Here’s more about that supposed big NASA news
coming out today. It was supposedly leaked to a Florida Space Coast paper,
which said the following on Wednesday, and failed
to attract national attention. My source says there’s a lot more detail to
come, but the bottom line is that the review board is rumored to conclude
that contrary to its earlier statements, NASA could have saved the shuttle
crew:
Since the first days after shuttle Columbia’s loss, NASA has maintained
there is nothing it could have done to save the crew even if they had known
the ship’s heat protection system was fatally damaged.
Now, a different picture has emerged.
An internal NASA study done at the request of the Columbia Accident
Investigation Board indicates it may have been possible to mount a rescue
mission that could have had a chance of saving Columbia astronauts.
A senior investigator familiar with the study told Florida Today the plan
would have to have been predicated on an immediate post-launch recognition
by NASA that the shuttle was so badly crippled it could not make it home.
That would have allowed the crew to strictly conserve its life-sustaining
supplies, hunker down and wait for the rushed launched of shuttle Atlantis,
which was on its way to being ready for liftoff March 1 on another flight.
Atlantis’ crew then could have rendezvoused with Columbia and tried to bring
the crew aboard through a series of daring spacewalks.
We’ll never know if this Hollywoodesque scenario would have worked. Frankly,
it takes a great leap of faith to think it would have. But it was never even
considered, because NASA managers failed to thoroughly examine the extent of
Columbia’s damage.