Made me think, still does

[CoolP 283]

A great read over at The Seattle Times. http://seattletimes....dontgiveup.html

 

It spins a bit around whether the engineers knew or not. But lets assume you, some engineer, knew about the fate that damage causes. Lets assume you could clearly say that there's no way the crew can enter the atmosphere and survive and there's no kind of repair possible within that time and, well, space. Would you tell them?

 

I thought that an answer to this was easy. I was wrong. :unsure:

 

Video on the event. A very sad one in the history of space flight.

 

And on the investigation.

[Fatback 84]

If the engineers discussed keeping information from the crew it was an epic fail. The people with their life on the line should be given the opportunity to save themselves, whether or not someone else thinks it might not be possible. To me that is fundamental, not to mention the distrust it would seed with other crew members on future flights. They'd always be wondering, "maybe we're doomed and we don't even know it."

[3Green 80]

Would you tell them?

 

Hard call. I would hope that if NASA knew that a potential threat existed, they would allowed the crew to stay on board as a skeleton crew or be dropped off at the space station. Maybe that option wasn't possible (low fuel reserves etc), so would you tell them? I don't know. I often don't tell my wife everything, it just makes things easier sometimes. :rolleyes:

 

RJ

[Airbus Commander 563]

Would you tell them?

 

 

Depends I guess, I mean, you'd be cruelly telling them they're screwed, making their last days a living hell, a count down to death they can't even spend with their family. On the other hand, they could say goodbye to family and friends and get anything they needed sorted before they died. Tough call really...

[SpiritFlyer 987]

Tough call really...

 

Too tough to call, even hypothetically...

[Tracon 10]

Yes I would tell them! That's their right. I wouldn't wish that taken away from any body. You have to tell them!

[Shaka 2]

Ethically, yes, they must be told. But when we think about this question, what we are thinking is "Would I want to be told?", and that answer might be no. Maybe they would like a few minutes to reflect on their lives? Perhaps compose a message to pass on to a loved one? I can't think of a good reason to hold back this information and not allow these people to accept their fate with dignity.

 

And what about the families? Do they get to know that their loved ones will be dying tomorrow? If they do know, I suppose you won't let them speak one last time, lest they let the secret out.

 

I imagine that if this had actually happened this way, and that word leaked out (it always does), then there might be hell to pay later.

 

In the first part of the article you linked, it describes a lesson NASA learned from that tragedy - "Never give up. No matter how hopeless.". The main point of the article seems to follow that mantra. Some people don't want to just give up, and will always persevere no matter how hopeless the situation.

[Tracon 10]

I would most definitely want to be told, or so I think I would. I want to go down facing death with eyes open, especially if I was an astronaut. At least the particles fused in the furnaces of dying stars can be returned in an equally brilliant spectacle of destruction.

 

As for the families, they will be notified in a formal setting once some of the chaos settles. Safety first.

[Oracle427 45]

I know that the scenario is different, but what about Apollo 13? Of course, the crew knew that something was terribly wrong before mission control did.

 

The odds were overwhelmingly against the survival of the crew, but they did what they had to do for several days under worsening conditions and kept to the business at hand all throughout the event.

 

I'm not sure if there were some "lessons learned" from Apollo 13 that would have lead to a desire to keep a "helpless" crew in the dark.

[HiFlyer 9,363]

You have to tell them, if only for the very practical reason that no other crews would ever trust you again in an emergency situation otherwise. It would create an Impossible situation that would need to be rectified by the rebuilding of the very trust that was initially violated in the first place, so why even go there?

[LHookins 3,104]

There was a small window of opportunity for the flight director to make a decision to trigger the aborted launch sequence and have the shuttle land at Zaragosa Spain without having to go through a reentry. He had to know both that there was a foreign object strike and that the strike represented a credible threat, and even then it would be a judgement call as at the time the leading edges of the wings weren't considered to be easily damaged.

 

Once that window of opportunity had passed, the crew's fate was sealed. And they still didn't know if there was a real problem. Once it became too late to scrub the launch, it didn't really matter if there was damage or not.

 

What are you going to tell the crew? "Columbia, this is Houston. We believe there was a foreign object strike on one of your wings, but we don't know if there was damage, or the possible extent of such damage. We cannot be certain the shuttle will survive reentry. It is impossible at this time to mount a rescue attempt, and you don't have enough delta V to change orbits to intercept the space station in the time remaining on your air supply. You would run out of air before we could either get a rescue vehicle to you or get you to safe harbor in orbit. How do you wish to proceed?"

 

The crew's choice is to stay in orbit until the air runs out and hope for the unlikely chance of a rescue, or to attempt a reentry not knowing if it will be successful. Obviously they'll choose the reentry. At that point, does it matter if they know or not? Personally, I'd rather not know, and I'd rather fly with a crew who didn't know. Houston didn't even know for sure. I'd prefer to fly with a crew who already knew all the risks before flying, and didn't need to be told.

 

Any final arrangements, any final goodbyes to family and friends, any preparing to meet their maker will have been done before they boarded that shuttle. Challenger taught us the need for that. And people still boarded shuttles for subsequent flights.

 

When Challenger exploded (It was the first time I'd heard breaking news from an online source), my coworkers and friends were upset. But to put it in perspective, I asked them if another shuttle was going up tomorrow morning and they had a chance to fly on it, would they? Most were silent for a while. None refused.

 

If you're the type of person who would have accepted that hypothetical shuttle ride, would you want to be told?

 

Hook

[HiFlyer 9,363]

Yes. Treat me as an adult. Allow me the dignity of facing the future with my eyes wide open. I would be demeaned by being treated like a child that can't face the truth.

 

And again, if you withhold information like that, you face the distrust of all the future crews who now have to wonder if they are being told the truth.

[3Green 80]

Information (the truth) is withheld from us children or pawns everyday in the name of national security. Sometimes it's best you don't know the truth, since the truth could be very disturbing to your moral and ethical beliefs. Thus the word "conspiracy" was added to the dictionary when the truth can't be shared.

 

RJ

[LHookins 3,104]

the truth could be very disturbing to your moral and ethical beliefs.

 

That's a different kind of truth, but I can tell you from personal experience that you're absolutely right. Do I risk possible jail and the certain destruction of my brand new computer career by trotting this computer listing down to the Washington Post, or do I shut up and take it? I shut up and took it, and 30 years later I still don't know if I did the right thing.

 

Off topic for this discussion though.

 

Hook

[CoolP 283]

Not the easy decision, huh?

 

That truth value is in the equation for sure, but the more I think about it, the more I gain awareness about how much it's worth when the only thing it changes is the mood of the crew being doomed. Tell them, tell them not? Can both be wrong and both be right.

 

I think an option would be to at least tell the shuttle commander. But I fear the effect this has and I also fear the impression of just mistreating the command chain to get rid of some pressure. Pressure I would have to carry in the first place.

 

I do relate a bit to a cabin PA making sure the hundreds of passengers remain calm and aiming at avoiding some minutes of mental terror. Is that a fair comparison? I don't know. You may not always hear the truth there, for a reason. And it doesn't even harm my trust towards the crew when it comes to trying everything to avoid the worst.

 

As much as I admire the noble value of always telling the truth, there's quite some noble spirit in caring for the final minutes/hours if you can't actually change anything on the outcome.