Launch on Need

by Daniel Guiteras

  “Okay,” Stangley said, his earpiece back in, makeup freshened, and technically, but not mentally, ready for more shuttle talk. “Wrapping up a statement there was NASA’s Julie Pollard. It’s certainly a surprise to hear about Atlantis’s tile damage for those of us and you out there who thought getting Atlantis into space on time was the challenge, who thought if we could just do that, then the crew of Columbia could be rescued. Well, as we’ve just learned, the crew of Columbia and now the crew of Atlantis, too, are facing a new danger of not making it back home safely. I can tell you that I am taken aback with this news about the tile damage. Although it sounds like the damage has been thoroughly investigated by NASA engineers, I can’t help but wonder if that is in fact true. I’m not implying that the engineers at NASA are lying to us or that I know more about shuttle physics than they do. What I mean is that I’m worried for both crews. Remember, at first word, engineers didn’t believe that falling foam had ripped a hole in Columbia’s wing. A source inside NASA, someone whose name I can’t reveal, told me that some NASA engineers weren’t convinced falling foam was capable of causing the amount of damage Columbia sustained until they’d seen the actual video recorded during the wing-inspection space walk.

  “Because of that doubt, I have to question how much is really known about the resiliency of the tiles, whether we can be certain the damaged tiles won’t be a factor for reentry.” Stangley heaved a sigh, paused. “I guess we’ll have to say our prayers that the tiles hold during reentry. The worst of it is that not just the Columbia crew but also the Atlantis crew, all eleven astronauts, have no other choice. They must use Atlantis, whatever shape she’s in, to come home.” Stangley grabbed his orbiter models deliberately, hoping the tears that blurred the edges of his vision would dissipate if he changed the subject and moved ahead with a demonstration.

  “I want to review for you some of the first things astronauts on Atlantis will be doing now that they’ve reached their final rendezvous position in orbit. There are a number of things they will need to do even before starting the EVA and the transfer of Columbia’s crew. First thing will be…”

  GARRETT AND MULLEN secured their feet into foot straps fastened to the floor at the flight deck’s aft workstation. The workstation was complete with a rotational hand controller, a laptop computer and several display panels. The back wall of the flight deck, the aft bulkhead, served as a wall between the living quarters of Atlantis and the payload bay. Mounted high in the aft bulkhead were two windows that allowed astronauts to view payload bay activity from inside the orbiter, and move cargo in and out of the payload bay using the remote manipulator arm mounted along the port side of the payload bay. For now, though, the windows were dark, since the closed payload bay doors blocked out any available sunlight.

  “Houston, Atlantis. We’re ready at panel R-13,” Mullen called out. “Ready to initiate auto PBD sequence.”

  Garrett looked over at Mullen and whispered, “Are you gonna tell ’em every time you have to take a pee, too?”

  “Hey, I’m callin’ out everything,” Mullen replied. “I’m going to have a perfect mission. No one’s getting stuck up here ’cause of me.”

  “Atlantis, Houston, you’re go for PBD opening.”

  “Roger that,” Mullen replied, smiling back at Garrett and hitting the switch to start the autosequence. “See, it’s not so hard getting permission first.”

  The port and starboard payload bay doors were comprised of five joined sections that ran 60 feet. When closed, the two doors formed the upper back of the orbiter. Shortly after an orbiter arrived on orbit, the payload bay doors were to be opened to allow radiators mounted on the inside of the doors to get to work regulating the orbiter’s temperature.

  Mullen reached out and flipped the auto PBD switch on panel R-13.

  The two astronauts waited patiently for the mechanical symphony to start. They knew that before the doors could open, the automated system would first release the 32 latches that secured the doors for flight. Sixteen latches held the doors to each other along the centerline. Eight additional latches per door secured the doors to the forward and aft bulkheads. Six rotary gear actuators would power the doors open on 13 Inconel-718 hinges, eight of the floating type and five of the nonmoving shear type, until the doors reached their stops 175½ degrees later.

  “Do you have your iPod ready?” Garrett asked.

  “For what? Why?” Mullen replied.

