Columbia astronauts weren't told of malfunction

[MichaeltheGreat]

I wonder if NASA has any liability for this decision with the families.

No.

It would also seem to me that this type situation should have been discussed with the Astronauts before under taking a mission and that a collective decision for the crew would have been obtained.

I think the expectation was that damage on launch significant enough to inevitably doom a reentry would prevent successful insertion into orbit, so there'd be no time or opportunity.

However, insulation loss from the ET, ice hits and tile damage were all known issues even before Columbia. In the wake of Columbia, those issues should have been investigated more thoroughly, and rescue contingency plans (via Soyuz, STS backup or ISS) should have been made for each mission.

[MikeH]

They couldn't get to the ISS, different orbital inclinations. So the ISS is irrelevant to this case.

[Hauldren Collider]

Oh, I didn't realize Columbia was not on an ISS construction mission.

[MichaeltheGreat]

That's a function of the mission plan, not inevitability. My point was that for any mission after Columbia, there should have been a specific contingency plan. If ISS is available in a given mission profile, great, you have more time. If not, then you have a backup STS near ready for launch and you only launch in a window where you expect the backup to be able to launch within a few days. Or you have help from your friends over at Baikonur. The problem is launch decisions were routinely made where there was no possibility of a rescue mission in the event of any highly hazardous event which was not immediately fatal. Changing that policy would have impacted NASA's schedule, so there you have it.

[MikeH]

x-posted, I was responding to HC's post really.

[MikeH]

That's a function of the mission plan, not inevitability. My point was that for any mission after Columbia, there should have been a specific contingency plan. If ISS is available in a given mission profile, great, you have more time. If not, then you have a backup STS near ready for launch and you only launch in a window where you expect the backup to be able to launch within a few days. Or you have help from your friends over at Baikonur. The problem is launch decisions were routinely made where there was no possibility of a rescue mission in the event of any highly hazardous event which was not immediately fatal. Changing that policy would have impacted NASA's schedule, so there you have it.

NASA HAS DEATH PANELS!

[kentonio]

They should have told them. No question. Let them communicate with their families, no words left unsaid.

They were professionals, damnit. Give them the respect they deserved.

Maybe something could have been done, maybe not, but give them the options.

If you tell them then you're already taking away the option of them dying quickly without many hours of horrific buildup. Can you imagine how incredibly agonizing it would be to know that you were in a small space, away from your family and 100% certain to die in a specific amount of time? You're also not just doing that to the astronauts themselves, but the wives and children would get to say goodbye but would also then have to sit and watch their husband/wife/dad inexorable head to their deaths.

I can see people might want to know, but you can't accuse NASA of not showing them respect. This isn't a simple choice.

[MichaeltheGreat]

They should have told them. No question. Let them communicate with their families, no words left unsaid.

They were professionals, damnit. Give them the respect they deserved.

Maybe something could have been done, maybe not, but give them the options.

I would suspect there's a bit more than meets the eye, at least from the top down view. If NASA told the astronauts and their families, I'm sure word would have got out somehow - or they'd have to have to come out and admit it to the public. Instead of a horrific tragedy, then you have days to discuss bureaucratic failure, the future of the STS program, the future of ISS (since we were doing the heavy lifting at the time), maybe even the future of NASA and US participation in manned spaceflight, because of all the Congressional jumping up and down that would ensue, and the media circus playing out against the backdrop of seven doomed astronauts in orbit, talking with their families and waiting for the inevitable.

The question quoted in the article sounds to me like it's intended to steer the mission contol folks in the direction of the answer that had already been decided. Even if the motivation wasn't bureaucratic chicken****, that sort of circus would have been uncontainable and certainly wouldn't have given the crew any respect or dignity. I think it's pretty likely (given NASA's historical culture) that the decision was made from higher up and justified downward. It's possible that it could have been for either altruistic reasons or malevolent reasons. Interesting that in this situation, those might have resulted in the same outcome.

