Hi David,
You are correct that they do not have extra fuel beyond the plan for the mission (they do carry some % of extra just as airlines do for a small contingency reserve) but in this case "if they had known that the shuttle was not safe to return to earth" they would still have the "Retro Burn" fuel which is substantial and I believe it would be plenty to have made the adjustments to orbit needed to rendezvous with the Intl. Space Station. Note I said rendezvous not dock as it was pointed out yesterday that they did not carry a docking adapter. It would not have been fun but they could have parked very near the space station and the current space station crew has the EVA suits and jet packs that would have permitted the crew to be moved from the shuttle to the space station in their "Pumpkin Suits". They would have to disconnect from life support at the shuttle and live on the trapped air in the suit for the few minutes it would take to move them from the shuttle to the space station. Yes this would be very much out of the box thinking similar to what was used to save the Apollo crew when their ship had the major blow out. Interestingly the then largest problem would be finding a way to safely move the shutle away from the space station and then to find a way to have it deorbit on its own to reduce the space junk problem caused by this large a vehical. Have a good day. Best regards, Vern I believe that they dont take a bunch of extra fuel around just in case they need to get to any object in the earths orbit. Its not like they can just fill up at a station along the way. <although this is interesting, they could leave refueling items at various places in orbit, should this need to happen. I don't know about how long items can stay there like that, or if that is really safe though.. a bunch of things waiting to go off like that> They are at different altitudes and different locations.Ê If they arent going to take a jet pack for emergencies because of the extra fuel involved, I don't think they will bring along a large amount of extra fuel, just in case. Also, they had already been up there quite a while.Ê They take along X amount of Air also.bringing alot of extra costs a lot. just my two cents.. but then again,, I am no rocket scientist. And even then.. this is assuming that they knew there was a real issue.Ê if they *did* i am certain they would have had 'last messages' etc.. just in case they didnt make it. and I dont beleive they can just flop another shuttle up there on a days notice, even if one was not currently being inspected for things, being upgraded..etc. Message: 10 ÊÊ Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2003 22:22:54 +0300 ÊÊ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Re: OT: Columbia Space Shuttle Lost If they had determined in space that the Shuttle was not safe to return to earth the move would have been to send them to the Intl. Space Station where they could have docked and just sat it out until we could send a different shuttle to get most of them and if there were still two left up there in the Intl. Space Station they could be brought back in one of the Russian ships as they have three seats and can be flown by one person. They may also have been able to stay until the second shuttle arrival if that was determined to be the better solution. Keeping in mind that if the Columbia had been determined to be unsafe in space we may not have felt that it was required to ground the fleet until we have clear answers as to what the cause is and we would know the problem and cause from the information that was developed to determine that they should not try the reentry in it. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
