NASA Preps Rescue Mission -- Just in Case

July 13, 2005 — -- More than two years after Columbia disintegrated as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, the question still haunts many to this day: What could have been done to save the space shuttle's crew? Was a rescue even possible?

Now, for the first time in NASA's history, engineers are planning a rescue mission before it is needed -- before today's anticipated launch of Discovery.

The rescue plan is the result of painful hindsight. Retired Navy Adm. Hal Gehman, who headed the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, told ABC News during the investigation that the question of what could have been done -- if anything -- bothered him for months.

"If something could have been done, then all of a sudden, it's not just a golden opportunity that was missed," he said. "It actually is a very, very serious, very, very serious failure of the system."

It goes without saying that the flight directors, engineers and astronauts at NASA would have done anything in their power to save the crew of Columbia -- if they had known how much damage had been done to their vessel. Investigators eventually determined that a piece of foam insulation had broken off during takeoff and damaged the craft's left wing. NASA saw the accident happen during the launch, but officials decided that it had not caused significant damage.

In the wake of the 2003 shuttle tragedy, the investigation board developed a possible rescue plan that could have saved the crew. It was risky, but many wanted to believe it could have succeeded.

Devising a rescue plan after the space shuttle's breakup during re-entry was too little too late for the Columbia crew, but more is at stake. Understanding how the Columbia crew may have been saved has also guided rescue plans for future crews who may face the possibility of flying home in a crippled space shuttle.

At the Ready

To save Columbia's crew, NASA would have raced to launch the shuttle, Atlantis, with a skeleton crew. It would have rendezvoused with Columbia -- orbiting as close as 50 feet apart so that each shuttle's open payload bays would face each other at a 90 degree angle. A tethered astronaut would then have carried two spacesuits to Columbia's crew and escorted them two at a time back to Atlantis.

Once empty, Columbia would have been sent plummeting into the ocean by remote control.

Astronauts are prepared for a potential rescue assignment.

"I can tell you everybody in our office would volunteer to do this if it needed to happen, because the other crew members that are up there are our friends," said Steve Lindsey, commander of STS 121 -- the Atlantis shuttle mission that would follow Discovery's launch.

A crew of four will be standing by as the Discovery blasts off, ready to launch in Atlantis should something happen to Discovery. NASA Flight Director Paul Dye would run such a rescue flight -- already named STS 300. And a plan is in the works to process Atlantis for a possible rescue mission -- despite monumental efforts to prevent the need for a rescue in the first place.

"'I think that the pressure where absolutely everything needs to go right … processing a vehicle and making sure everything comes together for launch day is really going to be incredible," Dye said.

If it happened, an STS 300 rescue mission would be a race against time. Atlantis would have to be processed and rolled to the launch pad, the four-member crew readied and launched safely to the space station. The crew would need to hurry since Discovery's astronauts would be seeking safe haven on the space station, which is barely able to house two crew members, without the burden of seven more.

Wendy Lawrence is a member of the upcoming Discovery flight and has been assigned the task of working on a rescue for her crew. Lawrence has personal reasons for believing in a rescue mission: Her father was a naval aviator in the Vietnam War whose plane was shot down in 1967. He spent the next six years as a prisoner of war, awaiting his rescue. She explains a possible rescue for Discovery has already been incorporated into the shuttle schedule.

"As soon as we dock, in essence, the clock is ticking, but we know the number of days and the estimate is the space station could support us for 43 days," she said. "That number gets folded back into the processing flow for the next shuttle. Part of our launch decision is making sure the next shuttle could launch within that 43-day period."

Cramped Ride Home

The idea is to house the Discovery crew at the space station until a rescue flight arrives. Once people are transferred to Atlantis, the next trick is how to cram two crews -- 11 people -- into one rescue shuttle.

Lindsey explains the seven Discovery crew members would likely bunker down in Atlantis' mid-deck floor in reclined seating. It would be tight, especially considering everyone will need to be firmly strapped in for the bumpy re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.

"We will be packed in there like sardines," said Lawrence. "But it's funny because three of us were in the astronaut class of '92 and we were called 'the Sardine class' -- so it's only appropriate. But it will be a sea of astronauts in orange spacesuits packed in pretty tightly."

Once both crews are safely returned to Earth, more safety precautions will be necessary. Lindsey estimates the Discovery crew will have been in orbit close to 60 days by the time any rescue effort can get them back to Earth. Because of this extended stay in microgravity, the seven crew members will likely need to be re-conditioned much the way space station astronauts are once they return to Earth's gravitational pull.

None of the proposed rescue plans would be easy, but the pressure to pull off the impossible would be intense. One only needs to think back 35 years to the effort to save the crippled Apollo 13. The entire world was glued to the unfolding drama for days.

Dye understands the pressure. He points out it comes from a goal that couldn't be more important.

"First off if we need it to, it has to work," he said. "I mean we are going to be going up to bring home a crew that has no other way to come home."

If Discovery were to be damaged, the crew rescued and the injured ship jettisoned into the sea, the scenario begs another question: Would it mean the end of the shuttle program? Perhaps not.

"We would still have a couple of orbiters," said Dye. "I remember people saying after the Challenger crash that if we ever lost another vehicle, we would never fly again. We are getting ready to fly again"