4 ms·

There was a story published about that potential rescue mission recently [1]. Briefly stated, the complexity involved in getting Atlantis up there in time to re

by erbo 11y ago

There was a story published about that potential rescue mission recently [1]. Briefly stated, the complexity involved in getting Atlantis up there in time to rescue the Columbia crew members makes the rescue plans depicted in the book/movie The Martian (the Iris probe, and the Rich Purnell Maneuver) look completely safe and sane. Any delay at all in getting Atlantis up would probably have made it too late for the Columbia crew, as their lithium hydroxide canisters would have run out and they would have choked to death on their own CO2. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board came to similar conclusions in their own report [2]. It would have made for great drama. But either having Atlantis get up there too late to save the Columbia crew, or, even worse, losing Atlantis as well, would have been a PR disaster from which NASA might well not have recovered. Hell, they barely recovered from Columbia as it is. [1] http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/the-audacious-rescue-plan-that-might-have-saved-space-shuttle-columbia/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/the-audacious-rescue-... [2] http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/caib/html/start.html http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/caib/html/start.html

DiabloD3 11y ago
See my reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11074677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11074677
- erbo 11y ago
  From the AT article: "Atlantis was already undergoing preparation for flight as STS-114, scheduled for launch on March 1. As Columbia thundered into orbit, the younger shuttle was staged in Orbital Processing Facility 1 (OPF-1) at the Kennedy Space Center. Its three main engines had already been installed, but it didn't yet have a payload or remote manipulator arm in its cargo bay. Two more weeks of refurbishment and prep work remained before it would be wheeled across the space center to the enormous Vehicle Assembly Building and hoisted up for attachment to an external tank and a pair of solid rocket boosters." So Atlantis wasn't actually as close to launching as your comments make it sound. Later in the article, they state that it would be a minimum of 21 days to get Atlantis on the pad and ready to launch. And it always took longer than NASA thought; the article author looked for any instances in which a Shuttle moved from OPF to VAB to the pad and launch without errors or faults, and couldn't find a single one. That's why they planned for this contingency in the remaining Shuttle missions, with the so-called "Launch On Need" planned missions. (In all but one case, they assumed that the Shuttle crew could take refuge at the ISS until a rescue mission could be mounted. For the one mission where they couldn't assume that, STS-125, the Hubble servicing mission, they actually had a second Shuttle on the pad before the first one launched.)
Udik 11y ago
Just out of simple curiosity. Isn't/ wasn't there any other vector or capsule, from any other nation (that is, Russia) that could have been sent up in rescue?
- iSnow 11y ago
  No, the ars article talks about this. The orbital inclination of the doomed shuttle was so they could not reach the ISS, and likewise the Russian Soyuz could not launch at a similar inclination. Changing orbits seems to burn obscene amounts of fuel. I don't fully understand why it would not have been possible to put a Soyuz in a different orbit but with a near-collision course though.
- secstate 11y ago
  Not to recover 7 astronauts. And that only matters if they were prepared to launch inside of 14 days, which the vast majority of vehicles are not. Regardless, the Soyuz can only hold 110 lbs of extra weight beyond three crew members. So they'd need almost as many skeleton-crew Soyuz modules as there were crew aboard Columbia.
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    Maybe they could have shipped additional supplies on the Soyuz up to transfer to the Shuttle, to keep the remaining crew alive for enough time to prep additional STS or Soyuz launches to bring them back. Or maybe send up some supplies for them to attempt a repair on the wing in-orbit.
    - erbo 11y ago
      Unlikely. There would have had to have been a Soyuz almost ready to go that could be used for the purpose, and there wasn't. I'm also not sure that a Soyuz could have been launched from Baikonur into the orbital plane that Columbia was flying in; they commonly launch into the ISS' orbital plane, and we already know Columbia couldn't have gotten there. And, even if you could get a Soyuz there in time, Columbia wasn't equipped for retrieving supplies from another spacecraft. It wasn't carrying a RMS robot arm, for instance, nor did they have any SAFER jetpacks for their pressure suits. Getting supplies out of another spacecraft, even one nearby, without either of those would be tricky at best...maybe too tricky for a crew already possibly suffering from partial CO2 poisoning.

by erbo 11y ago

DiabloD3 11y ago

See my reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11074677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11074677

erbo 11y ago
From the AT article: "Atlantis was already undergoing preparation for flight as STS-114, scheduled for launch on March 1. As Columbia thundered into orbit, the younger shuttle was staged in Orbital Processing Facility 1 (OPF-1) at the Kennedy Space Center. Its three main engines had already been installed, but it didn't yet have a payload or remote manipulator arm in its cargo bay. Two more weeks of refurbishment and prep work remained before it would be wheeled across the space center to the enormous Vehicle Assembly Building and hoisted up for attachment to an external tank and a pair of solid rocket boosters." So Atlantis wasn't actually as close to launching as your comments make it sound. Later in the article, they state that it would be a minimum of 21 days to get Atlantis on the pad and ready to launch. And it always took longer than NASA thought; the article author looked for any instances in which a Shuttle moved from OPF to VAB to the pad and launch without errors or faults, and couldn't find a single one. That's why they planned for this contingency in the remaining Shuttle missions, with the so-called "Launch On Need" planned missions. (In all but one case, they assumed that the Shuttle crew could take refuge at the ISS until a rescue mission could be mounted. For the one mission where they couldn't assume that, STS-125, the Hubble servicing mission, they actually had a second Shuttle on the pad before the first one launched.)

Udik 11y ago

Just out of simple curiosity. Isn't/ wasn't there any other vector or capsule, from any other nation (that is, Russia) that could have been sent up in rescue?

iSnow 11y ago
No, the ars article talks about this. The orbital inclination of the doomed shuttle was so they could not reach the ISS, and likewise the Russian Soyuz could not launch at a similar inclination. Changing orbits seems to burn obscene amounts of fuel. I don't fully understand why it would not have been possible to put a Soyuz in a different orbit but with a near-collision course though.
secstate 11y ago
Not to recover 7 astronauts. And that only matters if they were prepared to launch inside of 14 days, which the vast majority of vehicles are not. Regardless, the Soyuz can only hold 110 lbs of extra weight beyond three crew members. So they'd need almost as many skeleton-crew Soyuz modules as there were crew aboard Columbia.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  Maybe they could have shipped additional supplies on the Soyuz up to transfer to the Shuttle, to keep the remaining crew alive for enough time to prep additional STS or Soyuz launches to bring them back. Or maybe send up some supplies for them to attempt a repair on the wing in-orbit.
  - erbo 11y ago
    Unlikely. There would have had to have been a Soyuz almost ready to go that could be used for the purpose, and there wasn't. I'm also not sure that a Soyuz could have been launched from Baikonur into the orbital plane that Columbia was flying in; they commonly launch into the ISS' orbital plane, and we already know Columbia couldn't have gotten there. And, even if you could get a Soyuz there in time, Columbia wasn't equipped for retrieving supplies from another spacecraft. It wasn't carrying a RMS robot arm, for instance, nor did they have any SAFER jetpacks for their pressure suits. Getting supplies out of another spacecraft, even one nearby, without either of those would be tricky at best...maybe too tricky for a crew already possibly suffering from partial CO2 poisoning.