Launch on Need by Daniel Guiteras (small books to read txt) 📗

lacks the uniformity and proper adhesion of the spray-applied insulation. The foam looks great on the launch pad. But when the engines light and the vibration starts, well, you get the idea. Every time the bi-pod foam has come loose during a launch, it has missed hitting anything critical. Except for now. We may have taken our first direct hit.”

Metzer turned on the projector. The film’s ID tag and the time code came up on the Da-Lite screen immediately. Brown cut the lights with a forearm swipe to the switch plate.

“So you’re saying the shedding of bi-pod foam is a known phenomenon?” Rusnick asked.

Metzer shot Rusnick a glare so intense he had no trouble seeing it even though his eyes were still adjusting to the darkened room. Don’t even go there, it said.

But Brown didn’t hesitate with a response. “Over the shuttle’s history, my department has documented six events of foam loss specifically from the external tank bi-pod area. The first was in 1983, then 1990, twice in 1992, again in 1994, and for a sixth time just three months ago.”

Rusnick shook his head in disbelief.

“Sims says it happens just after 80 seconds,” Brown said, reminding his team. “This may be bi-pod incident number seven.”

Metzer had hand-cued the film to only T-plus-55 seconds, so the engineers waited in the darkened room, watching Columbia climb. Two SRBs and their orange plumes, the three main engines and their sharply focused bright-blue cones.

Brown’s bird seemed to be doing everything right.

“Okay 72, 73, 74, T-plus-75 seconds,” Metzer said, reading off the time code. “Here we go guys.”

The team watched the screen without blinking, uncertain of what was coming, wondering what they could have missed on their preliminaries.

“There. Right there,” Brown blurted out. “Not a mere strike but a goddamn debris shower. It’s a huge hit.”

For the next ten seconds, the projector chattered at the back of the room and the silent film played on. The team watched Columbia race on to orbit as if the strike had not occurred.

Currently Columbia was in orbit, and all her systems apparently were working well. In fact, most at NASA were focused on progressing the mission to completion. The crew was well into its second workday and power-up of SPACEHAB—the onboard shirt-sleeve microgravity laboratory—was complete. Neither the crew nor Mission Control had any sense or sign Columbia’s wing had been struck.

As if he already had a plan, Brown spoke first. “Alright we need to analyze the hit, quantify it. Go back to T-plus-79 seconds.”

“Run it five frames per second?” Metzer asked.

“Yeah, five should do it,” Brown answered.

Metzer made the necessary adjustments to the projector, and then called out like he was a missile launch coordinator of a nuclear submarine, “T-plus-79 at five fps, here we go.”

The team watched the debris strike repeatedly. Brown couldn’t help but be reminded of Challenger and all the time he’d spent searching the films for her fatal moment.

Now he faced a new challenge. He needed to determine the seriousness of Columbia’s launch video. Did the image of debris crashing into the wing and being pulverized into a silver-white shower represent a safety-of-flight issue? In his mind, he recited his mantra: Prove she’s safe to fly.

Brown flipped on the lights after several viewings. “We need a clearer picture than that. I can’t see where the debris strike is going after it hits the wing. Where’s the cover letter that came with the films?”

The National Imagery and Mapping Agency provided the processing of NASA’s high-resolution launch films. It typically included a brief cover letter outlining what had been processed and whether it had encountered any problems during processing.

Metzer reached into the FedEx box, found the letter. He handed it to Brown, who began shaking his head in disbelief as he read the letter. The engineers waited.

“Holy shit, you’re kidding me!” Brown looked up with a face of concern that worried everyone in the room. He leaned against the console, carefully guarding his back. Then he slowly and quietly delivered the news.

“Only two cameras got a look at the debris strike.”

Brown seemed out of breath, exhausted, like he’d already spent days considering the ramifications of such limited imaging.

“What?” Metzer said in disbelief. “We’ve got twelve cameras trained on the launch and…”

Brown cut Metzer off, paraphrasing from the letter. “According to National Imagery, we got only two views.” Brown’s engineers moved in closer. “208, which we already looked at, and 212, also from the south, giving us 35-millimeter stills.”

Brown was right; the photo group would have limited imaging to determine the angle and velocity of impact, severity of impact and, ultimately, how to advise the shuttle management team.

Scattered along the Atlantic Coast of Florida, from the northern end of the Playalinda peninsula south past Cape Canaveral to Patrick Air Force Base, were twelve camera sites used by NASA for engineering analysis of rocket launches. Except for the mobile camera sites, the camera locations were the same as those used for the Apollo missions. Each site had both video and still-photo capability and was designated as short-range, medium-range or long-range tracking based on its proximity to the launch pad.

The short-range trackers ran out of film as expected at T-plus-57 seconds, more than 20 seconds before the damaging event occurred. The medium-range trackers filming to T-plus-110 seconds and long-range trackers to T-plus-165 seconds offered the only possibility of seeing the debris strike.

Brown read on. “Of the five potential camera views that could have helped us, two sites gave us nothing due to angle of view and atmospherics. That’s not too surprising.”

“Okay, so that leaves three sites. What about them?” Metzer urged, hoping Brown had misread the report.

Brown returned to the letter for an answer to Metzer’s inquiry and finished reading the letter to himself. The engineers waited patiently, exchanging silent glances and shrugs.

“Well, those three can’t help us either,” Brown finally said. “The first lost track of Columbia on ascent, the second saw only the top half of the left wing, and the third, if you can believe it,