
The audacious rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia - raphaelj
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/02/the-audacious-rescue-plan-that-might-have-saved-space-shuttle-columbia/1/
======
dexen
On a lighter note, a 1983 TV movie [1] follows events on an high-speed
passenger airplane accidentally launching into LEO and being rescued by two
space shuttle missions.

Concepts shown included transfering passengers and crew through space by
improvised means [2] and using a shuttle as sort of heat shield in front of
the plane; one character realizes _a shuttle could drop into the atmosphere
ahead of Starflight, with Starflight riding the plough-wave; the wingtips
would burn a little_.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight:_The_Plane_That_Cou...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight:_The_Plane_That_Couldn't_Land)

[2] among them, a coffin.

------
WalterBright
> Contrary to popular belief, the heat a spacecraft faces on reentry isn't
> generated by simple friction but rather by ram pressure—the fast-moving
> shuttle compresses the air in front of it, forming a massive shock zone in
> which air molecules ionize and break apart.

Finally! It always annoys me when people, even those who should know better,
call it friction.

~~~
venomsnake
It is almost perfect adiabatic process. Or the ionization helps to heat even
further?

~~~
WalterBright
When gas is compressed, it heats up. Moving rapidly through the air compresses
the air in front, so it heats up.

It's as simple as that.

The ionization has nothing to do with it, though that probably reduces the
heat slightly as it takes energy to ionize a gas.

~~~
TheLoneWolfling
Ionization actually reduces the effective temperature massively - from O(v^2)
to O(v) at high (read: re-entry-like) velocities.

------
WalterBright
> Further, even if successful reentry were possible, the shuttle could not be
> landed entirely from the ground—there was no way for Mission Control to have
> extended the shuttle's landing gear or the air probes necessary to judge
> velocity once in the atmosphere. Those functions (as well as starting the
> shuttle's auxiliary power unit) could only be invoked by physically throwing
> switches in the cockpit during approach and landing.

It is a mystery to me why it was designed this way. I'd design it so that if
the crew were disabled, it could be brought back by mission control.

~~~
brudgers
The reasoned assumption is that if a space crew is disabled, it's because they
are dead. The article is interesting because it treats the possibility that a
rescue was feasible as if it were viable. It wasn't.

The addition of the cable is more a reflection of the Shuttle Program's
changing mission profiles. Remote control makes sense when docking and
undocking from the ISS. It makes sense as a way to test unmanned flight
operations to service it. But it was still a cable, not an iPhone app.

Once _Columbia_ was far enough from the launch pad that the crew survival
systems added in the wake of _Challenger_ could be used, they were "dead men
walking". Though we might want to point to _Apollo 13_ as a reason for hope,
it's not a good analogy. It's run what ya' brung: There are no tow trucks in
space. Remote control would not have changed that.

The design paradigm that led to the space shuttle is probably an evolutionary
dead end. Space craft design looks more like 'nix or biological viruses than
Windows or walruses. The fact that the engineering solution that allowed
remote control was boosting additional grams in the form of a 28 foot cable
rather than upgrades to modular avionics points to the inflexibility of the
shuttle design -- _Columbia_ in particular was the oldest in a line of one-off
handbuilt airframes.

------
blaze33
Previous discussion in feb. 2014:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7305224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7305224)

------
gambiting
On a completely philosophical note - assuming it was actually fully finished,
do you think the Buran Space Shuttle, which could fly fully autonomously,
could be sent to rescue the astronauts without endangering more human lives?
From what I understand it was ready to fly(it did complete a successful orbit
launch and landing, fully automatically) but the whole project was mothballed
because the Soviet Union collapsed. What if it wasn't? Would it be a viable
alternative? And on a similar note - was there never any interest in
automating the US Space Shuttles?

~~~
VLM
"do you think the Buran Space Shuttle, which could fly fully autonomously,
could be sent to rescue the astronauts"

No, not enough fuel. Unless you ship that dude out of the USSR it doesn't have
enough fuel, when launched from the USSR, to get to orbit with an inclination
below maybe 45 or so degrees (nobody is absolutely sure and you can play a lot
of geography games etc). It would have been super borderline at absolute best.
Also "orbit" is fuzzy, so "could launch as low as 45 degrees" is technically
true if you're cool with only achieving a temporary very low orbit, maybe
40-50 miles lower than columbia was. Of course you could try an insane rescue
attempt like re-entering columbia while buran is re-entering and then you got
5 minutes to transfer... Umm this is sounding too hollywood movie to be
considered.

Given an infinite tank of fuel or an infinitely low payload you can launch
from any latitude into any inclination, but you always get best payload for
least fuel if your orbit is over your latitude aka your inclination equals
your latitude. This is why the ISS is in such a weird super-high inclination
orbit, to make the Russians happy during the cold war.

------
fsloth
"Foam strikes during launch were not uncommon events, and shuttle program
managers elected not to take on-orbit images of Columbia to visually assess
any potential damage."

The foam strikes were not uncommon but they were not _designed_ events.
Rather, the organization went the slippery slope of considering unplanned
debris "normal" since they had not caused any disasters before.

This leads me to think that the communications and security culture had not
improved that much from the Challenger days then...

