“Sixty now, sixty feet,” Rivas called out, a warning in his voice. He glanced Avery’s way.
She caught his look. She knew she’d been heavy on the stick. “Hey, the sooner we get to 100 feet, the sooner they can jett the sidehatch.”
“That’s true,” Rivas said. “It just felt like you were taking us all the way back to Kennedy, that’s all.”
“Very funny,” she said.
“Seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty. Twenty feet till hold target.”
Avery was back on the controller now, performing another RCS burn, this time using opposing jets to slow and eventually stop Atlantis one-hundred feet from Columbia.
“Ninety-four, five. Six. Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. One-hundred feet.”
“Houston, Atlantis holding at one-hundred feet,” Avery said.
“Roger, Atlantis. Stand by at one hundred.”
While Columbia’s commander and pilot waited for the pressure of Columbia’s airlock to equal that of Columbia’s living area, they reviewed with Mission Control possible hazards inside Columbia. Sharp edges and blunt objects could tear lethal holes in their suits. Orbiters were not designed with the idea that astronauts would be working in the living areas while wearing EVA suits.
When the pressure had equalized, the commander reached for the airlock hatch actuator arm. He tried not to pause his movement before rotating the arm—tried not to, but there was a definite pause as he contemplated how screwed they’d be if this door, too, would not open.
“Houston, Columbia. Alright, we’re exiting the airlock.”
“We read you Columbia, standing by.”
The gears turned, the actuators worked, the double seal released. The blessed hatch opened.
But there were none of the usual sounds an astronaut hears when exiting the airlock after an EVA. Not the distant sound of conversation, of equipment in use, not the welcome from crewmates. Columbia’s commander and pilot heard none of these sounds for two simple reasons: They still had their EVA suits on, and there was no one else aboard. The gasket-sealed joints between helmet and torso, waist and pants, and glove and sleeve were still engaged. The suits’ life-support systems were still supporting life.
“Take it real slow guys. You’ll have more room to move around once you’re out of the airlock,” CapCom said.
Chapter 73
STANGLEY FELT SICKENED by the task of having to repeatedly readjust what the totality of the rescue mission might mean. That his beloved space shuttle had malfunctioned. That maybe only five of the seven astronauts would be rescued. He realized one could argue that five out of seven would still be an incredible achievement given the mission’s odds for success.
As he spoke to his TV audience, he found himself fumbling. His producer kept prompting him to bring the audience up to date, recap. “Stay positive, keep their heads in it,” she told him. But he had trouble splitting his attention between the recap and the live feed of Columbia’s commander and pilot, EVA-suited, moving into the living quarters of Columbia. What he wanted most was to retreat, to go home, curl up with his very own TV, and just watch what happened without interruption. It was as if his brain had resigned from its duties, and now only meaningless strings of jumbled words fell from his mouth.
Columbia’s commander was first out of the airlock. He looked ahead as he made his way forward, scanning the walls of the 100-square-foot mid-deck for items that could snag his suit. The already cramped spacecraft was now further diminished by their bulky space suits.
At the corners of his helmet, the visual image of the mid-deck interior distorted slightly as he floated, as if he were looking through a fish-eye lens. To his immediate right were the sleeping stations. Straight ahead, the panel of stowage lockers and the crew’s farewell picture he’d left taped there. The warm relief he’d felt at that moment of good-bye, the aching tug of mixed feelings, seemed now to be irrelevant, an odd interlude.
To the left of the lockers was the galley, and to the left of the galley was the sidehatch. Below him, in the floor of the mid-deck, he saw the outlines of the floor compartments. He thought back seven hours, and remembered opening the compartment to install fresh LiOH canisters brought by Mullen on his first trip up from Atlantis.
“Columbia, Houston, how do you read?”
“Houston, Columbia, we copy, loud and clear.”
“Be advised, Atlantis has been safed for Columbia sidehatch jettison,” CapCom said.
“Roger Houston, Atlantis on standby.”
Columbia’s commander carefully lowered himself so that his hands and helmet were near the floor of Columbia’s mid-deck. He inched along, forward of the sidehatch where the port mid-deck wall met the mid-deck floor, until he reached the T-handle enclosure.
“Okay, Houston. I’m at the T-handle enclosure.”
“Copy.”
The commander released a lever and pulled the door of the enclosure down toward the mid-deck floor, revealing two separate T-handles.
“Give me a second here,” the commander said as he struggled to remove the safing pin from the aft T-handle. “The guy who designed this didn’t envision the end user would be wearing an EVA suit and gloves.”
“We copy Columbia. Take your time,” CapCom said.
Sounds of frustration in space and on Earth persisted for 20 seconds.
“Okay,” the commander said, sounding short of breath. “The pin’s out.”
The commander settled his hand on the aft T-handle. “Houston, stand by for cabin depress,” he said as he first squeezed the Thandle, then pulled it down toward the floor.
Columbia’s commander had never professed to be an expert on all orbiter systems, but he did have expert knowledge of how the crew escape system worked. He knew, for instance, that if the sidehatch were jettisoned before the crew cabin was depressed, the result would be catastrophic. Even at an altitude of only 40,000 feet, or the intended use altitude, jettisoning the sidehatch without first depressurizing the crew
