Launch on Need

by Daniel Guiteras

  The progress bar on Walker’s computer showed 100 percent for the first file. Another progress bar for the second image showed 38 percent complete. Two more images began downloading.

  “Okay, I’m sending the first image over now,” Walker said, “and they’ll keep coming from here on out. Each new image will show as a thumbnail at the bottom of your screen. Just click on any thumbnail to view the image at full size.”

  The first ultra-high-resolution image flashed onto the screen all at once. It wasn’t rendered in the familiar, agonizingly slow, one-band-at-a-time screen redraws Warner had experienced when viewing the NASA photo guy’s hi-res images. Warner had never seen a high-resolution image file draw so fast on any computer, especially one at this resolution. Warner knew the files were huge.

  “Oh my God,” Warner exclaimed into the phone.

  Brown was going out of his mind. “What, what is it, what do you see?”

  “Oh, sorry, Ken, I just can’t believe the picture quality.”

  “Yes, but do you see any damage?”

  The image in front of Warner was of amazing detail. Bugeye didn’t have to look all the way down to Earth, down through Earth’s atmosphere, through smog, clouds and haze, as reconnaissance satellites do when imaging Earth-based targets. Instead, the classified satellite was looking down through pristine airspace, just 55 miles below to Atlantis. Warner could not remember ever seeing pictures of this clarity. Even pictures he’d seen taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station of approaching or departing orbiters—those images had never been this clear.

  Warner had inserted specific coordinates into the approach path Atlantis would take to rendezvous with Columbia, coordinates given to him by Commander Scheckter. These coordinates would position Atlantis at the perfect pitch for Bugeye to get a detailed look at Atlantis’s Thermal Protection System (TPS), including the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) panels along the wing’s leading-edge.

  “Okay, Ken, the first shot shows no gross damage to either wing’s leading edge,” Warner said with a certain note of optimism, as if all he had to do was confirm two wings were still attached to Atlantis’s fuselage and his job would be complete.

  “Allan, you’re going to need to look for a close-up of each wing, preferably close enough to see RCC panel and tile profiles, but far enough back so you can reference which wing you’re looking at. We have to make sure we clear both wings. I don’t want to find out while Atlantis is on her way home that you’ve given the green light for reentry after having looked at images from only one wing.”

  “Got it,” Warner said, already peering closely at other images as if he’d been infused with a new sense of purpose. “I’ve got at least twenty images to look through. Give me a second here.”

  “Over twenty already?” Brown asked, trying to imagine the hardware at work.

  “This is one serious data pipeline,” Warner said, becoming aware again that he wasn’t alone in the room. He looked up at the lieutenant, who had already sent him a stern look.

  Warner turned his attention back to the laptop computer. “This looks like a good one,” he said, double-clicking a thumbnail of what looked like a wing close-up. The image opened immediately. “I’m not sure what is more amazing here, the image clarity or how fast the images open. Ken, you’re going to have to talk to someone about getting better hardware.”

  “We’ll have to see about that when this is all over.”

  “Okay, this image shows a close-up,” Warner paused to clarify what he was looking at. “This is of RCC panels one through five of the left wing.”

  “Okay, now wait, Allan, what are you using for reference—how do you know it’s the left wing?” Brown stood up quickly from his office chair with the receiver pressed to his ear, frustrated by not being able to see the images himself. The latest hot spear of back pain hardly registered.

  “I’m using the numbers.”

  “What numbers, Allan? For Christ’s sake,” Ken shouted back.

  “The numbers on the panels. Aren’t they numbered one-L, two-L, and three-L, for one-left, two-left and so on?”

  “Yes. Wait, you can read the numbers on the RCC panels?”

  “I’m telling you, Ken, the resolution is incredible.”

  “My God.” Brown simply couldn’t believe it. How could such a satellite exist, and where the hell was it when he and his engineers first became concerned about Columbia’s wing damage three weeks ago? Those questions would have to be answered later.