  “I always expect to hear the Blue Danube or some John Williams movie soundtrack to start playing as the doors open. You know, the sunlight starts streaming in, the doors moving in slow motion. I think it would add to the effect.”

  Mullen shook his head. They waited silently for 30 seconds or so, watching the starboard door open past its halfway point.

  “Now, there’s something you don’t see every day,” Mullen said, breaking the silence. “We’ve got warm sunshine, an essentially empty payload bay dressed in brilliant white, and Colombia hovering upside down just twenty feet above us.”

  “Atlantis, Houston, Garrett’s gettin’ some amazing video out the aft flight deck windows for you folks back home.”

  “Roger Atlantis, we copy. Look forward to seeing it!”

  Chapter 65

  In Space, Rendezvous Station

  Approximately 178 statute miles above Earth

  39 degree inclination to equator

  TERRY MULLEN PULLED in a deep breath of cool suit air, savored it. Then he glanced up once more at the sight of Columbia through the 4-inch window of Atlantis’s external airlock door. He knew two Columbia astronauts were ready in Columbia’s airlock with suits on, pre-breathe done, and airlock depressurized.

  Mullen let his breath out all at once, like a sudden burst of tension, of apprehension, as if he was just about to step off a 20-foot cliff and plunge into ice cold water. He hadn’t been aware that he’d been holding his breath. Truth was, there wasn’t a cell in his body that didn’t understand what was riding on the work he was about to do.

  “You ready?” he asked Garrett.

  “Are you?” Garrett responded, sure that Mullen was almost sick with nervousness, and was likely in need of a kick in the ass.

  Mullen said nothing. He simply reached up and pulled the actuator arm of the external airlock door, then floated back slightly to accommodate the door as it opened down and into the airlock. Preoccupied with the job at hand, Mullen vaguely recognized this as just another clever design feature of NASA’s; when the airlock was pressurized, the doors would be forced into a closed position, thereby helping to seal the airlock.

  “Atlantis, Houston, we’re on our way out.”

  “Roger that, Atlantis, we’re watching you from the cam. Just a reminder, tether in ASAP.”

  “Copy tether in,” Mullen replied.

  Mullen and Garrett spent the next 30 minutes or so in Atlantis’s payload bay, setting up for the first transfer. With the help of Mullen, Garrett got himself up onto a fixed and elevated standing station, then fastened his boots down tight so that he’d have a firm platform on which to work and assist Mullen. Next, Garrett took hold of the carabiner fastened to one end of the 23-foot transfer rope and connected it to his suit tether buckle. Mullen took the other end of the rope, which also had been fixed with a carabineer, and fastened it to his suit buckle. To another suit buckle, Mullen fastened a bag containing three spare LiOH canisters for use on Columbia.

  Mission control carefully watched every step the astronauts made from a camera mounted in Atlantis’s payload bay.

  “Houston for Atlantis EVA crew, no need to rush things. Make several trips as planned, no deltas. Everything must be tethered or stowed. Carry nothing by hand.”

  “We copy, Houston,” Mullen said.

  Garrett noted but did not remark aloud about how eerie things appeared. He himself was standing several feet up above the floor of Atlantis’s payload bay, his boots fixed to the work platform. Mullen was out in front of him. Because of the effects of microg
ravity, the long transfer rope floated between them in a haphazard way. Columbia was overhead, and two fully inflated but empty EVA suits were tethered to Atlantis’s slide wire, buoyed up like parade balloons on New Year’s Day.

  “Houston, I’m on my way up to Columbia,” Mullen said. Using his hands against Garrett’s standing platform, he rotated himself so that his boots contacted the floor of Atlantis’s payload bay. Then, aware it wouldn’t take much power he bent his knees slightly and pushed off gently from the floor of the payload bay. Mullen rose; two seconds later, his boots passed in front of Garrett’s helmet.

  As Mullen flew, Garrett let the rope course through his open gloved hands. Mullen had aimed well, had applied force through his center of mass, and now was headed on a straight path to Columbia without a hint of rotation. His hands were out to stop his motion and to catch the bright-yellow grab bars mounted to the roof of Columbia’s SpaceHab module. As Columbia grew larger in front of him, Mullen felt he might be moving a little too fast, and called to Garrett. “Garrett, how about a bit of braking on the rope.”

