![]() I was thunderstruck and astonished again."Įngineers at Mission Control thought they were seeing an unusual but non-critical data drop-out. Had he spoken to our engineering director about this? I wanted the director of JSC engineering to be informed. "I made a phone call to the manager of the shuttle engineering office, the same person that had relayed the 'No" message to me from orbiter management. In an exclusive interview with ABC News in 2003 he detailed how his requests were repeatedly denied. It was agonizing for Rocha, who had begged the Mission Management Team to ask the Department of Defense to use whatever it had to take high resolution photos. They had no robotic arm to look at the wing, no way to repair the wing if they had damage, and it would take much too long to send up another space shuttle to rescue the crew. The crew was on a science mission, nowhere near the International Space Station. At that time NASA had no options for repair. Fuzzy video showed foam breaking off the orbiter's external fuel tank and hitting its left wing during blast off. Several engineers at the space agency suspected something was wrong. The dilemma for mission managers is that they simply didn't know if the space shuttle was damaged. Orbiting in space until your oxygen ran out. Don't you think it would be better for them to have a happy successful flight and die unexpectedly during entry than to stay on orbit, knowing that there was nothing to be done, until the air ran out?"Ī bleak assessment. ![]() ![]() If it has been damaged it's probably better not to know. "After one of the MMTs (Mission Management Team) when possible damage to the orbiter was discussed, he (Flight Director Jon Harpold) gave me his opinion: 'You know, there is nothing we can do about damage to the TPS (Thermal Protection System). Recently he wrote about the debate in his blog, recalling a meeting to discuss the dilemma: Wayne Hale, who later became space shuttle program manager, struggled with this question after the deaths of the Columbia crew 10 years ago. It was a question that faced NASA's Mission Control considered after initial suspicions that something might be wrong with the shuttle Columbia as it was making its doomed reentry in 2003. 31, 2013 — - What would you tell seven astronauts if you knew their space shuttle was crippled on orbit? ![]()
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