The Space Shuttle: 10. Return to flight

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Before we start the 10th and final episode of 13 Minutes Presents the Space Shuttle, don't forget we have two previous seasons.

Season one is the story of the first moon landing and the final 30 minutes of descent to the moon, when everything started going wrong.

And season two is about the near disaster of Apollo 13.

Both seasons are available right now and are waiting for you once you've finished this episode.

Some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.

This is Shuttle Launch Control and we are at T-9 minutes and holding.

It's the 29th of September 1988, almost midday.

A machine, as tall as a 14-floor apartment block towers on the launch pad.

It's space shuttle Discovery with its huge external tank and two solid rocket boosters.

All of the crew members have gotten into the orbiter and been placed in their suits and are in the launch position at the present time.

Strapped into this machine are five astronauts, for the first time in bulky orange pressure suits, meant to protect them in the event of sudden loss of cabin pressure.

At this point, we're approximately a half hour behind in the activities that are being completed for launch.

It's a beautiful day.

A few white clouds are dotted around a blue sky, but there are unusual winds.

We had been briefed before we went out to the launch vehicle

that there was an upper level schwind shear.

We cannot launch today if the winds do not change either in direction and wind speed.

But of course we were ready to launch and having that same feeling of

This is a very special morning.

A morning that the mission's commander, Rick Hauck, has been preparing for for a long time.

I'd say it was very sobering, but we still thought, well, we're probably not going to launch.

Bob Crippen, who has flown a record four missions, is now Deputy Director for Shuttle Operations.

As chairman of the mission management team, he will make the final go- or no-go decision on shuttle launches.

During the nine-minute hold, a built-in pause in the countdown, the launch director starts a poll.

We could listen on the loop and we could hear

go, go, go.

Safety console, safety's go.

And CDR and PLT.

Roger, CDR is go.

PLT's go.

And we were convinced that when it got to Bob Crippen, the last director optimizer on 212, we were going to hear him say, no, go for wins.

All of the mission management team is go to proceed aboard.

And we heard his voice and he said, go.

Bob Crippen has made the call.

So we kind of looked at each other and said, ooh, I guess we're really going to fly.

We're lying on our backs thinking, okay, we're really going to do this.

It's been two and a half years since Challenger burst into a ball of flame shortly after launch.

The shuttle team have worked tirelessly to get to this point, to make the shuttle and the team itself better and safer than ever before.

And with more than 200 changes to its system, the shuttle is now a different vehicle.

So, this flight, STS-26, is a first, much like the very first shuttle mission, STS-1.

Only this time,

everyone has seen what can happen when things go wrong.

3, 2, 1, T-minus 9 minutes and counting.

From the BBC World Service, 13 Minutes presents the Space Shuttle.

I'm Space Scientist Maggie Adarin Pocock.

Episode 10 of 10:

Return to Flight.

It marks our entrance into a new era.

The test flights are over.

The groundwork has been laid.

This is President Reagan speaking to the nation six years earlier on Independence Day, 1982, after the shuttle program's fourth flight.

Beginning with the next flight, the Columbia and her sister ships will be fully operational.

Fully operational.

These two words insinuated that spaceflight would, from one day to the next, become routine, almost risk-free.

But this label, operational, was more political than anything else.

And Dick Covey knew it.

It sounded good.

It sounded like...

We had accomplished this milestone.

But for those of us in the astronaut office, we knew this was a continuum of test and development.

And whether you called it operational flight test or you called it something else, we were still going to be in a development phase.

There is inherent danger in it.

In fact, we asked almost every person we spoke to whether they considered the shuttle operational after the fourth mission and Reagan's speech.

No, not at all.

Not in my opinion.

To me, that was sort of a misnomer or a joke.

And the answer was a resounding no.

No, I don't think any astronaut ever believed the shuttle was anything other than an experimental vehicle throughout its entire life cycle.

It was too complicated, too much of a test program to ever be called purely operational.

The original sales pitch for the shuttle was to create a space airliner that would regularly go back and forth between Earth and orbit.

But was this idea ever realistic?

I have to add one other story for you that really illustrated this to me.

Astronaut Kathy Sullivan vividly remembers one specific moment.

When the shuttle landed from the second flight, NASA was still trying to figure out how come it's taking us so long to get a shuttle ready to go and on the launch pad.

Look at airlines.

Airlines do it, you know, tickety-boo, tickety-boo.

So they engaged teams from several airlines.

With the idea that they'll be able to make the shuttle run more efficiently, to speed up everything.

And I said, from wheel stop to lift off, you guys can have access to anything and everything

of how we do what we do and watch us go through one.

The presumption I'm sure was these smart airline guys will say, here are the 14 stupid things you're doing that will speed it all up.

