Columbia Was Beyond Any Help, Officials Say

New York Times ^ | 2/03/03 | KENNETH CHANG

[kattracks]

OUSTON, Feb. 3 — Even if flight controllers had known for certain that protective heat tiles on the underside of the space shuttle had sustained severe damage at launching, little or nothing could have been done to address the problem, NASA officials say.

Virtually since the hour Columbia went down, the space agency has been peppered with possible options for repairing the damage or getting the crew down safely. But in each case, officials here and at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida say, the proposed solution would not have worked.

The simplest would have been to abort the mission the moment the damage was discovered. In case of an engine malfunction or other serious problem at launching, a space shuttle can jettison its solid rocket boosters and the external fuel tank, shut down its own engines and glide back down, either returning to the Kennedy Space Center or an emergency landing site in Spain or Morocco.

But no one even knew that a piece of insulation from the external tank had hit the orbiter until a frame-by-frame review of videotape of the launching was undertaken the next day. By then, Columbia was already in orbit, and re-entry would have posed the same danger that it did 16 days later.

Four other possibilities have been discussed at briefings or in interviews since the loss of Columbia, and rejected one by one by NASA officials.

First, repairing the damaged tiles. The crew had no tools for such a repair. At a news conference on Sunday, Ron D. Dittemore, the shuttle program manager, said that early in the shuttle program, NASA considered developing a tile repair kit, but that "we just didn't believe it was feasible at the time." He added that a crew member climbing along the underside of the shuttle could cause even more damage to the tiles.

Another idea, widely circulated on the Internet in the last few days, was that the shuttle could have docked with the International Space Station once the damage was discovered. But without the external fuel tank, dropped as usual after launching, Columbia had no fuel for its main engines and thus no way it could propel itself to the station, which circles the earth on a different orbit at a higher altitude.

"We have nowhere near the fuel needed to get there," said Bruce Buckingham, a spokesman at the Kennedy Space Center.

Another shuttle, Atlantis, was scheduled for launching on March 1 to carry supplies and a new crew to the space station, and it is possible to imagine a Hollywood-type series of events in which NASA rushed Atlantis to the launching pad, sent it up with a minimal crew of two, had it rendezvous with Columbia in space and brought everyone down safely.

But Atlantis is still in its hangar, and to rush it to launching would have required NASA to circumvent most of its safety measures. "It takes about three weeks, at our best effort, to prepare the shuttle for launch once we're at the pad," Mr. Buckingham said, "and we're not even at the pad." Further, Columbia had enough oxygen, supplies and fuel (for its thrusters only) to remain in orbit for only five more days, said Patrick Ryan, a spokesman at the Johnson Space Center here.

Finally, there is the notion that Columbia's re-entry might have been altered in some way to protect its damaged area. But Mr. Dittemore said the shuttle's descent path was already designed to keep temperatures as low as possible. "Because I'm reusing this vehicle over and over again, so I'm trying to send it through an environment that minimizes the wear and tear on the structure and the tile," he said at his news conference on Sunday.

Today he added that he did not know of a way for the shuttle to re-enter so that most of the heat would be absorbed by tiles that were not damaged, on its right wing. "I'm not aware of any other scenarios, any other techniques, that would have allowed me to favor one wing over the other," he said.

Even if that had been possible, it would probably have damaged the shuttle beyond repair and made it impossible to land, requiring the crew to parachute out at high speed and at high altitude. He said there was no way managers could have gotten information about the damaged tiles that would have warranted so drastic a move.

Gene Kranz, the flight director who orchestrated the rescue of astronauts aboard the crippled Apollo 13 in 1970, said that from what he knew about the suspected tile damage, there was probably nothing that could have been done to save the flight. "The options," he said in a telephone interview, "were just nonexistent."

[supercat]

Would it be practical to build a protective shield for the tiles which would be mechanically durable enough to provide useful protection during launch, but would burn away harmlessly during re-entry?

[SierraWasp]

Bump for required reading for all the wild speculators postulating all over FreeRepublic from pillar to post!

[yonif]

That's what they said about Apollo 13, and they proved themselves wrong.

[TheDon]

"Even if flight controllers had known for certain that protective heat tiles on the underside of the space shuttle had sustained severe damage at launching, little or nothing could have been done to address the problem, NASA officials say."

A brutal assessment of NASA. They didn't prepare for this type of problem. Oh well, you can't prepare for everything. Who would have had the foresight to see that if the tiles were damaged the crew was doomed, and they should make provisions for such an eventuality, one that didn't involve the crew being incinerated?

[Howlin]

Get a place.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Well, how many times do you think we will have to repeat ourselves on THIS one????

[Howlin]

Isn't this what we've been saying all day long? They must be watching.

[stripes1776]

Who would have had the foresight to see that if the tiles were damaged the crew was doomed..."

Who? A scientist and technician who had done his job with competence.

[Doohickey]

You just made me spit coffee. LOL!

[#3Fan]

NASA couldn't have sent up another orbiter without doing it's proper safety procedures to retrieve the astronauts without really knowing for sure the first one had a problem. That's taking a bigger chance than just trying to get Columbia home. Their best bet was to try to get this one home with tile damage like they've done 120+ times before. They got bit this time.

[Lancey Howard]

Gene Kranz, the flight director who orchestrated the rescue of astronauts aboard the crippled Apollo 13 in 1970, said that from what he knew about the suspected tile damage, there was probably nothing that could have been done to save the flight. "The options," he said in a telephone interview, "were just nonexistent."

Then that is the problem. It's 2003, and there should be "options" for a shuttle which is damaged and at peril. There is a space station, three other shuttles, a Russian manned space program - - there should always be "options".

[TLBSHOW]

There is one that comes to mind!

[Lancey Howard]

Amen to your post #5. Agree 100%. (See post #12)

[blackdog]

Can NASA bring those Apollo grunts out of retirement for some serious engineer style foot/butt impact testing?

Does anyone find a basic flaw in the argument that a spacewalk in ZERO GRAVITY is going to damage tiles? I know the nature of the business of putting people in space and back is as dangerous as anything man could dream up even in the best circumstances. But to have the attitude that $hit Happens, and you can't do anything about it is inexcusable.

[paul544]

This is a bunch of crap. America would never have just left them up there to die. Never. We would have done something, especially if they knew right after launch. This is just a way for them to feel better about the fact that they missed it. Thank G*d that this kind of defeatism didn't reign when Apollo 13 ran into problems.

[John Jamieson]

Somebody at NASA has been watching our threads. Good.

Jim, you there?

[Balata]

The simplest would have been to abort the mission the moment the damage was discovered.

Hey, there's a novel idea. If you can't bring them back in case of emergency then any takeoff that is less than perfect should be aborted immediately.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Does anyone find a basic flaw in the argument that a spacewalk in ZERO GRAVITY is going to damage tiles?

Not really, no? Why, do you?

[dead]

It's odd that this whole article presumes that the problem was the alleged damage the tiles suffered on liftoff. That's nowhere near established.

I think the larger problem is that the shuttle was operating in 2003 with a 1978 design.