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Pastimes : Shuttle Columbia STS-107
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To: Yogizuna who wrote (376)2/5/2003 6:46:12 PM
From: ownstock  Read Replies (2) of 627
 
I corrected my earlier post. I agree it would not have been possible to reach the ISS with the Shuttle, even with full cooperation. Mathematically, the shuttle carries enough fuel onboard to make, in theory, about a 20% velocity adjustment. The ISS and shuttle are in orbital planes about 30 degrees apart. The fuel onboard would allow them to move about 5-7 degrees, without much of a payload. The ISS fuel story is another matter: they probably have less in comparison to their mass. So that idea was and is a a no-go.

That makes me all the more interested in following the sequence of events surrounding the video of the launch. I agree with your sentiment, it was too risky for individual careers to abort the mission, unless it could be proven it was necessary. Exactly like Challenger. The rest of the story is excuse.

Unlike you (maybe), I do not believe there was any reasonable reason to doubt there was massive damage to the underside of the shuttle wing on launch. The video is conclusive. I saw a stabilized enhanced version of the video...wherein the apparent shuttle body motion and frame to frame jitter was removed. You see the "foam" drop, then the "splash" then the wing bows and flops like it had been hit by a bomb! That was 80 seconds in...they still had the balance of 2:40 min:sec to save their lives and the shuttle too. But the average decision time around NASA is measured in years, not seconds.

-Own
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