Columbia could have been saved
2003-05-24 18:28
Cape Canaveral - Nasa could have launched a mission to rescue the Columbia shuttle astronauts if it had known the craft was badly damaged, the chief accident investigator into the disaster has said.
Harold Gehman jun, chair of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, said if Nasa had realised Columbia sustained wing damage on take-off, it could have launched another shuttle to rescue the crew.
A chunk of foam from the external fuel tank struck Columbia's left wing shortly after launch. The damage resulted in a "thermal breach" when the shuttle re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, causing it to break up. The crew of seven were all killed in the disaster on February 1.
"It's technically feasible to have launched a rescue mission," said Gehman.
"I've got no idea if it would have been successful or not. A rescue mission itself would have been problematic. It would have been risky launching another shuttle without first checking it for the same problem which affected Columbia."
Atlantis could have arrived at Columbia within 24 hours and flown around 18m from Columbia while Atlantis astronauts escorted their colleagues from the damaged craft in a series of spacewalks, Gehman said. The abandoned Columbia would then have been guided by remote control to crash into the sea.
The other option would have been to try to repair the damaged wing in a spacewalk by Columbia's astronauts, perhaps by stuffing the hole with a bag of water, which would have frozen. Gehman said Nasa has yet to determine if such a patch would have held during the fiery re-entry. "It kind of comes under the category of, at least we would have done something," he said.
A detailed analysis of the board's findings will be included in its final report, to be released this summer.
Meanwhile, Nasa is assembling a team to monitor the return to space flight after the disaster. The agency's chief, Sean O'Keefe, said they are working hard to get shuttles flying again as soon as possible.