[lots snipped]
I'm wondering if there's an alternate history story
anyone's bumped into, where the damage was discovered
in the first few days in orbit, and then everyone
scratched their heads...
it may not be exactly what you've looked for, but back in 2014 Lee >>Hutchinson and a bunch of space scientists did an in-depth report into
the question of *if* Columbia could have been saved at all.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/the-audacious-rescue-plan-that-might-have-saved-space-shuttle-columbia-2/
The reporting is clear-eyed and doesn't fudge the desperate difficulty
that such a mission would have faced.
thanks. I'll take a look.
Ok, I've read through it. They did a good job of
analysing options (summary: If the damage was detected
in first couple of days and everyone bit through their
fingernails and everything went just right, then maybe...).
However, they missed one serious option. Or at
least one they hsould have considered.
They focused on the possibilty of gettine
another shuttle alongside the Columbia.
While that pretty clearly would be needed in
order to bring the crew back to Earth, that
would NOT necessarily be required in order
to get key supplies to them.
The immediate threat was from the buildup
of CO2, which in standard missions was "scrubbed"
by lithium-hydroxide canisters. These would,
barely, make it for four weeks.
Sending an unmanned rocket with them and other
immediate supplies to the shuttle, and getting
it close enough that they could be retrieved
via an EVA, might, possibly, perhaps, have
been plausible.
Especially if the Chinese and Russian equivalents
of their heads of NASA pushed their gov't
leaders out of the way and called Houston
and Cape Canaveral directly...
(Russian NASA to his Commisar: "just
think of our glorious opportunity to
show the Kapitalists how much better
we are...")
I'd love to see an analysis...
--
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dannyb@panix.com
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