Shuttle Rescue: Four Astronauts Train for the Unthinkable

Published: Mar 22, 2005
Source: www.space.com



CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- What if the next space shuttle winds up in trouble, too? What if, like Columbia, it's damaged at liftoff and the astronauts are up in space with a maimed rocketship?

Could they be saved?

When Discovery is launched in a few months, a four-man rescue squad will be standing by.

It's a plan for the unthinkable.

“It's a place where we don't want to go. We're training for a mission we never want to fly,” says the team's commander, Air Force Col. Steven Lindsey.

A rescue mission - which might require the president's approval - is fraught with complexities:

· A second launch would have to be done hastily without all the usual tests, possibly putting the rescue shuttle - Atlantis - and its crew in harm's way.

· The astronauts on the first shuttle, Discovery, would hole up at the international space station. Designed to house three people, it would be crammed with nine. And everyone would hope the station's often-broken oxygen generator would do its job.

· Discovery would have to be pushed off by remote control into the ocean to make room for Atlantis at the space station.

· If all worked as planned, Atlantis would return to Earth holding an unprecedented 11 people. continue..