Should Endangered Astronauts Get Last Chance To Say Goodbye?

It's the kind of question that comes up only after the bruised emotions begin to heal - only after time provides us some distance from a tragedy in space. It's an ethical question. Hopefully, prayerfully, it's a question we'll never have to ask again.

But...

Should astronauts who know the chances are they won't return safely to Earth make a final call to their loved ones - to say goodbye?

"Ummmmm, talk about being uncomfortable," says Milt Heflin, head of the flight director's office at Johnson Space Center, in an interview with the Associated Press. Seems, even after Apollo 13, Challenger and Columbia, there is no NASA policy on this. But it's a question that seems to be coming to a head.

Flight Surgeons Vs. Techies

Long before Columbia broke up re-entering Earth's atmosphere, NASA flight surgeons have been pushing for some sort of policy on this question. But the space agency has yet to come up with one, as flight directors, technicians and administrators say they want more time to think it over.

It's a pertinent question, given the now-constant human presence in space aboard the International Space Station. "You have to raise people's consciousness," says Flight Surgeon Terry Taddeo. "I can't imagine any other way of doing it than having an event like this, for better or worse. People have to be taking it more seriously now."

The Bigger Question

The last-call debate brings up an even trickier question. NASA and Boeing engineers knew 82 seconds into the STS-107 mission that there might be trouble brewing on the Columbia's left wing. Clearly shown in launch surveillance pictures, a chunk of insulating foam broke off the external fuel tank and smashed into the leading edge and underside of the wing. For more than a week, NASA and contractor teams debated about the significance of the impact and whether it would make a difference upon re-entry. In the end, they declined an offer from the National Reconnaisance Office to inspect the wing with spy satellites, declared the possibility of damage negligible and, according to one former astronaut, soft-peddled the issue when talking to the seven astronauts aboard STS-107.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), who flew aboard Columbia just days before the 1986 Challenger tragedy, accused NASA of leaving a valuable resource out of the loop in trying to decide how badly the space plane's wing was damaged by the foam debris and whether it could cause problems upon re-entry. Nelson chastised NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe during a Senate hearing earlier this month.

"To cut the crew out, you're eliminating a great resource," Nelson said.

Dr. J.D. Polk, a NASA flight surgeon, agreed. "We're talking about a lot of Ph.D.s and doctors and people with master's in aerospace and people with a lot of operational knowledge of the vehicle. We might have been able to think of something," Polk says. "Plus I think the crew would probably want time to talk to the families and get things squared away in their minds and with their families, as to how the family is going to continue on."

A Fateful Discussion

This discussion moved from the theoretical to the realm of reality just before seven astronauts aboard Columbia lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center on its penultimate mission last year. The AP reports all seven talked about what would happen if space junk punctured the shuttle's fuel tanks and they became stuck in space, a situation portrayed in the 1969 movie, "Marooned," starring Gregory Peck and Gene Hackman. They talked about what they'd try to do to rectify the situation. They talked about a last goodbye with their loved ones. That was Columbia's next-to-last mission, commanded by astronaut Scott Altman. He says he'd have wanted to know the whole story. And, he says, he certainly have wanted a chance to say goodbye to his family.

But other astronauts aren't so sure. "I don't know, I don't know," said NASA's only female shuttle commander, Eileen Collins, when asked by the AP if she'd want to say goodbye to her husband and two young children.

In the case of STS-107, Evelyn Husband, widow of the shuttle's commander, Rick Husband above, right), says she in no way wanted to know days before that the Columbia, with her husband on board, was doomed. "We would have gone through days of absolute agony with the crew and the families as well as the nation," Mrs. Husband says, adding that "God was very merciful in this situation. They were on their way home, 16 minutes away from landing, feeling incredibly happy at the job well done. We were on the ground waiting for them, feeling the very same way," she told the AP. "For anything different, I think, would be absolutely horrible. We have the rest of our lives to deal with their loss. But to know it a day, two days, a few moments beforehand, would have not added one bit to this experience. It would have made it worse."

As to whether the crew should have been better informed about the possible damage to Columbia's left wing, NASA Flight Surgeon Dr. Jon Clark, whose wife Laurel was killed in the Feb. 1 disaster, said "From the families that I've talked to, the perspective we have is that we were all very glad the crew did not detract from the mission to try and work a problem they would have never been able to fix anyway."

Instead of dwelling on what he would have said had there been a last goodbye with Laurel (right), Dr. Clark says he thinks about the last images salvaged from the wreckage of Columbia strewn across southern Texas and Louisiana - images showing the astronauts happy, anxious to come home and unaware that fate would deal them a cruel and fatal blow within minutes. "Each time I watch it, I get a sense of joy to know they were just having such a great time."

FMI: www.nasa.gov