On one of the Apollo missions, there was a problem with one of the controls, but the backup functioned perfectly. NASA and the astronauts discussed what they would do about this. One of the astronauts figured that NASA would scrub the mission since the cable for the backup system ran through the same areas as the primary cable. NASA came back and told the guys that they were go, and they went to the Moon. When the astronaut got back to Earth, he asked one of the guys in Mission Control about the decision to go for the Moon and pointed out that the cables both ran through the same area and said he figured because of that, they’d scrub the mission. The guy from Mission Control said, “We didn’t know that! You were the only one who knew that! You’re right, if we’d have known that, we’d have never let you go to the Moon!” (I’m taking this from memory from Andrew Chaikin’s A Man on the Moon.)
During John Glenn’s mission, NASA tried to hide the fact from him that they thought there was a problem with his heat shield. Glenn figured that there was something up and pitched a fit until NASA told him what was wrong. Glenn agreed with what NASA planned to do, but wasn’t happy at not being told.
On Apollo 13, Fred Haise figured out that the explosion might have damaged their heat shield at about the same time as NASA.
On Apollo 12 (which was struck by lightning on launch) Chaikin’s A Man on the Moon has this to say
Normally you launch a spacecraft into an orbit that passes over the launch site. I don’t think any currently operational rockets can make big course changes in space. That means the orbital inclination cannot be smaller than the latitude of the launch site - the orbit has to reach as far north as the launch site. Columbia’s orbital inclination was 39 degrees and the Russian launch site at Baikonur is at 45.6 degrees latitude, so they couldn’t have launched a spacecraft to rendezvous with Columbia. Not to mention the fact that the Soyuz only carries 3 people.
Well, I don’t know if this has been said before or not. But couldn’t the orbit of the ISS be lowered/slowed enough to be on the same orbit as Columbia? From there they could take the risky spacewalk and transfer onto the ISS. And a new shuttle could be launched in time to save all the crew from the ISS before it burned up. If they really got something together quick they might be able to launch something to raise the orbit of the ISS again, but even if they didn’t it would still be worth those 7 lives. I already know there’s something extremely flawed with this scheme, so fire away.
Nope. Drop the ISS like that, and you’re going to have to try and get it back up to where it belongs pretty quickly. Otherwise, it’s going to slow down and burn up in the atmosphere. Also, the ISS doesn’t have the necessary fuel onboard to perform such a manover. Finally, I have a feeling that many astronauts would rather have the ISS saved, than themselves saved (since it’s unlikely that NASA’ll ever get the money to build another one).
You could probably arrange for the shuttle to land in a wide variety of places depending on how the de-orbiting burn is set up and when it’s done - but once it’s done you are committed (hence all the worry and fretting NASA does about the weather when it’s time for the landing.)
So, the question then becomes - is this damaged shuttle stil intact enough for a controlled de-orbit burn and the necessary manuvering leading up to it, and what available and possible descent will endanger the least amount of what’s on the ground? I would expect Edwards is a possibility. Depending on where the breakup occurs you may have some debris hitting California - which does have some big population centers like LA and San Francisco - but the rest of country would be spared the risk.
How bout this? When there is a space mission, the other 1 or 2 shuttles are being prepared for some other mission. Why not schedule them so that launch takes place roughly together? Then there is somewhat of a backup capability. I imagine that ground crews would be stretched to do that, but for the cost of an orbiter and crew, you could pay for a lot of overtime. As someone said above, why launch another one when there is already an unknown problem in orbit and double your risk. I’d take that chance.
But what about your spouse and kids? Would they want to know? Would they have any right to know?
Personally, if I had a crystal ball that said I had a 95% probability of dying tomorrow, I know I’d use the opportunity to say a last good-bye to my family and tidy up any loose-ends, if possible.
But maybe you’re right. Maybe astronauts sit down and have that talk before every mission and they really wouldn’t want to know.
It’s these sorts of tradeoffs that make me think that NASA should prepare at least some “doomed astronaut” plans. If we have to think about endangering civilian lives versus preserving evidence that may save astronauts in the future, let’s do it beforehand. If NASA waits until the heat of the moment, emotion may (quite understanably) cloud judgment.
Tuckerfan lists past experiences, which is one way to judge what they would do. NASA’s stated policy now is that they keep the crew fully informed. The commander is the man on the scene, he may have to make some key decision, or have some insight the ground doesn’t have. I can’t help but wonder if John Glenn’s experience didn’t play into this policy.
There is no existing plan for rescue. In Columbia’s situation, if they had identified the extent of damage and determined it was not survivable, they would have wrung every idea to make a rescue plan. The next orbiter was prepping for a launch about a month later. There would have been a lot of thought into scrambling that into a rush rescue. The resupply idea would have been considered, however Russia CANNOT launch to that orbit. That’s why ISS is in the orbit it is in - because of Russia. Before they became international partners, the planned inclination was the one Columbia was flying. That’s the default of KSC’s inclination. That decision itself lead to several design mods to accommodate lifting the payload to the higher inclination - lighter external tanks and not using Columbia being two key items.
I really doubt there’d ever be “park in orbit and let the crew die so we can recover the orbiter”. I just can’t see the American public accepting that, even after the fact.
