikely type of accident.

15

Couldn’t a (possibly fatally) damaged shuttle make a landing attempt at Edwards Air Force Base in California instead of Kennedy? I know there were previous shuttle landings at Edwards.

If the Columbia had attempted to land at Edwards on that fateful day, wouldn’t most or all of the debris have hit the Pacific?

Well, I’ll guess that the vast majority of people are willing to take the risk of an unanticipated accident. On the other hand, if NASA knows beforehand that there’s a very large chance that a shuttle will break up on re-entry, I think they have a duty to consider those of us on the ground.

16

Umm… think about what you would want if you were up there… I sure as hell wouldnt’ want to know I was going to die. And I sure as hell wouldn’t want to wait around and die from oxygen asphyxiation… That just doesn’t sound fun…

If the ground crew knew that the shuttle was unsalvageable, I think they’d just let it break up in the atmosphere. It’s hte quickest death and leaste painful, because you are probably dead before you even know what hit you.
Routing the Colombia to Edwards wouldnt have solved anything, except spread debris across the entire western United States… You have to keep in mind, that when the shuttle breaks up 11 miles high, and moving at 10,000 mph, the individual pieces retain that forward momentum. They WILL keep moving foward until they loose forward momentum… That is a potential disaster for California, with LA, San Diego, and San Francisco in the area…
There is no right answer for this OP.

One things for sure… you dont tell the public.

17

As far as Broomstick’s comment as to why I assumed they had a protocol for dealing with a “doomed” crew, half-seriously, I would have to say because I figured they had a protocol for every possible scenario. Which would include a “doomed” irretrievable spacecraft with a crew on board. But what first led me to ask this question was that in the first few days after the Columbia accident, the line was that if anything happened on launch, there was nothing that could have been done anyway. So, they are admitting, albeit after the fact, that the crew was “doomed” right after launch. They just didn’t know it then. My question is for when NASA actually does figure it out while the spacecraft is still in orbit.

Secondly, as far as the rescue goes using another shuttle, my friend with whom I was having this discussion suggested that another shuttle could have been launched to rescue the “doomed” crew had NASA known that it was fatally damaged. However, my contention was (and still is) “you have a shuttle up there that was damaged somehow, the biggest suspect is something that happened at launch, and you are going to send up ANOTHER shuttle without first figuring out what happened to damage the first one? You risk putting up two doomed crews.” It’s now April 24, the disaster happened Feb 1, they are just starting to firm up a theory. That’s a long time to wait to make sure the next shuttle doesn’t suffer the same fate before sending it up.

As far as doomed crews and protocol, didn’t President Nixon have a speech ready to address the nation with in case the Apollo 11 astronauts had been stranded on the moon? Clearly, they must have some protocol for impossibly dire situations. I mean, for President Nixon to be ready to give a speech about how the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded must indicate that even NASA knows there are limits as to what can be done and what can’t be done in the event of a doomed crew.

One of my friend’s other contentions was that mounting some sort of rescue would help save NASA some face. However, I still argue that even if NASA did know, immediately after launch, that the crew was doomed, better to find it out after the disaster that they knew all along then to have the public find out that they couldn’t do anything while it was up there and have the nation on a “death watch.” NASA would be damaged either way.

Anyway, thanks for the input. I don’t suppose there are any former/current astronauts on SDMB, eh?

18

The crew can certainly bail out of the orbiter once it has entered the atmosphere, so if you can’t land it, it can be ditched anywhere.

Can’t say I would vote for that myself, as once you’re in the atmosphere, there aren’t many reasons not to land. If it was thought the orbiter would break up on re-entry, I wouldn’t wanna be trying it in the first place.

I don’t see why you wouldn’t hold out for a rescue. Even assuming any problem was found at the end of a mission, it would be feasable to conserve power/O2/water/air. All the crew have EVA suits, so if you send up something big enough, everybody could concievably transfer into it. France and Japan only launch satellites and probes, so a “rescue” launch would be up to either the U.S. or Russia. I can’t find out what Russia had on the pad at the time, but $5 says they would have given it their best shot.

Ahem. Back to the OP. The problem is you can’t construct a scenario where the crew is truley doomed. For something like that, you need to go back to the days of Apollo. If the crew was stranded on the moon, (and that’s pretty doomed.) Nixon woulda said this. The only other thing I’ve heard about it was that (public, at least) radio contact with the moon was to be shut off, just in case the astronauts said something someone might regret. I’ve heard someone say that they were gonna shut off all the radios, but that seems unfounded, as well as unnecessarily cruel.

19

Smaller pieces lose momentum much faster than a single large piece. If you split something into smaller pieces you increase surface to weight ratio, which means more friction. The Columbia debris didn’t continue flying to Florida, but fell straight down over Texas.

I think an Edwards landing does put most of the reentry path over the ocean and minimize risk of debris causing damage on the ground. Unfortunately it also means that most of the debris will sink to the ocean floor, making it much more difficult to investigate the cause of the accident, but I guess tha’ts a lesser concern than public safety.

20

Have astronauts actually been given suicide pills to take in case they get in a situation beyond rescue? Or is this a myth?