  “All right then, Allan, you’re gonna need to find close-ups for each section of both wings so we can clear them for damage.” Brown wedged the phone between his fleshy cheek and shoulder, then whipped open a file drawer on the right side of his desk. He quickly thumbed through his Pendaflex file folders and found his NASA line art drawings showing generic orbiters from various perspectives. Brown had printed out ten or so sheets of each view for just this kind of occasion. From his sheaf of drawings he selected a view that showed the orbiter’s heat shield and 22 RCC panels per wing. With a pencil he quickly numbered the RCC panels. Starting with the numeral one where the wing met the fuselage, he continued on around the contour of the wing, numbering each section until he reached 22. Then he shaded in panels he and Warner had already cleared.

  “Once we’re done with the RCC panels,” he said to Warner, “we’ll need to check Atlantis’s belly. Make sure the tiles there didn’t sustain any damage.”

  Warner glanced down at the thumbnails along the bottom of his screen. “You’re keeping track as we go along, right?”

  “Got a sheet right in front of me.”

  “Okay, Walker’s sent me some thumbnail images of Atlantis’s belly. We’ll get to those in a second, as soon as we clear all forty-four RCC panels.”

  Chapter 57

  BROWN TOOK CAREFUL NOTES during his conversation with Warner, marking off each section of Atlantis’s heat shield effectively cleared by the high-resolution satellite images. So far, Brown’s drawing indicated that the leading edges of both wings appeared to be intact. Brown felt some relief in this finding, but knew he and Warner still had a lot of photos to examine. It was far too early to celebrate the safe arrival of Atlantis on orbit, too early to issue a green light.

  “The next image appears to be…,” Warner trailed off. “I guess it’s Atlantis’s belly. I can’t be sure because the shot is so tight.”

  “Can you read the tile’s code?” Brown asked. Brown was asking if Warner could read the yellow alphanumeric identification code that could be found on the outside of each tile. Letters and numbers that made up the unique code were marked with a special heat-resistant paint called Spearex, and could be easily read with the naked eye. The code told engineers the unique characteristics of each tile, including thickness, insulative properties, and tile location.

  “Yes, yes I can, quite clearly,” Warner responded.

  “The software keeps track of the images,” Walker interrupted in a monotone, still pretending he wasn’t listening in.

  Warner looked up from his computer. “Hold on a minute, Ken,” he said into the phone.

  “Excuse me?” Warner asked Walker.

  “The satellite imaging software keeps track of the images,” Walker repeated. “Can you find image 000823?”

  “Yes, I see it.”

  “Alright, double-click that image. It’s a view of the underside of the entire left wing, zoomed out just far enough to capture the entire wing.”

  “Okay, Ken, Walker’s got me looking at the underside of the left wing. The image is pulled out far enough for me to see the wing contour. It’s definitely the left wing.”

  “Allan, do you see any white marks or streaks of any kind?”

  “Uh, hold on now,” Warner said, then swallowed hard. He quickly scanned the image. “Ken, there are white spots all over the place.”

  Brown tried to stay calm. Every shuttle flight that had ever flown had returned home with modest tile damage. Was Warner seeing
the typical tile assault that occurred during launch, or was this damage more serious? “Allan, we need to focus on the whitest areas, places where there is the greatest disruption in the black tile color.”

  “Okay,” Warner said, hesitating.

  “Now, if you click any part of 000823,” Walker interrupted again, “a five-stage zoom slider will appear.”

  It was now abundantly clear to Warner that Walker had indeed been listening to both sides of the phone conversation. Warner moved the track pad arrow over to a section of the image that looked particularly bad, showing the heaviest concentration of white spots, and clicked. With a few more clicks and adjustments, he’d found what he guessed was about a 1-foot-square section of tiles.

  “Okay Ken, my image area is four tiles.”

  Brown knew that each tile affixed to the orbiter’s skin was unique to its location in terms of exact size, shape, thickness, contour and thermal properties. Generally, the tiles along the flat bottom of Atlantis were 6 by 6 inches in size.

