“Right, we figured that would happen. But thinking back to when you saw the hi-res films, and heard about the object floating near Columbia’s wing. You must have, I mean with your experience…” Stangley struggled to make his point. “Well, I’m guessing here,” he forged ahead. “Were you afraid the appropriate action wouldn’t be taken in time? Is that it? That the gears would turn so slowly that Columbia would run out of options. Isn’t that why you e-mailed me? To force them into action? You figured I could get the media involved and in turn get NASA managers to take action in time to save the crew.”
There was a long pause.
“Something like that, I guess,” Brown finally muttered reluctantly. “Of course, I’ll deny any such thing. You’ve deleted that email, I trust?”
“Of course I did. Don’t worry, there’s no story in it. It dies right here between you and me. We both got what we wanted. So when you get back here to Florida, give me a shout, we’ll grab a beer.”
“Sounds good, my flight back to Orlando leaves early tomorrow afternoon.”
Epilogue
Sunday, Feb. 16, 2003
“CAN I GET SOMETHING STARTED FOR YOU?” the Starbuck’s barista asked.
“Triple venti nonfat latte, no foam, extra hot, filled right to the top, and a classic coffee cake,” Stangley said. He went for his wallet. “Oh, and a New York Times, too, please.”
The cashier took his money, made change. Stangley walked to the newspaper rack, pulled out the third copy from the top, then sat where morning sunshine warmed a vacant corner table.
He laid the front page out across the table, smoothed the fold with one hand, while the other reached blindly into the tan paper bag and pulled off a corner of crumb topping.
His eyes were trained to skim, a skill developed from decades of discriminating between fluff and real content. His eyes darted across the front page, never stopping for more than a second. In those impossibly short glances, his brain registered several hits. What he saw made him want to yell out into the crowded coffee shop, proclaim that his premonition he’d had throughout the rescue mission had come true. He fought back an almost overwhelming urge to have a conversation with someone, anyone who’d listen. He decided that if the man seated next to him looked up, even for a second, he would be compelled to engage him in conversation.
I knew this would happen!
He read several headings:
“WMD INSPECTORS CONSIDER RETURN TO IRAQ”
“PRESIDENT: MILITARY SCALE-UP ON HOLD”
“Triple Venti non-fat latte,” the barista called out while setting Stangley’s drink on the bar.
Stangley got up to get his latte, and then raced back to his table. His eyes settled back on the banner headline, to the article he wanted to read first.
NAVY MISSILE DOWNS COLUMBIA
Washington, D.C.
SHORTLY BEFORE SUNSET Sunday, the USS Lake Erie sortied from its balmy home port of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and sailed to a point not far off the island of Kauai, Hawaii. From there Lake Erie, the Ticonderoga-class Aegis-equipped guided missile cruiser, fired upon and directly hit Space Shuttle Columbia, completely destroying what was America’s first reusable spaceplane.
Five days earlier during NASA’s dramatic rescue mission, airlock problems forced Columbia’s commander and pilot to jettison Columbia’s sidehatch and exit the spacecraft through the sidehatch opening.
“We made several attempts to contact Columbia since the rescue mission ended,” NASA spokesman Gerald Conner told a small group of reporters late Sunday night. “Unfortunately, her computers did not respond.”
Conner explained how Columbia’s open sidehatch had caused the delicate electrical components and instrumentation on Columbia’s flight deck to be exposed to the extreme high and low temperatures of space, making the space vehicle unresponsive.
“Fortunately,” Conner added, “the DOD (Department of Defense) provided NASA with a solution for vehicle disposal that effectively eliminated the possibility that debris could fall on inhabited areas along Columbia’s orbital path.” NASA’s plan had been to perform a remote de-orbit burn of the vehicle into the Pacific Ocean once Atlantis had landed safely.
For the past several years, the Lake Erie has served as the test bed for the Navy’s still-underdevelopment Sea-Based Midcourse Ballistic Missile Defense System.
“Initially there was some question as to whether or not the system could be used for this application,” Kale Stratton, a spokesperson for the Navy, said. “Unlike an incoming missile, Columbia had no heat signature that a defensive missile could use for targeting.”
Because Columbia did not pose the threat of an inbound enemy missile, or the time constraints imposed by a live target missile, the Lake Erie was able to track Columbia for hours before firing its missile.
“We were able to study the target in new ways and gather valuable data,” Stratton said. “But as soon as the assignment was issued and confirmed, the ship’s onboard computers began working to create a firing solution. The computers determined the direction, altitude, and exact time to launch the missile in order to intercept Columbia.”
Using a vertical launch system, the Lake Erie fired an SM-3 missile, a three-stage rocket fitted with a kinetic warhead. Instead of using explosives to destroy its target, the kinetic warhead simply rams into its target, releasing sufficient energy to obliterate the intended target.
The successful downing of Columbia not only helped NASA wrap up its rescue mission, but it also provided the Navy with valuable data for further development of its evolving missile defense system.
Bibliography
These references may help the interested reader to learn more about the Columbia Accident, the inner workings of NASA, the details of the Shuttle Transportation System, and finally, what it’s like to orbit in space from an astronaut’s perspective.
Columbia Accident Investigation Board Final Report Volumes I-VI
nasa.gov
Chien, Philip. Columbia Final Voyage. The Last Flight of