Broomstick said:
Yes, they were equipped for spacewalks - for two crew. The tunnel to the Spacehab includes an airlock door, and all shuttle missions fly 2 EMUS and equipment for standard Shuttle contingency EVAs. That means manually closing the payload bay doors and/or stowing the radiators, manually latching the doors closed if latches fail, manually stowing the S-band antenna, and manually stowing the RMS (which was not on that flight). They did not have spacesuits for all seven crew, nor the SAFER units from ISS, nor the ability to climb along the underside of the orbiter and inspect/repair tile. To attempt it would probably cause more damage than they were checking, much less repairing. There is no current repair kit.
I have heard effort is in work to come up with a new repair kit. I have low expectations for the actual successfulness of this kit, but it’s one of those things that must be done. New materials may provide a more workable patch kit than the old concept. The biggest hitch is how to get there without causing more damage. Even with the RMS (which cannot reach fully underneath, only down far enough to look under with the camera).
Nanoda said:
No, only 2 EVA suits existed on the flight. You may be thinking of the orange launch/reentry suits. These are not actual spacesuits, and are not designed for such. They are designed for use in the event of a bailout, which can only occur at subsonic speeds in “level” flight. I am not fully versed with the capabilities of the launch/reentry suits, so can only speculate on their ability to be used as an emergency transfer suit in space.
The Russians did have a Progress module that was launched to ISS the following week. Certainly the progress could have been reoutfitted with food, water, oxygen, CO2 scrubbing, etc, in a short amount of time. However, Russia cannot launch to the inclination orbit that Columbia was flying. It would have taken something crazy like relocating the Soyuz rocket to Florida and trying to launch there. There’s no compatible support systems, including fueling, launch tower, controls, etc. Could you put the Progress Module on some other rocket, like an Ariane? In a week? HA!
aeropl said:
No. The ISS cannot change orbits that much. It couldn’t get there any more than the Shuttle could get to it, for the same reasons. The ISS is less manueverable than the Shuttle is.
If for some reason it could have moved to reach Columbia, it likely would have meant ISS would quickly have fallen out of the sky, too. Supposing it had enough fuel/supplies to last a while longer, and you use your second shuttle to rescue, you’re likely looking at loss of ISS.
IF the situation arose where the ISS could be sacrificed to save the crew (and actually save them), I’m certain they would sacrifice the vehicle for crew. It would be expensive and painful, and perhaps doom ISS to cancellation, but I think that would be acceptable to NASA. NASA wouldn’t die in that case, it would just get reprioritized, rethink the missions it was doing, and perhaps focus on new launch initiatives to start over.
zuma, assuming you could get a resupply vessel of some sort up there in reasonable time, the spacewalk part would be difficult but not insurmountable. The trick to me is without some docking mechanism, how do you hold onto the resupply module while you unload? Also assuming the hatch can be opened with vacuum on one side.
Dragline said:
It’s not logistically feasible. Multiple orbiter processing is a complex scheduling game anyway, and that’s without a crippling need to have two always at essentially the same launch condition. And pre-Columbia, try arguing that to Congress to explain why NASA needs the Shuttle budget increased by 1/3. (That’s probably what it would take to essentially keep one orbiter on perpetual standby.) NASA has had it’s budget cut at least 8 of the last 12 years. Post-Columbia? There was already in works a plan to develop a new launch vehicle for crew transfers to station, reducing ISS use. This new vehicle will potentially allow a ground standby capability. We will see.
As I see it, the admittedly grim advantages to this plan are [list=1][li]It allows some salvage of the orbiter. This is a fairly crass monetary reason that I agree would carry very little weight.[/li]
[li]It essentially eliminates the possiblity of hurting civilians on the ground.[/li]
[li]It allows the bodies of the astronauts to be returned to their families with some dignity. If I knew that a family member of mine was going to die, the idea that their remains would be mangled and spread for miles across the countryside wouldn’t make it easier.[/li]
[li]Perhaps most importantly, parking in orbit would allow a much more thorough and minute investigation of exactly what went wrong that would lead to a safer program in the future.*[/list=1]In the end, though, would any of those reasons carry any weight in a “doomed astronaut” scenario? Probably not. I think Irishman is right: the U.S. public wouldn’t accept it and NASA’s “never say die” attitude wouldn’t either.[/li]
*But think of the public relations disaster it would be if the investigation determined that there actually was a way for the crew to have returned safely. That possiblity alone might make the “park in orbit” plan utterly unpalatable to NASA.
I don’t have a cite for this, but I recall reading that back in the Nam Special Forces troops observing the Ho Chi Minh trail were issued a drug which could induce a comatose effect. If, say, an NVA regiment parked itself around an American observation post, most of the team could take the drug and go to sleep, requiring minimal food or water and making little noise until the troops moved on.
I know that the Orbiter is only good for a few weeks before oxygen and fuel cells begin to run low, but couldn’t the stay be extended by using similar drugs to reduce oxygen and power consumption by the crew? Would such a practice even work? It seems to me that if the Orbiter’s longevity in space could be extended to six weeks that might fall within another Shuttle’s scheduled turnaround time.
This is off-topic a bit, but I have read that some of you would want to know if you were doomed so you could say your last good-byes and tie up loose ends. Why wait until then? You could die tomorrow, why not tie up loose ends now? And I am not talking about astronauts, I am talking about you guys in this thread. In the “Book of Questions” one of the questions goes something like this: “If you were to die tomorrow, what would be the one thing you would most regret not telling someone?” The follow up question is: “Why haven’t you told them yet?” (presumably since you are still alive and can tell them now).