  “I’m looking at a large gouge,” Warner said. “Definitely full thickness. Looks like a coconut that’s been cracked open, dark on the outside, fresh, brilliant-white meat on the inside.”

  Brown paced. “Any idea where on the belly you’re looking, Allan?”

  Warner backed the image out using the slider. “Yes, it’s between the belly centerline and the left main landing-gear door.”

  “You’re sure it’s not on the door itself, right?”

  “Yes, it’s not on the door at all.”

  “Okay, good. Is the damaged tile’s ID code intact?”

  “Appears to be intact, yes,” Warner replied.

  Brown mumbled thoughtfully, “It’s probably too blurry to make out the code after zooming in so far.” Then, louder, he said, “The TPS guys will be able to tell us exactly what’s under each damaged tile.”

  Walker, sensing Brown’s frustration at not being able to see the images himself, gave up all pretense and addressed both men. “Are you guys familiar with the difference between optical and digital zoom?”

  “Yes, of course,” Brown overheard Walker in the background and answered instantly.

  “I think so,” Warner said.

  “Well, the images that Mr. Warner and I are looking at were all obtained optically. The five stages of image depth seen when the slider is moved to zoom in are from five actual pictures. They are not generated by the computer software; they’re actual pictures.”

  “Unbelievable,” Brown said.

  “Sure is,” Warner said.

  Brown let out a sigh over the phone, trying to think what to do next. “Can you estimate the surface area damage?”

  “Well, it would be hard to say with no scale to compare the damage to. I’m not familiar enough with the tiles that I could…”

  “Push F3,” Walker said.

  Warner looked up again, almost laughed. It was now obviously a three-way conversation. He pushed F3 on his computer. Instantly, a scale with X and Y axes overlaid the tile image; incremental markings along the hairlines divided centimeters into millimeters and inches into fractions. “Brown, I wish you could see this,” he exclaimed. “The detail. The precision. It’s unbelievable.”

  “So, using the scale, tell me how big of an area of damage you’re looking at,” Brown said.

  “Hold on a second… Okay, it’s three-and-a-quarter by two-and-a-half inches, and the damage spans two tiles.”

  “That’s not good, not good at all. What about depth?”

  “It’s full thickness over more than half of that area.”

  “Shit, this is not good,” Brown said, falling back into his desk chair. Brown knew that no orbiter had ever landed with as much damage as Atlantis had right now, and she hadn’t even been subjected to the heat of reentry yet.

  “How bad are you thinking, Ken?” Warner asked, hoping to better appreciate the tile damage from Brown’s perspective. “I’ve still got two white areas to examine, and we haven’t even looked at the other wing yet.”

  Brown didn’t respond.

  “I mean if this tile can’t support reentry, we’re truly out of fuckin’ cards here, Ken. Atlantis was it, she’s our last card.”

  Chapter 58

  Columbia Flight Day 26

  Monday, Feb. 10, 2003

  “HOUSTON, ATLANTIS, we have visualization of Columbia. One-hundred-thousand-feet and closing.”

  “Atlantis, Houston, we copy visualization. Break, break, Columbia, Houston for the commander, do you have a visualization of Atlantis?”

  “Houston, Columbia, that’s affirmative. She’s a beautiful sight out of window one.”

  “Roger that, Columbia. We’ll get ’em to ya just as fast as we can.”

  “Copy that. Our suitcases are packed and stacked by the door.”

  On Columbia, the first two astronauts to be rescued were already in the airlock making their final suit preparations for the spacewalk to Atlantis. They were nearly finished with their pre-breathe protocol, nearly ready to be rescued. The weeks of waiting and worrying would soon end. The crew of Columbia had mixed feelings as they prepared to depart their ailing spacecraft. Obviously, they were grateful to see Atlantis approaching. But at the same time they realized this was likely their last flight.