One particular morning, at the end of a meeting with an airline team, someone at the end of the phone line speaks up.

And we're all just about out of the room, and the squawk box voice says, Harold, Harold, Harold calls one guy back and says, about that leaky hydraulic T-fitting.

What's the latest?

That voice is the head of the shuttle program.

And he's asking about a hydraulic fitting.

The airline guys can hardly believe what they're hearing.

Do you think Frank Borman gives a damn about the tire pressures on our air fleet?

Because that's what it was of Kibwival to him, is if if the CEO of the airline had to personally check on tire pressure on every jet

in order to know that they were safe to fly.

And that just sort of right then I realized this is never going to be the kind of Boston shuttle operating vehicle that was dreamt of at the beginning.

It's just it's going to have to be babied every time, not turned around like pull into my garage and pull back out right away.

It's not that vehicle.

Neil Hutchinson, a sent flight director for the very first shuttle launch, also believes it was never operational.

No,

I don't now.

Never did.

F equals MA is too hard.

F equals MA,

Newton's second law of motion.

Force equals mass times acceleration.

To get a vehicle like the shuttle off the ground, beating gravity, passing through the atmosphere out into orbit, it takes a lot.

It's the physics.

You know, there aren't a lot of physics in flying airplanes or driving a car.

I mean, they're orders of magnitude lower than the physics it takes to get up and back.

And the physics will never change

ever.

So you can't take away the risk.

We just got word they are starting to start the countdown again.

The countdown has resumed less than nine minutes before launch, and that's the kind of it's this inherent risk that everybody is thinking about the morning of the 29th of September 1988 as mission STS-26 is about to launch.

This is the launch of a spacecraft, but also the rebirth of a vision to redefine what it means for humans to be in space.

Now riding with its crew is an unspoken but inescapable question.

Do we still know why we want to be in space?

What is it for

and is it worth it?

Bill Carr is at the Cape in Florida

awaiting the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery from Launch Pad 39B.

I don't know how I would describe it.

Nervous anxiety.

He's thinking back to the day Challenger began its final flight from this very same pad almost three years earlier.

I think what we all learned is just how dynamic that vehicle was.

You couldn't necessarily escape failure just because you found that problem.

So there was mixed emotions.

We were excited about getting back to flying.

And I think at this point we were very very focused to make sure that everything was right for these guys and that we would get back flying successfully we've passed the six minutes point t minus five minutes 54 seconds in counting

nasa is looking today for a textbook launch to make up the losses of the last 32 months the event is being broadcast live across the United States and around the world.

And it's clear how much is riding on this launch.

You can talk of dreams and they do, but there's more to the shuttle than that.

And the Americans know this one must succeed.

Thousands of reporters ahead.

There are some 5,000 members of the news media covering this launch from all quarters of the globe.

And huge crowds of people have gathered.

You should have seen the traffic jam.

Hundreds and hundreds and thousands of cars.

They're lining the coast.

Went and got a car, started driving down here, waiting for the gate to open up and get in there.

Spread across beaches and roads.

Came in from Orlando.

You got a 17-year-old grandson sleeping in the back of the car and Grandwell sleeping here on the ground.

They're all here to see the shuttle rise again.

I think that the tension is certainly mounting here.

It looks like after 32 months of being grounded, after a number of delays, after certainly a great deal of soul searching, reevaluating where we're going in space, that it looks like we're just about to get back in in space again.

We're coming up on the three-minute point in the count, three minutes in counting.

And the GATI.

There's a satellite on board Discovery to aid communication between mission control and the shuttle on future flights.

But the public's attention is focused squarely on the five astronauts awaiting liftoff.

Who are these guys are going to do this next?

Dick Covey is in the pilot's seat as the clock ticks down.

T-minus two minutes, thirty seconds in counting.

Ground supply.

It became obvious early on that the crew was going to be to focus not what we were doing on the mission, other than we were to return to flight crew and we're going to take the space shuttle back to orbit, bring it back.

Coming up on the two-minute point in our countdown.

I'd characterize my thoughts

set against the backdrop that NASA prior to 51L had never lost a crew after launch.

T-minus two minutes and counting.

Sitting next to Covey in the commander seat, Rick Hauck is thinking about Challenger.

We've never lost anyone in a space flight.

So even though on STS-7 and STS-51A, I knew this was dangerous, I kind of comforted myself with the thought we've never lost anyone before, so

we've got this.

Well, that comfort could no longer be delivered by that thinking after 51L.

I was convinced that

everything had been done that could be done to prepare the machine and the crew.

But I knew that my good friends had died the last time the machine had launched.

So I was really focused on that, and I did think about that.

But you can't.

You can't dwell on those things.

It's just like

landing on an an aircraft carrier at night.