~~~
venomsnake
Worth the read

[http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/roger...](http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-
commission/Appendix-F.txt)

It was that way in the 80s. If it does not work as planned, but it has not
broke yet - it is safe.

~~~
vlasev
That's a very Kerbal way of dealing with things _shudders_

------
jtchang
Why will launching a space vehicle never be as routine as commercial air
travel?

I think it should be one of the goals of mankind. There is no fundamental law
of physics that says we can't make it routine. The author states that they
don't think it will be feasible in our lifetime. However the amount of
technological advancement that has been made over the past century is
astounding. There is no reason to think this would be unfeasible.

~~~
brudgers
No, it will never be as routine as commercial air travel.

Yes, there are fundamental laws of physics that say we cannot make it routine.
[1]

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation)

~~~
lern_too_spel
_Rocket launches_ will never be as routine. Other launch methods will
eventually become routine.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-
rocket_spacelaunch](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-rocket_spacelaunch)

~~~
brudgers
According to the link and reasonably assuming that the reference to commercial
air travel implied human payloads, none of the technologies above readiness
level 2 are suitable due to either lack of payload capacity or gee forces
induced or both.

What the table shows is that it _might_ be theoretically possible to develop
some other technology, not that such a technology actually will come into
existence.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Neither the short time horizon nor the human space travel restriction were in
the original question. Nonhuman space delivery will become routine relatively
quickly, and human space travel will become routine after. It's inevitable.

------
atonse
That seems like an absolute crazy mission, the kind you'd see in a hollywood
movie.

As long as we're imagining, was there maybe an option C, an EVA from the
Columbia crew to just replace some of those tiles? Was that even possible?

~~~
grecy
I assume they didn't have replacement tiles on board, but assuming they did, I
wonder if that would have been possible.

It also occurs to me they could have sent an unmanned cargo carrier to dock
with them with the required tiles and tools - maybe a Soyuz... but then, they
could have all just gotten into the Soyuz.

There is no mention of the Soyuz in the article. I wonder if they considered
that option.

~~~
ChuckMcM
They are not, and as I recall it was one of the criticisms a friend of mine
levelled at the report as well. That by sending up a Soyuz, and using both
that module and the backup, they could return 6 people to earth. Then a second
and Soyuz mission and the Atlantis mission to replace the backup and return
excess crew. Leaving Columbia on orbit awaiting some form of repair or
scuttling.

Mostly though it re-emphasized how "not routine" going up into space is.
Orbital windows not withstanding, you cannot just "decide" to catch the next
one and bring up hardware to fly. Something I hope we can get to with Falcon 9
re-use.

~~~
cthalupa
Soyuz is mentioned in the CAIB report.

+++++++++++

5.2 Other Vehicles (Soyuz, Ariane 4) There has been some discussion regarding
the possibility of sending supplies to Columbia using an expendable launch
vehicle – to lengthen the amount of time available to execute a rescue
mission. Because of Columbia's 39-degree orbital inclination, an expendable
launch from a launch site with a latitude greater than 39 degrees would not be
able to reach Columbia. This rules out a Soyuz/Progress launch. There was an
Ariane 4 in French Guiana that successfully launched an Intelsat satellite on
February 15. The challenge with developing a supply kit, building an
appropriate housing and separation system, and reprogramming the Ariane seems
very difficult in three weeks, although this option is still in work.

—Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report, Appendix D.13

++++++++++

(Yanked from the Ars comment section)

~~~
grecy
Thanks.

That makes me wonder why Columbia was at 39-degree orbital inclination -
making it unable to get to the ISS, and unable to be rescued by a Soyuz.

Reading the purpose of the mission [1], I don't see any reason it needed to be
were it was.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-107](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-107)

~~~
VLM
Crew and ground comfort (combined with the specific altitude) and it was yet
another microgravity mission.

I can only get hand wavy about the field is not uniform mass concentration
blah blah. Presumably deep in the decimal points, a 40 degree orbit or a 38
degree orbit has higher (although still very small) gravitational anomalies.

It was a fairly common "track" for shuttle missions. Perhaps 5 or 6 missions
were in the same orbit.

(edited to point out this was not cut and paste from the 107 marketing
materials, its from an older launch, although the orbit is identical for
identical reasons. Basically they reflew a 90s era mission, STS sixty-
something)

"Columbia will climb to a 173-statute-mile (278-kilometer)-high orbit with a
39-degree inclination to the Earth's equator to allow the seven-member flight
crew to maintain the same sleep/wake rhythms they are accustomed to on Earth
and to reduce vibrational and directional forces that could affect on-board
microgravity experiments."

------
aftbit
This was the most depressing quote for me:

>It is unlikely that launching a space vehicle will ever be as routine an
undertaking as commercial air travel—certainly not in the lifetime of anybody
who reads this.

~~~
wyager
Of course, that could certainly be completely incorrect. It seems to me, from
casual observation, that the rate of rocket launches is increasing very
quickly. We seem to be getting better at it.

~~~
rgbrenner
> It seems to me, from casual observation, that the rate of rocket launches is
> increasing very quickly. We seem to be getting better at it.

The numbers say otherwise:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_spaceflight](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_spaceflight)

[http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/logyear.html](http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/logyear.html)

~~~
pimlottc
>
> [http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/logyear.html](http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/logyear.html)

There's no legend on that table; it took me a while to figure out that it's
_L_ aunches and _F_ ailures.

------
garrettgrimsley
This seems like a pretty good look into what the race on Earth in "A Walk in
the Sun" would have looked like.

