Posted on 02/04/2003 9:40:32 PM PST by Mitchel Tighe
It is standard procedure when separating from a booster or vehicle, to immediately start an orbit change process to get to a safe distance from the stuff you wish to leave behind. Otherwise it just smacks back into you one orbit later.
That's right. According to the reports I've read, Nasa did not notice the debris coming of the Shuttle and hitting the wing until HOURS after liftoff. The Shuttle was already in orbit when they reviewed a frame by frame recording of the liftoff and discovered the debris that came loose at the 80 second point after launch.
Prior to that review there was never any indication or reason to consider aborting the mission and by then it was too late.
Even if they had seen the insulation "hit" the instant it happened (and it happened so fast it was only visible on the slow-motion "instant replay" later -- someone watching that camera's monitor would have missed it "live"), there's another issue.
It just didn't look that bad at the time. It certainly wouldn't have been the sort of issue that screamed "MUST ABORT!". In fact, even the next day, after they had a discussion about the video, based on all they could see and all they knew from previous flights, they concluded that it didn't look all that serious. It's only in retrospect that it's suddenly looking Really Serious. (And even now it may possibly turn out to be a red herring that had nothing to do with the failure.)
And they *can't* and *shouldn't* abort any time something looks "odd" or a "possible" problem. The abort sequence itself is untested, risky, and may result in the loss of the craft. One thread quoted one of the astronauts saying that in the simulator they managed to land safely in less than half of the abort simulations -- the rest of the time they crashed for being unable to make it back to an appropriate runway.
Aborting is NOT something they should do lightly, or "just in case" something appears out of the ordinary. It should be saved for *undeniable* emergencies during launch, when the danger of proceeding truly outweighs the danger of aborting.
It's like leaping out of a commercial airliner with a parachute. It's not something you do except in the gravest of circumstances -- hearing or seeing "something funny" is not a good enough reason.
A legend in his own mind...
Thanks for posting this. It's enough for me. Kranz is the go-to guy for working out of tough spots. If he says there wasn't much that could be done, that carries a lot of credibility.
I recall in the one book about Apollo 13 that the flight controllers have a process of working through their options. They try to keep as many options as they can and not make decisions that unnecessarily eliminate potentials, "closing out" options, I think they call it.
Fact is, once that bird was up there in orbit, the only options were to leave it there or try to bring it back. The laws of physics dictated that it couldn't get to the ISS (conservation of energy, not enough delta v, different orbital height and inclination), nor could the ISS send its Soyuz to the shuttle (it has retrorockets but little in the way or orbital maneuver capability). NASA could have rushed a shuttle to the pad to bring the Columbia crew back, bypassing normal preparation and safety procedures, and risked losing a second ship or both crews if something went wrong. The Russians sending up a Soyuz? Were they ready to do that? Could the Soyuz dock with the shuttle? How many could the Soyuz bring down? How much resupply could the Soyuz bring up? A Progress module to the shuttle? The Russians had one ready to send to the ISS, which needed it. Could the ISS get by without it? It can attach to the ISS but can it get to or dock with the shuttle?
Seems like the options were limited. Stay up in orbit and die up there, or take a chance on getting back down (assuming they knew there was serious damage). Not the kind of limited options flight controllers prefer.
If NASA would have suspected a problem with re-entry, I am certain that this option would have been attempted.
To be as technical as possible..."Shit Happens!"
Not a lot of people realize this. The mindset seems to be, abort the launch and you'll be okay. That is far from true. It takes guts to call an abort because of the inherent risks associated with that. Controllers in fact are reluctant to call for it precisely because it places the systems in a state where there is little experience and even less margin for error.
There have been previous cases where abort is the seemingly obvious call yet isn't made, going back to the very early days of spaceflight. Some of you may be old enough to recall the aborted launch of Gemini 6. The Titan II engines quit after being ignited and the crew had a couple of seconds to decide whether to pull the ejection handle or not. They knew that blasting themselves out of that capsule while it was still on the ground was not exactly without risk, so they sat tight, and saved their ship and themselves.
The other was on the launch of Apollo 12 when the spacecraft lost electrical power as a result of a lightning strike during ascent. The flight director there was very close to calling a launch abort and getting that crew out of there, but the Saturn V was controlling normally even though the command module (separate systems) had lost power. He knew it was safer to get them up into a stable orbit and figure things out than to try an untested abort procedure and risk the loss of the crew during powered flight.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/835422/posts?page=270#270
It's our best quality that we are skeptical. We live Reagan's "trust but verify" credo, but sometimes, it's a good thing to be able to balance that skepticism with a common sense, studied approach to the facts, before we dig our heels in to one side or the other of an issue.
Well, let's send you up strapped to the wing on the next shuttle launch so you can do some in-flight maintenance.
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