  Despite the extreme nature of their predicament, all of the astronauts on Columbia still felt that they had important science to study, future missions to be considered for, and components of the International Space Station to help build.

  However, most of the men and women on Columbia realized their future endeavors in science would be ground-based. For one thing, any spouse simply would not allow them to take further risk after having so narrowly escaped death.

  There also was a definite celebrity status that Columbia’s crew would come to know. NASA’s public affairs office already had been inundated with calls from television networks inquiring about how they could arrange to have the crew of Columbia appear on their programs. There would be books to write, guest appearances and speaking engagements.

  For all the crew had endured, America would reward them in the best way it knew how: It would make them rich and famous.

  Chapter 59

  Johnson Space Center, Houston

  Mission Control

  WITH THE RESCUE SPACEWALK still several hours away from commencement, four engineers from NASA’s Thermal Protection System engineering team hurried into a small conference room at Mission Control. None of the engineers from the TPS team had been given any details about the purpose of the meeting, save where and when to meet.

  The majority of the TPS team’s mission-related work usually occurred either before a launch, in the careful preparation of an orbiter’s heat shield, or after an orbiter returned from space, when damaged tiles were replaced. So being called to a secretive, unscheduled meeting at 6:00 A.M., just five hours after a launch, stirred the engineers’ fears about Atlantis’s heat shield. As Julie Pollard and Joseph Senca entered the room, the group’s nervous conversation died immediately,

  Without uttering a single word, Pollard leaned in across the table and handed a folded sheet of paper to Doug Altin, the most senior engineer, seated midway along the conference table. Altin took the sheet and opened it. Engineers to his left and right peered over his shoulders.

  “Tile codes,” Altin said immediately.

  “Yes,” Pollard said.

  “From Atlantis I presume?”

  “Yes. Hi-res satellite imaging, I mean really hi-res,” Pollard said, emphasizing the reliability of the source, “shows those five tiles from Atlantis are badly damaged.”

  The purpose of the meeting was obvious to the four engineers: The tile codes represented tiles damaged during the rescue launch, and they were being assigned to the rescue mission’s next Tiger Team.

  “Jesus!” Altin said.

  Pollard held out her hand to quell any further outbursts. Altin was right. She knew it—hell, everyone knew it. It wasn’t just the TPS guys
who understood the importance of the heat shield. “What Joe and I need to know,” Pollard continued slowly and carefully, “is what’s underneath each of these five tiles. We need to know how critical they are for a safe reentry.”

  Pollard rolled her wrist to check her watch. “Guys, we need to decide all this in the next…” Pollard hesitated, then thought better of giving them a time limit. “Joe and I will wait here for your recommendation.”

  “Julie, with all due respect,” Altin said, “shouldn’t we just flip a coin? Heads they make it back, tails they don’t? Don’t we bring Atlantis down no matter what the damage is?” Despite his comment, and not one to shy away from a challenge, Altin opened his laptop, signaling he’d do what he could even if it made little sense to him.

  “We can tell you exactly where your damaged tiles are located on Atlantis, and what’s directly under them.” He found the TPS database for Atlantis, opened it. “That’s the easy part. But guessing whether or not a certain-percent breach will be catastrophic, well, that’s a whole other matter. We don’t have data percentages like that. This amount of damage, they still make it back. Take away a tile or two more, still okay. Take away part of just one more and we have a burn through. Julie, we just don’t have that kind of information.”

  “Alright, let’s take this one step at a time,” Senca said. “The biggest area of damage we have is with tiles three and four on the list.”

  Altin spun the paper on the table so the codes faced him again, then keyed in the ID codes from tiles three and four with maniacal speed.

  “The damage is spread across tiles three and four. It’s full thickness over an area that measures three-and-a-quarter by two-and-a-half inches,” Senca added.

  “How is it that we know the exact area?” one of the engineers asked.

  Pollard answered firmly, “The data’s unequivocal. We don’t need to discuss the quality of the data, guys. We know it’s solid. We need to focus only on what it means for Atlantis.”