NASA: 2nd Shuttle Could Have
Saved Columbia's Crew
By Marcia Dunn
The Associated
Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA could have
launched another shuttle to rescue the Columbia astronauts if
it had realized the severity of the wing damage early on and
decided it was worth the extreme risk to the second ship and
crew, the chief accident investigator said Friday.
Retired Navy Adm. Harold Gehman Jr.,
chairman of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, said
that the question was put to NASA earlier this month and that
the space agency's preliminary findings indicate that such a
rescue would have been technically feasible.
But he added: "I've got no idea if it
would have been successful or not."
Gehman stressed that a rushed rescue mission by shuttle
Atlantis and four of NASA's best and most seasoned astronauts
would have been "very, very risky -- but not impossible."
He said astronauts would have been
"standing out in the hallways to volunteer."
In the days after the Feb. 1 tragedy,
NASA managers insisted nothing could have been done to fix
Columbia's wing and save its seven astronauts.
Earlier this
week, however, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said he would
have strongly considered sending Atlantis to the astronauts'
rescue, even if it meant losing another shuttle and crew.
The investigation board asked NASA at
the beginning of May to determine what emergency steps could
have been taken if the space agency had known that a flying
chunk of foam insulation had created a fatal breach in the
ship's left wing during liftoff. NASA briefed the board on its
findings Thursday.
Gehman acknowledged
it would have been chancy to launch a shuttle on a rescue
mission without first fixing the problem of foam breaking off.
But he pointed out that in the
military, "we frequently launch 120 people to go save one."
"If you've got a pilot down behind
enemy lines, we do everything and anything possible to go get
that person," he said in a telephone conference with
reporters. "It's kind of a contract we have with the people
who go into harm's way.
"NASA and the
nation have that same contract with astronauts, and it is my
opinion, and from my personal background, that if there had
been any erring, we would have erred on the side of taking the
chance and going after them."
With
drastic conservation measures, Columbia's 16-day flight could
have been stretched to 30 days to give NASA time to mount the
rescue mission, Gehman said.
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