Launch on Need

by Daniel Guiteras

  She had been careful over the years not to mention to others the thoughts that often swirled in her head. Her private thoughts remained private. She feared others just wouldn’t understand, that they would take her the wrong way, see her as nothing more than a cold, uncaring person, a robot.

  People’s lives were on the line, and others’ careers were too. She had remained mindful of this as she helped manage expenditures from NASA’s $6 billion human spaceflight annual budget. She never forgot the magnitude of her responsibility, nor the role she played in keeping teams working together and each mission on schedule.

  Crazy as it seemed, her one constant thought—the one she feared revealing the most—was that she actually liked it when things went wrong—not when harm came to person or property, but when problems arose, big scary problems, the kind of problems that sent others cowering.

  When things were going smoothly, she practically had to fight off boredom, keep after the throttle to prevent stalling, all the while her brain complaining from inactivity like a Ferrari held up in traffic.

  To Pollard, Columbia’s predicament was a treasured cerebral gift, one from which she carefully removed each layer of wrapping, savoring the growing complexity, the ever-increasing stakes.

  The rescue mission had a narcotic hold on her, akin to what BASE jumpers feel before stepping off, or the way a firefighter loves a great fire.

  Pollard had found herself at the epicenter of a shitstorm, and she was having the time of her life.

  Chapter 29

  Columbia Flight Day 7

  Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2003

  STANGLEY LOOKED OUT HIS WINDSHIELD on a line of sight high above the slow-moving line of traffic ahead of him, and saw NASA’s huge vehicle assembly building (VAB) faintly silhouetted against the nearly white morning sky. There were few buildings around for comparison and the flat Atlantic horizon extended to the south. Even the adjacent orbiter processing facility (OPF) seemed small in comparison; so once again he found himself fooled as to the VAB’s incredible size. Stangley had been on the grounds of the Space Center countless times, and still the sight of the VAB always sent a shudder of patriotic excitement through him.

  Stangley could not remember seeing so many armed guards in the OPF parking lot before, but he quickly realized that a lot of things were going to be different for this mission. He got out of his car and walked around to the passenger side to get his briefcase. Stangley was not particularly skilled at traveling light, so in his briefcase were his laptop and iPod, a 120GB external hard drive, and 10 DVDs full of his file archives related to everything to do with the Space Shuttle Program: fact sheets, NASA PDF files, all the space-related stories he had ever written, JPEG photos and MPEG4 videos. In a separate rigid case he kept his Daron-brand models he used while on camera to help demonstrate to his audience what he was talking about. One was of an orbiter that had working payload bay doors, the other a complete space shuttle stack.

  “See your credentials, sir?” demanded the armed guard who appeared from somewhere behind Stangley.

  “Ah, yes,” Stangley said, surprised by the increased security. He opened his tweed sport coat, exposing the CNN press credential that hung from his neck.

  The guard grabbed a corner of the credential and pulled it away from Stangley’s chest, scrutinized the picture, looked again at Stangley, then said, “Thank you, Mr. Stangley. We’re checking all photo IDs closely. Ultra-high-profile mission, post-9/11 and all. Thank you for your understanding.” The guard turned to walk away, then stopped to add, “The rest of the CNN crew is already in the OPF, ah, just inside the main entrance of OPF 1.”

  “Thank you,” Stangley replied. He felt so nervous and so excited. It had been over five years since he had been in the OPF and so the chance for him to see it again now, especially during the prepping of an orbiter for a rescue mission, was incredible.

  There was a palpable difference throughout the center in the way personnel were acting. Stangley had noticed this difference well before the turnoff for the visitor center, which was many miles back from where he had parked his car. He had seen new signs along the road, posted just in the last two days, informing the public about the added security and restrictions in effect. The new signage began well before the Astronaut Hall of Fame on SR 405.

  Bus tours from the Visitor Center onto the actual grounds of the KSC, normally scheduled to run every 15 minutes between the hours of 10 A.M. and 2:15 P.M., had been canceled until after the launch of Atlantis. The crowds still came to the Visitor Center, though—more than ever before. Even with the bus tours canceled, the visitor center had been filling to capacity by 10:15 A.M. every day.

