Bringing Columbia Home: The Untold Story of a Lost Space Shuttle and Her Crew

by Michael D. Leinbach

When Columbia launched on January 16, her sister ship Atlantis was in the Orbiter Processing Facility hangar. She was almost ready to be mated to the external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters that were already stacked in the VAB. Could we have gotten Atlantis off the ground in time to save Columbia’s crew? After the accident, I studied how we could have accelerated processing activities and eliminated tests without jeopardizing the safety of Atlantis and her crew. For example, we could skip the terminal countdown demonstration test and the cryogenic fuel loading tests, shaving several days off the schedule. My analysis showed that the rescue scenario was feasible from the KSC processing and launch perspective—but only if we got the “Go” by January 23. For that decision to be successful, we would have already needed to be in high gear immediately after learning about the foam impact on Columbia’s wing—significantly altering the crew’s on-orbit activities starting on January 20. NASA would have needed detailed images of the wing from America’s intelligence assets, or would have had to send some of Columbia’s crew outside to inspect the wing. That space walk would have needed to happen on the second or third day of the mission—a completely unrealistic assumption given mission timelines and goals. For all intents and purposes, the mission would have been over at that point, whether or not the wing was actually damaged. With the ship confirmed to be mortally wounded, mountin...