  Garrett knew instantly what Mullen meant, and began lightly closing his hands around the rope to slow Mullen’s ascent.

  “And we have contact, Houston. The Mullen has landed,”

  Garrett said, watching out for Mullen above while leaning back in his foot restraint.

  “Man, this is weird,” Mullen said.

  “Yes, indeed. Nice jump by the way,” Garrett replied. “Now let me get these suits up to you.” Garrett fought to keep Mullen focused. He knew how Mullen could get to thinking about things and start to freeze up like a skier looking down from a precipice. Garrett could not afford for Mullen to get “the grip.” Nor could any of the others.

  As Garrett handed the first EVA suit up to Mullen using a telescoping boom, he heard Houston talking to Columbia over the comm loop, checking status and giving initial transfer instructions. Soon he saw the first Columbia astronaut emerge from the airlock.

  When Mullen had the second EVA suit tethered to a grab bar of the SpaceHab module, he moved to a grab bar that was closer to Columbia’s airlock and slightly forward of Garrett. Next, he secured his retractable suit tether to the grab bar he’d been holding and disconnected the rope’s carabiner from the loop on his suit. This was a critical step. If he kept the transfer rope connected to his suit while he was also tethered to Columbia, then he and his space suit would be the one thing holding Columbia and Atlantis together. If the two orbiters moved apart beyond the rope’s length, then, well… it wasn’t something any astronaut wanted to think about.

  Mullen’s next task was to serve as a crossing guard for the Columbia crew. Mission Control’s CapCom gave directions; Mullen was there for physical and emotional support as needed.

  As the second Columbia astronaut lumbered out of the airlock, Mullen heard Mission Control give the go-ahead for the first of Columbia’s crew to head down the rope. Hearing this, Mullen checked his purchase and pulled the slack out of the transfer rope.

  “Careful there with the rope,” Garrett called up from Atlantis after feeling the tug on his suit. “You’re gonna give me a wedgie.”

  “Copy that, wedgie alert noted,” Mullen said.

  Garrett and Mullen knew Columbia’s crew was listening; they hoped their class-clown type banter might relieve some tension.

  “Okay now,” Mullen instructed the first Columbia crewmember who had just translated the distance from Columbia’s airlock to the roof of the SpaceHab module where Mullen was tethered. “It’s just a simple hand-over-hand motion until you’re down. Garrett will help you when you reach Atlantis. The steaks are on the grill.”

  “Roger that,” the first Columbia spacewalker said.

  “Me too,” said the second. “I like my steak seared with nothing more than cracked black pepper and a pinch of salt–just a little pink in the center.”

  “You guys keep talkin’ about steaks and I’m likely to head back into Atlantis before all of you get down,” Garrett said.

  As soon as the second Columbia astronaut was down off the transfer rope and tethered to Atlantis’s payload bay, Mullen fastened his end of the transfer rope to the grab bar on the roof of the SpaceHab module. Next, he made his way to Columbia’s airlock. He opened the external airlock door and placed the bag of spare LiOH canisters inside the airlock and closed the door. Then he went back for the spare EVA suits. One by one, he brought them to the airlock and placed them inside. When he was finished, he sealed the external airlock door.

  For the remainder of the Columbia’s crew, the first task was to pressurize the airlock, remove the LiOH canisters, and then install the canisters in the ventilation system on the middeck. Installing the new canisters would instantly extend Columbia’s crew’s available time in space, since LiOH was the chemical used to scrub Columbia’s air of exhaled CO2. As soon as the empty EVA suits were retrieved from Columbia’s airlock, the next pair of Columbia astronauts began the tedious process of donning their space suits.

  Back on Atlantis, the first two Columbia astronauts entered the airlock with the help of Garrett. Once they were inside, the external airlock door was sealed, and the airlock pressurized until it equaled Atlantis’s cabin pressure. Once they’d doffed their space suits, the internal airlock door was opened, and the two Columbia astronauts exited to become part of the Atlantis crew. Their space suits were quickly prepared for the trip back to Columbia.

