EVA inspection of STS-107 was "easy" possible

May 28, 10:02 PM

NASA ignored spacewalk inspection options

Expert: Astronauts could have looked over wing damage

By John Kelly
FLORIDA TODAY

HOUSTON -- NASA mission managers never asked the astronaut corps or
agency spacewalk experts if Columbia's astronauts could venture outside
to inspect the shuttle's damaged left wing, Florida Today has learned.

If they had, they could have learned firsthand of the broken heatshield
and possibly set in motion efforts to rescue the crew.

A renowned spacewalk expert has told the Columbia Accident Investigation
Board that such an excursion would have been easy if managers running
the mission had only asked.

"They never asked," board member Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hess said Tuesday.

Even before hearing the final damage analysis by shuttle engineers,
the Mission Management Team had assumed an inspection spacewalk was
not necessary because they were convinced there was no serious damage
for the astronauts to see, Hess said.

NASA has long discounted the notion that Columbia's astronauts could
have done a spacewalk to get a closer look at the wing, which would
have resolved early in the mission any questions about whether or not
the ship's heat shield would hold up during atmospheric reentry.

Agency officials called such a spacewalk dangerous, and maybe impossible.
But accomplished astronaut and spacewalk choreographer Story Musgrave
has told the accident board that's not true.

"All of this comes down to a simple razor edge decision: Do I walk or
not walk?" said Musgrave, a retired astronaut with more than two
decades experience in space flight, spacewalking and working in mission
control.

Facing an urgent need for solid information about damage to the heat
shield, the veteran explorer said, "All those managers had to do was ask."

The odds against pulling off a risky rescue mission fast enough to
save Columbia's seven astronauts is not nearly as relevant to
investigators as the knowledge that NASA did have options if
decision-makers' minds were open to them.

Columbia broke apart and burned as it reentered the atmosphere Feb. 1.
All seven astronauts died.

Investigators inside and outside the agency now believe superhot gas
penetrated the shuttle's wing in the same place where a piece of foam
insulation from the external fuel tank struck Columbia 82 seconds into
its launch on Jan. 16.

NASA engineers captured the debris strike on film, prompting an
engineering assessment of the damage that ultimately led to a decision
that Columbia's heat shield would hold up.

Hess, whose regular job is heading the U.S. Air Force's safety office,
said mission managers held "strong assumptions" that foam debris had
hit the orbiter many times before and was no more than a maintenance
nuisance. The final engineering assessment reinforced that assumption,
confirming for managers that the debris strike did not pose a safety threat.

Outgoing shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore has said NASA didn't
try a spacewalk because there was no technique for crew members to
spacewalk underneath the orbiter where there is nothing to hold onto.

"None of that was correct," Musgrave said.

Soon after hearing Dittemore's assessment, a skeptical Musgrave imagined
a dozen or so variations of the two-man spacewalk that would have put an
astronaut's eyes and, if necessary, his hands on the parts of the wing
that might be damaged.

Musgrave later went to the hangars at Kennedy Space Center, measuring
distances and double-checking geometry of actual shuttle wings to see
whether the spacewalks forming in his mind were possible. That look at
a shuttle wing confirmed he was right.

"It's not difficult and not dangerous," Musgrave said. "There is zero
risk involved. It's a 15-minute walk."

Instead, NASA did a theoretical damage assessment based on flawed
computer modeling and past experience of shuttles coming home safely
even with foam-battered heat shields.

NASA and outside investigators have said one weakness of the damage
assessment was that nobody ever actually looked at the underside of
the wing.

By not considering an inspection spacewalk early in the mission, NASA
missed its best chance to get a good look. NASA also passed up a chance
to request spy-satellite photos of the ship.

NASA spokesman James Hartsfield said Tuesday that the mission management
team did not opt for a spacewalk primarily because of the engineering
assessment.

Told the board and others were questioning the decision not to do a
spacewalk as part of the damage assessment, Hartsfield said, "The board
is the one conducting the investigation. They've interviewed all the
right people who were involved. I'm certainly not going to call their
conclusions into question."


Easy procedure

Musgrave, considered a spacewalk guru by NASA colleagues, told Florida
Today that he easily developed a spacewalk procedure to get an astronaut
in position to see and maybe even photograph damage to the leading edge
panels and heat shield tiles below the wing.

Using variations of standard spacewalk techniques, he said Columbia
astronauts David Brown and Michael Anderson could have worked in tandem
to document the damage in the early days of the mission -- perhaps in
time to alter future decisions.

If they had known, an internal agency study done at the request of the
investigation board found NASA could have hurriedly launched Atlantis
on a rescue mission. The study, first reported last week by Florida
Today, found such a rescue mission was risky, but possible.

Dittemore said in the days after the accident that NASA did not ask
for military telescopes or spy satellites to photograph the shuttle
because past experience showed such pictures wouldn't be good enough
to see damage to heat shield tiles.

Spacewalking astronauts would have had a much closer look.


Tethered walk

Musgrave told the accident board in private testimony that NASA could
have sent Brown and Anderson out of the cargo bay near the left wing.
One of a series of latches along the centerline of the open payload
bay door provided a sturdy enough structure for one of the spacewalkers
to attach a cable, or tether, to secure himself to the vehicle within
a few feet of the front edge of the wing.

"It's a beautiful walk," Musgrave said.

The tethered astronaut -- Brown, for example -- would then act much
like the robot arm does on other spacewalks outside the shuttle and
space station. Brown would grab and strap the other astronaut's feet
to his arms. Then he would swing Anderson out over the front edge of
the wing, in the same place NASA engineers estimated the orbiter was
hit by launch debris.

A little more work on procedures would have given NASA the ability
to put a spacewalker in position to repair the damage, if ground
controllers decided that was necessary and would make enough of a
difference to get the ship home safely.


Other ideas

At the Johnson Space Center in Houston, teams in the astronaut office
and extravehicular activity (EVA) office could have come up with the
same or similar spacewalks in a matter of hours had the mission management
team asked, Musgrave said. The EVA teams could have been ready with a
plan to get the astronauts out of Columbia's hatch on the very next day,
he predicted.

Musgrave is not the first to say a spacewalk was possible. Current
astronaut and veteran spacewalker Mike Lopez-Alegria told Florida Today
just days after the accident that astronauts do have ways to get beneath
the orbiter, including a procedure they train for before every mission.

Anderson and Brown were rookie spacewalkers, but were trained to handle
the access door spacewalk and extensively trained in generic spacewalking
skills. They were more than capable, Musgrave and other astronauts said.

"Another thing that's important is you've involved the people whose lives
matter," Musgrave said. "You've involved them in the process of how you
come home. There's a particular moral element to that."


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