Can They Escape Next Time?

By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK

When the shuttle Discovery roars off the pad at the Kennedy Space Center next August to begin NASA's climb back into manned space flight, one thought will be going through everyone's mind: How safe is the crew? Despite the best efforts of engineers and investigators, there is no way to know for sure, so NASA is building in a special safety factor. This week Navy parachutists at Edwards Air Force Base in California will begin testing the second of two newly designed shuttle escape systems. The first has already been put through its paces, and the one that works best will be installed in time to give Discovery's crew a fighting chance to bail out of the ship in case of emergency. That should make the crew breathe easier.

Or maybe not. The bailout devices consist of rockets that whip the astronauts clear of the shuttle one by one, and a pole that allows them to slide out until they are clear of the craft's wing. But both are designed to be used only when the shuttle is flying more or less level, at altitudes of up to 20,000 ft. -- well inside the earth's atmosphere. That might do some good in a mission aborted before going into orbit, or in the case of an anticipated crash landing. However, says ex-Shuttle Astronaut Donald Peterson, "it's like putting an emergency escape system in a car -- but you have to be driving between 29 and 33 m.p.h., at night, on an empty road." Needless to say, neither system would have helped the Challenger crew.

Then why not do more? Explains NASA's William Chandler, who heads the crew escape project at Houston's Johnson Space Center: "The bottom line is, there's not a heck of a lot of protection we can provide without paying a significant penalty in time and weight." Retooling the orbiter to include a < more versatile system, such as ejection seats, could shut down the shuttle fleet for four more years. "We'd run the risk of never flying again," says Chandler. "The next spacecraft anyone designs will have an escape system designed into it," declares Discovery Crew Member Pinky Nelson. "But for now, if we want to fly, we've got to live with what we've got."

As far as they go, both new systems look adequate. Each is designed to get astronauts safely clear of the shuttle's fuselage and wings so they can parachute to earth. In a disaster -- say, the loss of an engine -- the crew will trigger explosives to jettison the escape-hatch cover, then exit one by one. If the rocket system is in place, each astronaut will be yanked from the ship with 2,000 lbs. of thrust. Otherwise, they will hook onto the telescoping pole, which will extend through the door, and let gravity and airflow pull them down and out of harm's way. Both the astronauts and NASA favor the pole: it avoids the danger of rocket fuel in the cabin and takes up less space. Of course, entering a high-speed stream of air blowing by at extreme altitudes poses many perils. But, says Astronaut Nelson, something is better than nothing. "It enhances our chances of survival if we have to ditch," he says. "It makes me feel a lot better."

The original Columbia orbiter had ejection seats for its first five flights; they were removed to save weight and because the agency decided the shuttle had proved itself safe. That too easily ignored the obvious: even after 25 missions, the shuttle is still an experimental craft, and space flight is still far from being routine or safe. The astronauts who fly it are essentially test pilots. And in the aviation industry, that job is synonymous with danger.

With reporting by Jay Peterzell/Washington and Richard Woodbury/Houston