  Chapter 66

  Kennedy Space Center, Florida

  CNN Mobile Studio

  “WE’RE FOUR HOURS and twenty-seven minutes into the historic rescue space walk,” Stangley said, looking away from the camera at a monitor displaying an elapsed timer and the raw NASA feed.

  “Columbia’s astronauts have been systematically making their way from Columbia to Atlantis, four astronauts so far, assisted by Atlantis Mission Specialists Terry Mullen and Shane Garrett.

  “We have a bit of a break in the action, so to speak, so I’d like to update you on what’s been accomplished, and what still has to be done before Atlantis can turn around and head back home.”

  A bullet-point graphic of rescue mission milestones temporarily replaced Stangley’s face on televisions across America. His voice continued in the background. “So with the rescue space walk just over four-and-a-half hours old, here’s where we are: Four of Columbia’s seven-astronaut crew have been transferred to Atlantis. In the last transfer sequence, Columbia astronauts Jan and Steve, the two astronauts who performed the space walk to inspect Columbia’s wing more than twenty-five days ago, made their way safely over to Atlantis and exited the airlock, and are now in the process of removing their space suits.

  “The fifth Columbia astronaut will be exiting Columbia’s airlock sometime within the next half-hour or so. We mentioned this earlier, but it bears repeating: The fifth Columbia astronaut will make the transfer to Atlantis solo. This is because it can be very difficult to get into those space suits; they’re big and bulky. We’re told that it really can’t be done without help from another person. So the fifth astronaut transfers solo, leaving Columbia’s commander and pilot onboard to help each other put on their suits.

  “So far the transfer has gone very well. We’re told by NASA officials that the rescue transfer is somewhat ahead of schedule. It was originally expected to take eight to nine hours to complete the transfer of all seven Columbia astronauts. As of right now, however, barring any unexpected problems—contingencies, as NASA calls them—the Atlantis rescue crew will finish their space walk ahead of schedule. Incidentally,” Stangley said, as the camera focused back on him, “the longest space walk in history, eight hours and fifty-six minutes, occurred March 11, 2001. The record is held by Susan Helms and Jim Voss, two astronauts who were launched on Space Shuttle Discovery as part of the STS-102 crew. They became part of the International Space Station’s Expedition 2 crew, with whom they lived for one-hundred-forty-eight days. Hopefully, there will be no need to break that space walk record
today.

  “Alright, back to our graphic. Another important task accomplished during this rescue space walk, in addition to the transfer of astronauts, was the delivery of fresh lithium hydroxide canisters to Columbia. The canisters, about the size of a typical oatmeal container, scrub carbon dioxide from Columbia’s cabin air. By installing a new canister, NASA is able to buy time in the event of a contingency. If something unexpected happens to delay the rescue, something that requires NASA to keep astronauts on Columbia longer than expected, then Columbia will be able to safely continue serving as home. Things have been going so well for both crews that we’re all hoping the spare lithium hydroxide canisters won’t be needed for more than a few hours.

  “One more thing I wanted to mention in this segment,” Stangley went on. “Earlier today, a few workers around the station here asked me about the bags they’ve seen Columbia’s crew wearing while transferring to Atlantis. Now I haven’t been able to confirm this with anyone at NASA yet, so I’m not one-hundred percent sure, but I’m reasonably certain those are their personal effects. Shuttle astronauts carry aboard what’s called an OFK, or official flight kit, and a PPK, or personal preference kit. The OPK is a container, about two cubic feet in size, and it is used by astronauts to carry official NASA mementos into space—things such as pins, patches, medallions, et cetera. There are no personal items carried in the OFK. In the PPK, a nylon container measuring five by eight by two inches, astronauts carry up to twenty personal mementos with a total weight not to exceed one-and-a-half pounds. Items in the PPK often include jewelry, photos and other doodads. So I’m guessing that these bags we’ve seen tethered to the space suits of the Columbia astronauts contain the astronauts’ OFKs and PPKs. Ah, okay,” Stangley said, picking up radio communications through his earpiece between Mission Control and the astronauts. “Let’s rejoin NASA.”