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re: And as Yet Nobody Has Addressed The Oversights In The Original Article
Sam1970 — (archived)

NASA prepares for Space Rescue.

Again, this is not practical with a Mars Mission. It will be for the Moon.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=624&e=2&u=/ap/20050319/ap_on_sc/astronauts_to_the_rescue

4 Astronauts Will Be on Emergency Standby

Sat Mar 19,12:41 PM ET

Add to My Yahoo! Science - AP

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - What if the next space shuttle winds up in trouble, too? What if, like Columbia, it's damaged at liftoff and the astronauts are up in space with a maimed rocketship? Could they be saved? When Discovery is launched in a few months, a four-man rescue squad will be standing by.

It's a plan for the unthinkable.

"It's a place where we don't want to go. We're training for a mission we never want to fly," says the team's commander, Air Force Col. Steven Lindsey.

A rescue mission — which might require the president's approval — is fraught with complexities:

_A second launch would have to be done hastily without all the usual tests, possibly putting the rescue shuttle — Atlantis — and its crew in harm's way.

_The astronauts on the first shuttle, Discovery, would hole up at the international space station. Designed to house three people, it would be crammed with nine. And everyone would hope the station's often-broken oxygen generator would do its job.

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