Space Shuttle Columbia disaster: why did Cain order GC to "lock the doors?"

Factual Questions
1

Regarding the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003:

In the first moments when flight director Leroy Cain realized that the space shuttle Columbia was probably lost, he calls on Ground Control to “lock the doors.”

What was the purpose of this command? Why would the doors (of mission control, I guess) need to be locked?

2

It is a pretty basic reason. He didn’t want anyone leaving the room or anyone else entering it. After he realized that they had a contingency (Columbia disintegrated on reentry), the first order of business was for the flight controllers to capture as much data as they could based and write down notes as many notes as possible before the memories faded or got distorted. Locking the doors serves as a prompt for the controllers to start doing that and it prevents any external interference during a time that was traumatic for them too.

I don’t know if you have seen the video of Mission Control during the event but it makes it fairly obvious why they locked the doors after they suffered the contingency.

3

I believe he wanted to be certain that no witnesses or evidence would leave, so that everything possible would be available for the investigation.

4

The same instruction was issued when Challenger exploded on take off. It’s one of the first things they do on their disaster checklist. Data is precious and it’s important to get everything locked down as quickly as possible.

5

But how much is “lock the doors” a literal command regarding the immediate securing of the control room area, and how much is it also the unofficial initial command given by the Flight Director once it is clear that the orbiter is lost? Because I’ve heard it described as both. If it is simply the first item on the ‘disaster’ contingency checklist, then I guess it’s both…

6

And what if you really really have to pee after that command is given?

7

empty coffee cups are likely plentiful.

8

It also keeps various, um, nonparticipants from rushing in and demanding to know what’s going on.

9

Yes, the “lock the doors” command is twofold: it literally does lock everybody in, and also locks everybody else out. The last thing they want is nosy journalists or distraught relatives trampling all over valuable evidence or disturbing technicians who have to get on with their contingency procedures.

10

“Lock the doors” is a command that no one in the control room wants to hear, but everyone knows it means a lot more than just to physically lock the doors. It means seal the room (as was previously mentioned, this keeps people out as well as keeping people in), lock down your station, save all of your data, logs, etc. They want to make sure every last scrap of data is captured so that they can go back later and analyze everything.

It’s standard procedure at NASA if there’s any kind of major failure or event.

11

I don’t know if they keep cameras in Mission Control, but they’d probably want to record EVERY switch position also. All data that’s being displayed on monitors.

12

As indicated above…

I believe that this was featured in a NOVA episode (or possibly another program). They had interviewed the flight director and asked the same question. His response was that the control room was part of the crime/accident scene and the location needed to be isolated in preparation for investigation.

13

My first post her …

I see this is an old thread but while watching a repeat of the movie The Martian, we again wondered about this phrase so, finally, I Googled it.

Turns out the doors are not literally locked. Instead, it refers to the saving of all data and preparing for the upcoming investigation.

Now, as Engelauf relayed Austin’s emotional report to Cain, the flight director slowly shook his head, composed himself, and turned to the silent control room to declare an emergency. At 9:12 a.m., he instructed Ground Control Officer Bill Foster to “lock the doors”—a de facto admission that all hope was gone—and ordered flight controllers not to leave the building, but to begin preserving their data and writing up their logbook notes for use in the subsequent investigation. After checking with Jones that no further tracking had been acquired, Cain referred his team to their contingency plans … the plans that they and the STS-107 crew had worked in training, but which they hoped fervently would never be needed.