  Stangley thought that maybe even the smell of the ocean was somehow different. And as he added up all the changes he had observed so far in the past few days, there was one thing he knew for sure: NASA was in real trouble.

  As Stangley walked from his car toward the Kennedy Space Center’s orbiter processing facility, loaded down with all the stuff he was carrying, he performed a self-test to see what he could remember about NASA’s OPF. It was a trait he liked least about himself, his recitation of information when he was alone. But it seemed to happen most when he was on NASA property—or as he thought of it, whenever he was on hallowed ground.

  Rising up in front of him were the two main hangers, or high-bays, of the OPF, designated OPF 1 and OPF 2.

  “Each high-bay measures just less than 30,000 square feet, and has ceilings of 95 feet,” Stangley said, just loud enough so he could hear himself speaking. He continued with his tour-guide cadence. “The ceilings of the high-bays easily accommodate the nearly 60-foot height of the orbiter’s vertical stabilizer. Wing span is slightly over 78 feet, and there is plenty of clearance. This allows the orbiters to be towed in directly, without fear of them contacting the building walls.

  “In between,” Stangley continued, as he readjusted his load, “and open to OPF 1 and OPF 2, is a low-bay hanger that measures over 23,000 square feet. The low-bay is used to process payloads such as satellites. When a payload is ready, it is moved from the low-bay into the high-bay to be installed into the appropriate orbiter’s payload bay.

  “Adjacent to OPF 1 and OPF 2 and across a service road is OPF 3, a stand-alone high-bay facility that measures 50,000 square feet. The three high-bays of the OPF are used to service NASA’s four remaining orbiters: Columbia, Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavor.

  “Well, soon they’ll have only three to service,” Stangley said in a louder voice, and he realized he had broken from his recitation. “Rescue or not, Columbia won’t be coming home.”

  Chapter 30

  Kennedy Space Center, Florida

  Orbiter Processing Facility

  SHE WAS STILL, nestled safe inside her home. The brave warrior known as Atlantis was being readied for a rescue mission.

  Ground crews had been working around the clock in three shifts, pampering and fussing over her like she was a Rose Bowl float with three days left before the parade. Powerful jacks held her steady, suspending her a full 10 feet over the OPF floor. Her nose and landing gear were fully retracted and stowed, her belly smooth—but she wasn’t flying, she was resting.

  All around her were platforms and catwalks and a bewildering array of purpose-built machinery. The OPF served as a showcase of everything America knew about going into space. Stairs led up and down between five levels. Thousands of feet of pipe twisted and turned between levels, forming a complex plumbing network, transporting exactly what, Stangley was not sure. The floor of the OPF was covered with several different materials, including textured, color-coded linoleum; non-slip rubber matting; and removable diamond-plate-embossed aluminum panels screwed down tight.

  Visible at the ceiling were steel rails connected to the building’s superstructure. Payload-bay cranes ran on these rails and were capable of moving heavy equipment on and off the platforms, the equivalent weight of whole satellites in and out of an orbiter’s payload bay.

 
Looking upward from the ground floor, Stangley saw only Atlantis’s belly and wing tiles, smooth and flush, all 32,000, numbered and cataloged. He assumed that tiles that were damaged during STS-112, her last mission, had already been painstakingly replaced. The rest of Atlantis was hidden from view by the lowest-level platform above him. It was like this at each platform level; only a portion of the orbiter was visible, like a patient’s surgical site draped and prepared for surgery. This focused each worker’s attention only on his or her specific area.

  The press tour of the OPF was going to be done in small closely guarded groups. Stangley’s group had just 10 reporters, all of whom Stangley had met in the past, though he figured a few of them might not remember who he was due to his long absence. Stangley felt like the old guy who was expected to retire to make room for the newcomers. However, he could not think of anyone in his line of work, certainly no one in this current group, who shared his passion for the space program.

