Space Shuttle Escape Systems

A slightly longer version of the story below was originally published in January, 1996 by The Tallahassee Democrat and carried by Knight-Ridder Wire Service.

No Way Out

By Keith McInnis

On the morning of Jan. 28, 1986, Ronald Reagan was enjoying his second term as president and preparing to give his State Of The Union address in the evening. The "Star Wars" missile defense program was a promise to be kept; the Cold War was alive. Manned access to space seemed routine. So routine in fact that only one television network, CNN, carried launches live.
Interest in the space program was near a record low. So was the temperature at Kennedy Space Center. No American spacecraft had ever launched humans to space in such frigid conditions.
NASA, eager to send the first true civilian, a carefully selected, much-publicized schoolteacher, Christa McAuliffe, into orbit aboard the shuttle, had a difficult decision to make: whether to launch in such harsh conditions.
Seventy-three seconds after liftoff, the Space Shuttle Challenger split apart. A half-mile-wide fireball stretched across the Florida sky and etched its image in millions of memories.
Ten years after the worst disaster in the history of human spaceflight, the safety and purpose of the space-shuttle program are in serious doubt and many people remain confused about the details of Challenger.
Why is it important to rehash the fate of the crew? If Challenger's crew had an escape system, would it have helped? If one believes the Challenger crew died instantly, then nothing after engine ignition would have saved them. But that story is not the truth. The Challenger astronaut's cabin survived the initial catastrophic event intact. They were most likely conscious for the nearly three minutes it took their hurtling coffin, which had once been a space shuttle, to plummet from over 60,000 feet toward a meeting with the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
Among the most important lessons of Challenger was the need for an effective crew escape system.
The space shuttle is the only craft we have ever constructed for human spaceflight with no way out during the most dangerous phase of any mission, the ascent.
Today's "escape-pole" system on the shuttle is of little effectiveness and by NASA's procedures can't be used in a Challenger-type accident. The need for a crew escape system is as urgent today as at the time of Challenger because today's shuttle is no safer than Challenger and it is now being used as a quasi-diplomatic tool to work with the Russians.
As one former astronaut put it, "You don't turn a shuttle around in 90 days without sacrificing inspections and that impacts safety.''
"There is still a lot of pressure to launch when you line it up. People are still looking to wave things and all that.''
Had there been a crew-escape system aboard Challenger, we could have seen parachutes emerging from the twin smoke plumes that today remain a symbol of one of the most significant events of the 20th century, according to the Los Angeles Times.
A confidential report by Rockwell Space Systems, with an accompanying cover letter by Astronaut John Young, details the ability to install a full crew-escape system in the current fleet of shuttles.
This report has never been made public. In the cover letter, Young states, "To prevent the loss of the flight crew in the event of a Space Shuttle and-or Orbiter loss-of-control accident, the Phase II escape system will be required.''
Max Faget agrees. Faget holds patents on every craft which has ever carried Americans into space. He is the only person to design a spacecraft escape system which has actually saved lives.
In 1983 Cosmonauts Vladimir Titov and Genniday Strekalov were safely catapulted from their exploding spacecraft by a system designed by Faget and copied by the Russians.
Faget says the most important feature of any escape system is rapid deployment. Things go sour very fast in the missile business. His system saved the cosmonauts in less than 3 seconds.
When told the current shuttle escape-pole system requires 12 seconds per astronaut and then only after it has been deployed on a shuttle which is flying by itself, he laughed. "Well, maybe it's good for a situation where you can't get to a runway, like on descent after reentry. But it certainly won't work during launch.''
Actually, a senior NASA official acknowledged, the entry-pole safety system may not even save shuttle crews on reentry.
"There's a real question whether it could be used on reentry because the crew are adapted to space and it's real questionable whether they could move around as much as this system requires, '' says NASA's Steve Nagel, an astronaut and deputy director of safety, reliability and quality assurance. "We haven't studied that but it's highly questionable whether they could use that system at all on descent.''
The pole can't be used on ascent. It can't be used on descent. Just when it can be used is unclear.
Has NASA made a decision regarding crew-ejection seats? "Well, in effect it has, because we are not doing anything,'' says Nagel.
This type of no-decision decision-making is eerily reminiscent of the pre-Challenger way of handling safety matters.
In response to criticism in a presidential commission's report on the Challenger disaster, NASA initiated the Phase I escape program, which now commonly referred to as simply "The Pole.''
NASA admits the pole can't be used for any certified abort situation but is only good for "contingency aborts.''
Contingency aborts are those which jettison the million-gallon external tank with 10 to 50 percent of its fuel remaining. Rockwell Corp. and others outside of NASA believe doing so would cause a fireball, destroying the orbiter.
However, ejections seats, even in a dismembered orbiter, would still save the crew. The proposed ejection-seat system is completely independent and self-powered.
Once the pilot or commander pulls one lever, the rest is automatic. In less than 5 seconds an entire crew of eight are propelled a safe distance away.
To use the escape pole, the shuttle must be working nearly perfectly. It must be able to fly by itself, since the pilots have to escape as well. It must execute complex computer controls to keep the nose at an awkward 15-degree angle. The crew must use explosives to blow the escape hatch, then extend the pole, attach rings to it, attach themselves to the rings, slide down the pole and let go.
If they let go too soon, they will likely hit the wing or maneuvering pod.
All this must be done in an emergency -- and only after the giant fuel tank and solid-rocket motors have been jettisoned. It takes about 10 seconds per crew member to exit. That's nearly a minute and a half to get everyone out.
As John Young says in a cover letter for the ejection-seat study, "The current escape pole system is useful only in stabilized gliding flight ... frequently a lucky event.''
Ejection seats installed in the first space shuttle, Columbia, were removed when the size of the crew increased beyond two.
Clearly one of the most important lessons of Challenger is the need for a full crew-escape system.
The success of recent probes space labs, telescopes and environmental studies attest to the wellspring of benefits a vigorous, purposeful space program can provide.
Astronauts Scobee, Smith, McNair, Resnik, Onizuka, Jarvis and McAuliffe gave their lives for their country performing a risky job with trust that their safety had been given top priority.
The best way to honor them is to heed the lessons of the disaster so that what they gave their lives for -- a dynamic, vigorous, purposeful space program -- will be realized.

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