By Reid Collins on 7.27.05 @ 12:09AM
America held its breath Tuesday morning.
America held its breath Tuesday morning. Twice, it had seen what
could happen when 4.5 million pounds is hurled skyward by 7.4
million pounds of thrust to achieve an orbit of the earth and then
shed that energy for a safe, passenger-jet speed landing.
Twice it had grieved. The Challenger lift off explosion
in 1986 and the Columbia re-entry disaster of 2003 had
taken 14 lives of men and women who had placed them in the hands of
technology only to learn its implacable cruelty. Would the shuttle
Discovery somehow redeem that trust?
The on-time lift-off looked flawless. The solid rockets spewed
their white effluent on which the vehicle climbed, its own three
hydrogen-oxygen engines burning with the power of two dozen Hoover
dams. It worked. Except, what was that? Wasn't something hurtling
off the big orange tank that held the hydrogen-oxygen mix? Were
they chunks of something, like the foam insulation that had
impacted the Columbia wing's leading edge, dooming it at
re-entry? Whatever they were, caught by the external camera, they
appeared to have missed the shuttle itself in their downward
descent. And the craft flew on to orbit. There will be time to
investigate this event, actually time for the on-board crew to have
a look at the externals of their craft by use of the shuttle's
extended arm. Even time to make repairs, should such be
indicated.
Later in the day, mission officials were referring to a "couple
of debris events." One involves a small piece of tile seen flying
off the nose-gear door of the orbiter itself, a sheaf no larger
than a playing card, significance unknown. At about the same time,
at separation of the spent solid rockets, a larger chunk of
something was seen flying from the external tank itself and
descending down past the shuttle's wing. NASA's mission operations
man John Shannon says a similar piece may have flown off the other
side of the tank. He added a third camera view showing an apparent
bird strike at the nose cone of the big orange tank early in
liftoff. The significance of these "debris events" may not be known
until imaging teams have studied all the considerable data
collected during the boost phase of the flight. It could take as
long as six days. Now, dozens of missions after the first, NASA is
at last bent on finding out what happens when the entire mass
leaves the earth, sheds expended appendages, and reaches orbit.
At launch, NASA's Administrator had said, "Everything we know
about has been covered." The caveat of course is self-contained. It
is what we don't know about that can harm. Or, worse yet, what we
know about and accept. When the final tally is made and the last
shuttle is garaged it may be decided that there was always too much
to go wrong. Getting all those myriad parts to function to the tune
of nine-9's reliability may have been too much mathematically to
ask. Part of the problem lies in design. The Defense Department
contributed dollars to the shuttle program and therefore had a part
in its concept. It turned out to be not only a manned space
vehicle, but also a transport. In future these roles will be
carried out by separate vehicles. As it is, the Discovery
is hauling tons of equipment to the International Space Station and
is to return more tons of used and unneeded material. In fact, the
haul-back rivals the delivery.
No engineer would suggest that the catastrophic loss of two of
five orbiters is an acceptable percentage. It is the learning curve
of a teenage driver. But it is done.
But see what else has been done. In a world where headlines are
made by fanatic cowards whose aim is random death, seven brave men
and women strapped themselves into a cockpit measuring some 25
cubic feet, waited two hours for a clock to finally reach zero and,
weighing three times their normal earth weight, allowed themselves
to be projected beyond the realm of homo sapiens at more than
17,000 miles an hour.
O brave new world! (borrowed). Hardly noted but worth a mention
is the fact that the Commander of this mission is named Eileen. And
among those she commands is a Wendy.
A first-day goodnight message from the crew took note of the
preceding doomed flight of Columbia. Cdr. Eileen Collins
mentioned each of the seven crew members by first name and said,
"We miss them and we are continuing their mission."
The contrast between the Discovery event and those
other craven acts delineates itself. Will we press on, or be drawn
back into shadow? The mere posing of the question answers it. The
bravery of this shuttle crew and those who flew before insists on
it.
topics:
Law, Energy
