Feb. 4, 2003
Could the shuttle have been saved?
By PHILIP CHIEN

Many people are asking whether there is any way the shuttle crew could have saved themselves, had a critical problem with the Columbia's heat shield been detected while it was still in orbit. The simple answer is no. No plausible rescue scenario could have worked.

Could Columbia have docked with the space station and waited there for a rescue shuttle to take the crew home? Columbia was in a different orbit from the space station. The change in velocity required to move from one orbit to another is 6,048 kph. The amount of energy required to change Columbia's orbit into one matching the space station translates into 52,300 kgs. of propellant more than twice what the shuttle could lift into orbit, even if that's all that was in the shuttle's cargo bay.

And even if Columbia happened to be in the same orbit as the space station, it did not have a docking adapter.

Could the shuttle crew tough it out and just wait in space until a rescue shuttle could be launched? Columbia had enough supplies to remain in space until Wednesday, February 5. Even if the critical damage had been noticed on January 17, the day after Columbia's launch, there still would not have been enough time to get a rescue shuttle ready for flight, launch it, perform a rendezvous in space with Columbia, and transfer the crew before their supplies ran out. Even if everybody went on short rations, they would still need to breathe air, and just as importantly use the lithium hydroxide scrubbers to remove the carbon dioxide from the cabin. But unlike Apollo 13, there was no supply of additional carbon dioxide scrubbers on Columbia.

If there were indications that a heat-shield tile was damaged on the bottom of Columbia's wing, could the astronauts have made an emergency spacewalk to do a repair? NASA actually thought about a shuttle-tile repair kit, basically a fancy caulk gun to squeeze a heat-resistant material into the cavity left by a lost tile. But the engineers decided that the chances of actually doing some good were remote, while the chances of an astronaut accidentally doing more damage were pretty high. Most important, there are no hand-holds on the bottom of the shuttle's wings to support an astronaut attempting a repair.

Could the astronauts have bailed out? Their orange launch-and-entry suits provide protection during a bailout and a life raft and parachute form part of the astronaut's seat and back cushion. The shuttle's outer hatch would be blown off with explosive bolts and an escape pole would extend to ensure the astronauts would clear the wing. Each astronaut would slide down the pole and use a parachute to land in the ocean and then enter the one-man life raft and wait to get picked up. During reentry Columbia was flying far too high and too fast to allow any escape.