[FPSPACE] Columbia report released...about the astronauts

[Jens Kieffer-Olsen]

MattWriter at aol.com MattWriter at aol.com 
Tue Dec 30 16:29:02 EST 2008 

> I apologize for not having my copy of the CAIB report handy,
> since they may have dealt with this, but why didn't NASA, in
> the post-Challenger (when the ACES suit was added) or post-
> Columbia mods, require the suits to be sealed and pressurized,
> with independent oxygen systems on, during every reentry? I
> know all engineering changes on a complex spacecraft are
> significant, but it does not seem too challenging to add a 60-
> minute O2 bottle to each seat.   The crew would still have
> their PEAPs as emergency backups.   I know the CAIB said 
> pressure suits would not have saved the crew given the altitude
> and velocity of the shuttle when it depressurized, but there
> are certainly scenarios where they could. 
>
> Matt Bille
> Freelance science/space writer

 Bail-out would had been an option for the Challenger crew,
 since their horizontal velocity was small. In case of Columbia
 the choice of burning up inside the vehicle or outside is moot,
 like the difference between having Buckley's chance and none.

--
Jens Kieffer-Olsen
Slagelse, Denmark

PS. The expression Buckley's chance does NOT refer to CIA's
    William F. Buckley killed in Lebanon in 1985 after being
    captured by the enemy a year earlier, but to the British
    convict William Buckley, who escaped from custody in 1803
    to live as an Australian aborigine for the next 30 years.