  The group had already gathered as instructed at the entrance to the OPF near the aft end of Atlantis—all except Stangley, who had walked underneath Atlantis in an attempt to see her left wing up close. He was hoping to better visualize the area where Columbia had been damaged.

  “We’re ready to start when you are,” the guide said loudly, hoping Stangley would hear him. The guide knew that besides being the most popular science guy on CNN, and arguably any network for that matter, Stangley was a dying breed of old-school space fanatics. He knew that Stangley knew enough about the space shuttle to know what was off limits during processing, and that he respected NASA enough to actually follow the rules. He thought for a moment that NASA could actually use a few more reporters like Stangley. Realizing Stangley clearly had not heard him above the ambient noise in the OPF, the guide left the group briefly to retrieve Stangley.

  Stangley had been making his way forward, walking under the belly of Atlantis, and he was now craning his neck, trying to examine the RCC panels of Atlantis’s wing. “Just trying to get some perspective on the wing damage,” Stangley said as he saw the guide coming toward him. “It’s all about perspective, you know.”

  “Well, if you want perspective, you’ll need to join the rest of us. I can’t have you wandering off,” the guide said. “We need to get going.”

  Back with the group, the guide wasted no time in beginning his tour.

  “Okay, here we go, we’re ready to start. Sorry your camera crews couldn’t come along. We simply can’t accommodate everyone and their equipment right now. The press kit you downloaded from our website outlines how you can obtain NASA file footage of the OPF. My plan today is to show you as much as I can, but we will need to stay clear of the workers. Vehicle processing is running a very rushed schedule, as you can imagine.

  “Now, for those of you who might be here for the first time, you should know that the OPF functions as a service center for NASA’s fleet of orbiters. The OPF’s role in the shuttle program begins soon after an orbiter returns from space. After an orbiter lands and is ‘safed’—that is, any hazardous fluids are removed—the orbiter gets towed into one of the three high-bays. Here we perform maintenance, tile repairs, system checks, equipment updates, payload-bay unloads and reloads, et cetera—just about anything that an orbiter needs for its next mission gets done here in the OPF.”

  The guide didn’t say it, but he made it clear to the group in his tone and body language that Stangley and his colleagues were in a special place, and lucky to be there. They were witnessing history in the making. Sensing that some of the younger reporters did not quite get it, the guide stopped the group again and said, “Please keep in mind that never before in the history of manned spaceflight has NASA or any other space agency used one manned spacecraft to rescue the crew of another.”

  The guide paused, then he turned and pointed up to Atlantis’s three main engines.

  “Each engine bell of the three main engines measures seven-and-a-half feet in diameter. The bright red cover you see over each engine bell signifies that engine has been closed out for this mission; in other words, all the maintenance, parts replacement and engine system checks have been performed—it’s ready to go. The covers also serve to prevent any foreign-object damage, and will remain in place at least until Atlantis is hoisted into the vertical position, next door, at the vehicle assembly building.”

  The guide then led the group along the length of Atlantis toward the forward end and to a set of stairs that gave access to the first platform. All along the way were posters and banners of various sizes that cheered, “Go Get ’Em Atlantis.”

  As the group climbed the stairs, the underside and nose of Atlantis grew closer, close enough for them to touch her protective tiles. Being last up the stairs and feeling that he was visually blocked from the guide by the others, Stangley readied his hand at his side. He was ready to touch the tiles—he really couldn’t stop himself. He felt he needed the connection, like a crazed fan doing whatever it took to touch the hand of his favorite performer.

  As he neared Atlantis, he rotated his forearm outwardly, preparing to lay his hand flat against her cool belly. Then, he reached for her, and caressed her tiles with his palm and fingers. Smooth, then a seam. Smooth, then a seam. Unique scales that covered an engineering marvel.

  Stangley imagined the launch of Atlantis, the rendezvous with Columbia, and finally the landing. He was certain that his connection to Atlantis would be stronger from having touched her today.

  Chapter 31

  BROWN AND THE PHOTO GUYS were busy, too. In the next two weeks in preparation for the launch, they needed to test all cameras, especially for proper focus and alignment. They also would ready themselves for post-launch still and video analysis of Atlantis—they would need to assess whether or not she sustained tile damage during launch.

