Riding Rockets

Swine Flight went to bed without a care in the world…or off the world, for that matter. The dangers of ascent were behind us. We had already scored our mission success. Our only problem was a slow leak inAtlantis ’s left inboard tire and that wasn’t a big deal. MCC had noted it in their data and had directed us to program the autopilot to keepAtlantis ’s belly pointed at the Sun. The heat was keeping the tire warm and its pressure up. We hoped the higher pressure would reseal the leak point. But, even if the tire went flat, we were scheduled to land on the Edwards AFB dry lakebed and would have its infinite runway to handle any type of steering problems after touchdown.

I fell asleep secure in the machine that surrounded me. This would be the last time on the mission any of us would feel safe.

Chapter 34

“No reason to die all tensed up”

The call from MCC was disturbing. During a review of launch video, engineers at KSC had seen something break off the nose of the right-side SRB and strikeAtlantis . The concern was whether the object had damaged our heat shield, a mosaic of thousands of silica tile, a design feature that earned the shuttle its nickname, “Glass Rocket.” The CAPCOM asked if anybody had seen any strikes during ascent or had noted any damage looking out the windows. “No” was our collective answer, but we did have a tool that would extend our vision to the shuttle’s belly—the camera at the tip of the robot arm. Within several hours MCC validated a heat-shield survey procedure in the Houston sims and teleprintered it to me. I was going to get some unplanned arm time.

My heart was back in overdrive. Not only was I concerned about the possibility of heat-shield damage, I was also worried about the arm maneuver I was about to perform. It would put the RMS in very close proximity to the inboard portions ofAtlantis ’s right wing and fuselage, and I wouldn’t win any friends if I caused damage while determining there had been none to begin with.

I swung the upper boom of the arm across the forward cargo bay and then tilted the lower boom over the right forward side ofAtlantis ’s nose. I swept the camera in a survey of that area, listening to Hoot’s cursing as I did so. The exterior cameras on the shuttle had long been a source of frustration with astronauts. They easily bloomed and washed out while imaging areas in full sunlight. The glare from the black heat tiles was particularly troublesome to the camera optics, and Hoot fought with the aperture controls trying to get a decent view. He was finally successful and our TV revealed a checkerboard of black tiles. It was exactly what a pristine heat shield should look like. But as I moved the arm lower the camera picked up streaks of white. There was no mistaking what they were. The surface of every belly tile was jet black in color. Any white would be an indication of damage, an indication that the surface had been ripped away by a kinetic impact. As I continued to drop the arm lower we could see that at least one tile had been completely blasted from the fuselage. The white streaking grew thicker and faded aft beyond the view of the camera. It appeared that hundreds of tiles had been damaged and the scars extended outboard toward the carbon-composite panels on the leading edge of the wing. Had one of those been penetrated? If so, we were dead men floating. Damaged black tiles might still protect the vehicle. Even a missing tile should be survivable. But a hole in the leading edge of the wing would positively be fatal and we had no way to survey the entire wing edge. The arm wasn’t long enough. (It was impact damage to a carbon panel on the left wing that would doomColumbia and her crew on February 1, 2003.)

In the cockpit a shocked silence gave way to shocked exclamations. I called MCC. “Houston, we’re seeing a lot of damage. It looks as if one tile is completely missing.”

The CAPCOM acknowledged my call. “We’ll get back to you.” MCC had our TV downlink so they were seeing what we were seeing, or so we assumed. I wondered if, at that very moment, there was a “Failure is not an option” speech being delivered as the flight director rallied the MCC team to deal with our situation. From our perspective it looked bad.

After a few minutes the CAPCOM came back with the MCC’s analysis. “We’ve looked at the images and mechanical says it’s not a problem. The damage isn’t that severe.”

Say what?!We couldn’t believe what we were hearing. MCC was blowing us off. There was no discussion of having ground telescopes take some photos ofAtlantis to possibly get a better view of the damage. There was no discussion of having us power-down the vehicle to give us the maximum orbit time to deal with the problem. There was no indication whatsoever that MCC thought we had a serious problem.

Hoot was immediately on the microphone. “Houston, Mike is right. We’re seeing a lot of damage.”