NASA’s DARKEST WEEK 

HAS SILVER LINING

       NASA's darkest week in its history ends with the lessons learned orbiting Earth in the incredible International Space Station.

       Within a week, NASA and space watchers mourn the loss of 17 brave spaceflight pioneers. It's just a coincidence that the sorrow of three American space fatalities is relived over such a short span of time. 

The mistakes causing the fatal disasters are well-known human blunders when looking with hindsight.  Acknowledged and corrected, there always lurks another failure that will, someday, claim the lives of more space travelers.

NASA's first astronaut fatalities in a spacecraft occurred during rehearsals on the launch pad when Apollo 1 caught fire and killed three spacemen eventually bound for the Moon.   That occurred on Jan. 27, 1967—48 years ago.

       Incredibly, 29 years have passed since the launch explosion of Shuttle Challenger claimed the lives of seven astronauts on Jan. 28^th.  The dead included the Teacher-In-Space winner Christa McAuliffe. The 1986 space disaster was one of those “Where were you when?” events of a generation.

And the last NASA space fatality was 12 years ago on Feb. 1 when during reentry from a successful mission Space Shuttle Columbia was ripped apart over East Texas and Western Louisiana as it approached Kennedy Space Port for landing in Florida. Seven astronauts were killed, including Israel’s first astronaut and war hero Ilan Ramone.

       The Russian Space Program has claimed four lives in spacecraft during flight.  A cosmonaut died when a parachute failed after reentry of Soyuz 1 in 1967, and three cosmonauts suffocated when a valve opened during the reentry of Soyuz 11 in 1971.  But they’ve had their share of close calls, including a 1997 fire on their space station Mir.

       The newest player in human space flight, China, has safely launched 10 “taikonauts” on five spaceflights, including two women. Their small space station was occupied twice, and the world awaits the next Chinese space mission as they have boasted of going to the Moon.

       The American disasters could have been avoided and no doubt adversely affected those who were in charge:

Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee

·      The Apollo 1 fire occurred on the launch pad during a routine test.  Bare wires created a spark that ignited the 100 per cent oxygen cabin, creating a fire that suffocated Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. 

    They died trying to open the hatch that normally took several minutes to unscrew.  Among the hundreds of changes to the Apollo spacecraft, the new hatch could be opened in less than 30 seconds.

Jarvis, Onizuki, McNair, Resnick, McAuliffe, Smith, Scoobee

·      Space Shuttle Challenger was doomed at liftoff when an O-ring seal broke on one of the segments of the right solid rocket booster, sending out flames like a blow touch that blew up the fuel tank just 70 seconds into launch as America watched on television.  Freezing temperatures compromised the  integrity of the rubber O-ring causing concern from technicians, but launch officials proceeded with the 9 am blastoff on a chilly Florida morning with a fatal outcome. The other astronauts who gave their lives on the 25th Shuttle launch were Commander Dick Scobee, pilot Mike Smith and mission specialists Christa McAuliffe, Judy Resnick, Ellison Onizuka, Ron McNair and Gregory Jarvis.

front: Chawla, Husband, Clark, Ramon; back: Brown, McCool, Anderson

·      Columbia was also doomed at liftoff when a suitcase-size chunk of insulation flaked off the huge, orange external fuel tank, busting a hole in the left wing. The damage was suspected by some technicians but not confirmed by orbiting spy satellites, though a request was made. And astronauts on board couldn’t see the wings out their windows. The 17-day science mission in the SpaceHab module in the cargo bay—planned without any spacewalks which might have seen the damage—was perfect.  That is until the fiery reentry penetrated the fist-size hole in the wig, starting the break-up of the Shuttle over California at the supersonic speed of 5,000-plus mph just minutes before landing. The astronauts who perished were Commander Rick Husband, pilot Willie McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark and Israeli Ilan Ramon. 

       After 54 years of spaceflight, that probably isn't too bad of a track record.  All counted the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo flights total 30 space flights. Add the 135 Shuttle flights and that makes for 165 American blast offs, and only two failures.  That is just a 1.2 per cent failure rate, not bad for the most complicated machines ever made by man.

There have been several astronaut deaths in NASA aircraft, and even car wrecks. There is also a short list of technicians who died in accidents at NASA facilities. 

       What is incredible is that more people haven't died in the construction of the International Space Station. Taking 12 years to build and taking 35 Space Shuttle missions, a couple dozen Soyuz flights and another dozen unmanned ferry spacecraft, there have been no mishaps.  And the more than 150 spacewalks necessary to put it all together have also been error free.     

       As of Feb. 1. 2015, there have been 538 people who have orbited Earth.  The total time spent in space by humans is more than 125 years!  Add to the safety record the more than 300 spacewalks and 12 men walking on the Moon and it’s clear that all the intensive training and heavily tested spacecrafts have paid off in conquering outer space. 

Mercury 7 Astronauts 1960

Astronauts and cosmonauts are not heroes anymore. It's the human side of astronauts that have given them their new anonymity.  And in many ways, an astronaut is just a cool job, like an airline pilot or a boat captain. 

     Americans knew the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts by name.  Their missions, and sometimes their families, frequently appeared in newspaper and magazine stories. 

       Astronauts stopped being heroes when the Apollo 13 crew returned to Earth from their near-death disaster on the way to the Moon in April 1970. The Hollywood movie “Apollo 13” accurately portrayed the drama after the crippling explosion on the way to the Moon and made astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert household names to movie lovers.

        For the tremendous risk of space travel, astronauts aren’t paid as well as you might think. The paycheck of an astronaut is on par with that of other civil servants like firemen and policemen.  Many cash in on their fame after retirement—everybody loves hanging out with an astronaut! 

       At the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida is the giant mirror Memorial Wall to the fallen heroes of space travel. Their names are etched and illuminated for remembrance of the eternal light that shines on the manned space program. 

       Throughout America, public school buildings have been named for Grissom, McAuliffe and most of the other astronauts who've given their lives to push the envelope of manned space exploration.

       NASA and Russia have been good at minimizing fatalities and injuries during half a Century of human space flight.  The manned hours in space has been accumulated to into experience that has been used to

build the amazing International Space Station.

       The ISS, built over 12 years beginning in 1998 with more than 50 separate manned Shuttle and Soyuz rocket launches, has been a completed space laboratory for 5 years.  Making 17 orbits of the Earth every day, the space laboratory has united 16 nations of the world in a goal that took diplomatic cooperation as well as coordination in space construction. 

       And keeping ISS alive and well are men and women who have trained for years to spend three to six months in outer space, performing important science. Six people make up the three Expedition crews a year rotated out three at a time by the Russian’s Soyuz spaceship. In March 2015, an American and Russian be launched to spend a full year on the ISS, and the world will get to know space veterans Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko on their long mission.

       With six people doing their jobs in relative anonymity, all is well aboard the ISS. But the next moment something goes awry, that is when you'll know another astronaut or cosmonaut by face and name. 

       Let's hope there isn't a fatality involved.