You can't dwell on this dangerous situation you're in because you'll be distracted from doing what you have to do to keep it from being too dangerous.

T-minus 31 seconds.

Once again,

everyone is holding their breath in launch control, in mission control,

and these watching on TV screens across the US and around the world.

T minus 15,

14, 13, 12, 11, 10.

We're goal for main engine start: seven, six,

start,

three,

two,

one,

zero.

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3, 2, 1,

0, and lift off!

Lift off.

Americans return to space as Discovery clears the tower.

Roger roll, Discovery.

Crew confirms roll program, Houston now controlling.

The crew know that it takes roughly two minutes until the boosters separate from the shuttle.

And the NASA mission audio that you're hearing now is playing in real time.

Standing by the beginning, throttle down to 65%.

The engines throttling down now to maintain

assert speed as the spacecraft passes through Max Q.

Discovery is going to the point of maximum dynamic pressure.

Three engines at 65% now.

For pilot Dick Covey, time is passing very slowly.

On my first launch, the first two minutes you're very aware

of the immense power of the solid rocket boosters, and

I think the two minutes took a lot longer

on this flight.

Go at throttle up.

Just remembering why it happened the last time.

Discovery, go at throttle up.

You know, that was the last thing we heard when Challenger broke apart.

Bill Carr is at launch control,

watching,

listening.

I remember standing outside and just looking over at people I worked with, and they were all just, it was quiet at that point.

And when he said, Roger, go at throttle up and kept flying, I think all of us took a big sigh of relief.

1 minute, 45 seconds, 3 engines at 104%.

For some reason, that was just a milestone that I think we all needed to hear and get through.

But there is another,

perhaps more important,

milestone to reach.

Standing by for solid rocket booster separation.

I absolutely remember counting down after liftoff to solid rocket motor burnout.

Commander Rick Haug has been anxiously awaiting this moment.

Solid rocket boosters have separated.

The solid rockets are gone, and I remember thinking, well,

right out of the picture.

5,600 feet per second velocity, 31.8 nautical miles altitude, downrange distance 38 nautical miles.

Of course we still had six more minutes to ride the main engines and

so I

wasn't breathing too big a sigh of relief yet.

Velocity 6,200 feet per second altitude 41 nautical miles, downrange distance 60 nautical miles.

As Discovery makes its way further and further upwards, the shuttle's main engines are still firing.

They are vastly more complicated than the boosters, and it's several excruciating minutes until main engine cutoff.

Discovery negative return.

Negative return.

I did clearly think, boy, I hope this doesn't blow up.

And

human beings put this thing together, and

What an incredible machine.

And I just hope it doesn't blow up.

And then

once again, taking that thought and pushing it to the back.

Doing that by looking at instruments and focusing on gauges and so on to kind of distract myself from that thought.

Ten seconds away from main engine cutoff.

The main engines have almost done their job.

Main engine cutoff confirmed.

The ascent has gone perfectly.

Discovery, Nakamiko, Holmes 1 not required.

As the external tank falls down to Earth, the whole shuttle team in mission control, in launch control, in meeting rooms across the USA collectively feel a weight lifted off their shoulders.

I felt pretty good about it that all this work we had put in had paid off and the crew did a great job.

The weight of two and a half years of hard work, of grief, of hope.

Obviously, we were very, very pleased to see the results of it.

We were back in business with that.

I think there was a level of euphoria and confidence that we're back.

We're back.

The shuttle is back in space.

I was quite struck by a sense of a kind of relief that just fell away from me.

Everything of the last couple years has cut and fell away from me.

And I realized

we're back in orbit.

I think the 26 crew is smiling again.

It's early morning, the day after the launch of STS-26.

Discovery is orbiting the Earth once every 90 minutes.

The crew on their first night back in space are asleep.

And in mission control on Earth, Kathy Sullivan is the Capcom on the nightly planning shift.

The fun part, the cool part of the planning shift Capcom is you pick the music that you're going to wake the crew up to.

And she's picked something very special for this morning.

So what am I going to say?

I mean, there's my little miniature Neil Armstrong moment, right?

So the music is going to run, the music is going to stop.

And really, are you just going to say,

good morning, Discovery Houston standing by?

That is not how I'm going to feel.

And I thought about it.

I couldn't help but think about the Robin Williams movie.

Not long before then, he had made a movie called Good Morning Vietnam.

The tagline from that movie is him on the radio as a disc jockey in Vietnam saying, Good morning, Vietnam.

As it turns out, I was able to make my way through several contacts to Robin Williams' agents and say, What would you think of reprising that for the spatial discovery?

And you

painted the context a little bit.

Robin loved the idea.

So one morning we awakened with Robin Williams' voice saying, Good

morning, Discovery!

