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posted by janrinok on Friday February 28 2014, @07:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the Are-you-sure-this-will-work dept.

germanbird writes:

"ArsTechnica has published a story taking a look at NASA's theoretical rescue plan for the space shuttle Columbia. The ambitious yet plausible plan was included as part of the report prepared during the investigation after the shuttle was lost during re-entry. I appreciate the author's perspective and his analysis of things as a sys-admin at Boeing he was much closer to the situation than most of us were. I for one would have liked to see the men and women at NASA given the chance to try to pull this one off, but I'm not sure it would have been worth the risk to the rescue team or even possible given the compressed schedule."

 
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by AnonTechie on Friday February 28 2014, @08:08PM

    by AnonTechie (2275) on Friday February 28 2014, @08:08PM (#8733) Journal

    Most engineers know that things work in theory but not necessarily in practice. Without trying, how will NASA and the US know, whether or not, such a rescue mission is possible. Yes, there are risks involved, but, outer space has had risks associated with it since the beginning. If the rescue mission had succeeded, it would have been a great achievement for NASA. Do people remember Apollo 13 ??

    --
    Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Sir Garlon on Friday February 28 2014, @08:14PM

    by Sir Garlon (1264) on Friday February 28 2014, @08:14PM (#8737)

    Do people remember Apollo 13 ??

    I was busy being gestated at the time (April 1970).

    But I saw the Tom Hanks movie.

    --
    [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
  • (Score: 1) by germanbird on Saturday March 01 2014, @06:10AM

    by germanbird (2619) on Saturday March 01 2014, @06:10AM (#8983)

    I too only really know the Apollo 13 from the Tom Hanks movie. I re-watched it not too long ago with my son, though, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I find it very inspiring to watch a group of engineers pull together, stay calm, and come up with the solutions they did in such a high stakes situation. To be able to pull that off and get those guys home was truly one of NASA's finest moments.

    The other, more practical take away from Apollo 13 is the cause of the accident. Apparently the oxygen tank that ruptured was dropped and damaged during maintenance. After repairing and ground testing the tank, they used a heater to boil off the oxygen so that it would be ready in time for the Apollo 13 mission. The heater, however, did not cycle leading to the temperature to rise enough to melt the insulation on the wires to the fan they used to stir the tank. As soon as the Apollo crew sent power to that fan, the wires sparked and caused the tank to explode. (More detailed writeup here: Apollo 13: Review board report [wikipedia.org].) Lesson to learn: The details often matter.

    • (Score: 1) by Jaruzel on Saturday March 01 2014, @09:26AM

      by Jaruzel (812) on Saturday March 01 2014, @09:26AM (#9037) Homepage Journal

      Having read through the entire Ars article yesterday, I couldn't help but think that it'd make a good movie anyway, even if it wasn't feasible in reality. Seeing two shuttles 'inverted' like that and EVA rescues between them, would be awesome on the big screen. Hopefully in the future, someone will option this into film.

      Obviously, sadness due to the loss of life at the time - but Space Exploration is risky. There's no getting away from that. How many thousands people were lost when exploring the planet was just as risky even as little as 100 years ago ?

      -Jar

      --
      This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.