[The Mad Monk]

x-to kent

Absolutely disagree. I hate saying it this way, but I have to say it: they're human beings, not lab animals. At least give them the dignity of knowing their fate.

[The Mad Monk]

Suicide pills FTW

I would be surprised if that or something similar weren't already accounted for. I'm pretty sure they had that for the moon landings.

[MichaeltheGreat]

If you tell them then you're already taking away the option of them dying quickly without many hours of horrific buildup. Can you imagine how incredibly agonizing it would be to know that you were in a small space, away from your family and 100% certain to die in a specific amount of time?

That's a reality faced by submariners and astronauts all the time.

You're also not just doing that to the astronauts themselves, but the wives and children would get to say goodbye but would also then have to sit and watch their husband/wife/dad inexorable head to their deaths.

That's a tougher one, but especially after Columbia, I would assume the astronauts and their families knew the risks in a concrete way, not just the theoretical risk, and had some private discussion about those issues. Those coming from the military side were for the most part graduates of test pilot programs. Laurel Clark wasn't, but she had dolphins as well as wings, so she sure as hell was aware of the inherent risks in her chosen career paths.

It's a little different for the civilian scientists who went up as mission specialists or payload specialists, as opposed to flight deck crew, but even then I'd expect some of the interview, testing and selection process would address the inherent risk factor. Still, if you had the opportunity, wouldn't you go despite the risk?

[MichaeltheGreat]

I would be surprised if that or something similar weren't already accounted for. I'm pretty sure they had that for the moon landings.

Excess weight. All you need to do is open an airlock.

[MikeH]

x-to kent

Absolutely disagree. I hate saying it this way, but I have to say it: they're human beings, not lab animals. At least give them the dignity of knowing their fate.

Telling the astronauts the problem doesn't mean they won't decide to risk the re-entry anyway.

No-one knew how bad the problem was, and astronauts are by nature highly adventurous risk takers. I think there is a good chance they would have had the calls to their families and then still tried the re-entry.

[MikeH]

I am not particularly a risk taker, but if I had the choice of 100% certainty of suffocating in space, or having an unknown chance of a successful landing I'd take the chance. I reckon everyone would.

[MichaeltheGreat]

I am not particularly a risk taker, but if I had the choice of 100% certainty of suffocating in space, or having an unknown chance of a successful landing I'd take the chance. I reckon everyone would.

Yep, you'd get down one way or another, and if you didn't make it, it would be a lot quicker. I used to have a shuttle tile - some mother****er stole it from me, but I worked for Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. at the beginning of the 80s, and a lot of us had tiles as desk sculpture. They made and tested tons of them - there were tens of thousands of "extra" tiles*, but one of the things that was interesting about them was how most of them one were unique shapes or two-off shapes. The exposed surface was pretty consistent, but the three to four tangs that interlocked with neighboring tiles and mated to the undersurface of the shuttle fuselage and wings were pretty elaborate. The whole thing was a lot like a huge 3D jigsaw puzzle.

After missions, typically around 20% of tiles would need replacing, sometimes a lot more. Minor shuttle skin heat damage was also common. I find it interesting, to say the least, that with the design, and the knowledge of replacement and damage issues, that it took fatal damage for the STS program to come up with the idea for an in-flight repair kit and EVA capability on every mission. Especially once launch footage angles and resolution were enhanced after Columbia.

* Gotta love government cost-plus contracts.

Edit - no-one "knew" precisely how bad the damage was, but based on the size of the object strike and location and the nature of the tiles was that nobody in Mission Control really believed they'd make it. There's a psychological desire to want to believe a situation is not hopeless, but deep down in their engineer brains, I don't think anyone on the ground at NASA really had any belief that they'd get down alive. The crew didn't know how bad it was - the later report on the crew's final moments indicated that the pilot and flight deck crew were trying to address flight control problems until loss of power. Pressurization loss occurred very shortly thereafter.