Good morning, Discovery!

Rise and shine, boys.

Time to start doing that shuttle shuffle.

You know what I mean?

Hey, here's a little song coming from the billions of us to the five of you.

Rick, start them off, baby.

The hawkster to you.

When Max Faget threw the Boswood model of the spaceplane, what did he want it to become?

The lunar program was goal-driven.

Put a man on the moon and bring him back safely.

That was the end of it.

Shuttle program said, okay, we've got the ability to get into space now.

Now let's use it.

Now let's develop it.

It was no longer a stunt.

It was no longer a

national

pride effort.

It's a testament to the dedication and hard work of all the people for each of those parts and systems that they all worked as well as they did.

It's truly amazing, I think.

It was the vehicle that showed the world, showed our population, the empowerment of the females and the minority astronauts.

Our class was the first.

The space shuttle showed them that they could dream and that they could ultimately fly in space as astronauts.

That arbiter is probably

the most complex thing ever designed and built by humans.

It was an airplane, it was a launch vehicle, it was a spacecraft, it was a space laboratory, it was all of those things all combined into one, and everything had to work.

The space shuttle,

I believe,

is the

most

amazing modern marvel of our time.

You could spend years

talking about the shuttle systems and the intricacies and

how everything was woven together,

and it would still be just shy of a miracle.

It was the most magnificent space machine ever made.

The space shuttle was truly amazing.

But did it ever achieve what it set out to do?

It was promised to be the all-purpose spacecraft, the reusable vehicle that would get astronauts and cargo into orbit and back, cheaply, routinely, and safely.

Did the shuttle accomplish this?

The short answer is no.

The shuttle was expensive.

Early predictions were that over time it would pay for itself.

That never happened.

The shuttle never flew as often as originally promised.

The highest number of flights in one year was nine in 1985.

And just a few weeks later, in 1986, the Challenger disaster showed the world that it wasn't as safe as many had thought and hoped.

Yeah,

I think the media stereotype tends to be the shuttle didn't prove its worth.

It didn't live up to its billing.

It's the top line for many, many people.

It didn't live up to the hype, that's true.

Astronaut Kathy Sullivan.

But I think as every experimental aircraft ever in history has done,

the set of lessons

about design, about performance, about operation that Shuttle taught.

They're the inheritance that flows into other vehicles, other designs, countless dividends from the Shuttle program just on the technology, spaceflight operations, and workforce, and tremendous scientific advances from Shuttle as well.

After Challenger, when military and commercial missions were over time stripped away, it left one primary goal, science.

Helping humanity's quest for knowledge to better understand ourselves and the universe.

The shuttle has helped us dramatically revolutionize our knowledge of the universe that we live in.

Because the return to flight in 1988 isn't the end of the shuttle story.

This is just the beginning.

The beginning of more experiments in orbit.

In the pursuit of this grand knowledge that we can acquire

of space telescopes.

The Hubble Space Telescope is probably one of the big things that people appreciate.

Of international collaboration.

So the President of the United States said this handshake marks the end of the Cold War.

And NASA is already planning something that was always tied to the shuttle from the start: a space station, orbiting the Earth seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

The legacy of the space shuttle is still in space, and that is the International Space Station.

It wouldn't exist but for the space shuttle.

It took some time,

but now, in 1988, with Discovery back in orbit, this is the moment the shuttle found its purpose.

It took spaceflight in a radical new direction, laying the foundation for space programs yet to come.

The Space Shuttle changed history.

13 Minutes will return with season 4.

This has been episode 10 of 10.

Thank you for listening to 13 Minutes presents The Space Shuttle.

It's a BBC Audio Science Production.

I'm Maggie Adarin Pocock.

13 Minutes wouldn't be 13 minutes minutes without the people who made these space stories happen and then shared them with us.

Thanks to every single one of them.

We'd like to thank NASA for its archive sound and the NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project for its archive interviews.

In this episode, it's interviews with Rick Hauck and Hoopt Gibson.

Some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.

I really hope you've enjoyed listening to our story of the space Shuttle.

And we'll be back.

Watch this space for news of 13 Minutes Season 4.

Follow or subscribe to 13 Minutes to get the next season and all episodes automatically.

The 13 Minutes series producers are Florin Bohr and Jeremy Grange.

The assistant producer is Robbie Wojahowski with additional research by Fabrice Moorhart.

Technical production is by Jackie Marjoram.

Theme music by Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg, and produced by Russell Emmanuel for Bleeding Fingers Music.

The sound design is by Richard Gould from Skywalker Sound.

Our story editor is Jessica Lindsay.

The senior podcast producer for the BBC World Service is Anne Dixie.

The podcast commissioning editor is John Mannell.

And the series editor is Martin Smith.

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