  “We will spare no expense in effecting a rescue of our astronauts,” the president had stated. Columbia’s now-infamous launch imaging had helped to galvanize the need for upgrades. But in terms of upgrades to NASA’s current launch-imaging systems, there would be none before the rescue launch.

  It wasn’t that the photo/video engineers weren’t sure what to buy; they in fact had compiled pages and pages of recommended hardware upgrades. Their wish list was as ready as a 10-year-old’s six months before Christmas. And it didn’t seem to be a money issue, either. The president had promised the funding.

  The reason no upgrades to the imaging system would be made before the launch was simple: There wasn’t enough time. There wasn’t enough time to select, purchase, install and test new imaging equipment in the roughly 25 days before launch.

  Brown was troubled by this reality and it weighed on him heavily. He agonized over the idea of sending another shuttle up without having made improvements to systems and materials they knew were flawed. No matter how hard he tried to get his mind around the concept, the answer always came back the same.

  Seven astronauts needed to be rescued, no matter the cost.

  The hard truth was that no improvements would be made to the external fuel tank used to launch Atlantis and her rescue crew of four. There also would be no improvements in the launch-imaging system. If there were significant foam loss during the launch of Atlantis, the photo guys would again rely on the same limited imaging they had with Columbia. Except this time, the detailed review of Atlantis’s launch films—the diligent hunt for possible damage to Atlantis’s thermal protection system—would be for the welfare of 11 astronauts instead of seven.

  The Kennedy Space Center had become the queen bee of the space program, the epicenter for everything NASA. But to appreciate the impact the rescue mission was having on the world, to see in living color the circus Brown had predicted, his staff had turned on the TV.

  “So what are they saying about us, guys?” Brown asked. His staff had their 25-inch monitors tuned to the news, and he could see they were nervously switching channels just about every 30 seconds.

  “Well, they’re covering every angle, that
’s for sure,” Steve Metzer said, “everything from toys to prayer vigils.”

  “Did you say toys?” Brown asked.

  “Yeah, CNN had some spokesperson from Toys “R” Us saying that first there was a huge run on all toys related to Columbia and Atlantis—but those quickly sold out. Stores across the country then sold out of all shuttle-related toys. Models, puzzles, Legos and any other shuttle-themed toys are all sold out. He even said an increase in production would likely have little impact on inventories until after the launch. Then there are the T-shirt vendors. Did you happen to see them on your way in here today?”

  “No, I didn’t notice,” Brown responded, shaking his head.

  “Well, they’re all over SR 405, don’t know how you could’ve missed them. There are T-shirts, flags for car antennas, pink and yellow magnetic ribbons that say ‘Go NASA,’ and ‘Go Atlantis.’ Even the KSC Visitor Center gift shop is cleaned out. I drove over there yesterday; the place looks like it’s been looted by a couple hundred people. There’s stuff on eBay, like mission patches, selling for four or five times retail. It’s just flat-out crazy.”

  Brown smiled, “Crazy is not the word for it… Oh, hey, turn that up, I want to hear what they’re saying about Mission Control.”

  Metzer hit the mute button to get the audio back. Then Brown and Metzer listened to the various news briefs.

  “… at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, Mission Control software engineers are busy wrestling with changes to Atlantis’s flight software. We were told by a NASA spokesperson today that creating the software flight plan for a shuttle mission typically takes six months. The software for Atlantis and her STS-114 mission, the mission she was supposed to fly in March, had already been completed. But since Atlantis has been reassigned to the rescue mission, she won’t be going to the Space Station. Engineers have to make changes to her software—changes in her launch window, altitude and inclination to orbit—and write instructions for rendezvous with Columbia. Initially there was concern that NASA’s current computer hardware would not be able to support Columbia, Atlantis and the International Space Station all in space at the same time. But we were reassured by a NASA press statement that was published earlier today that NASA will in fact be able to manage all three in space without having to add computers, and that engineers will not have to mix new and old computers prior to the rescue launch.”