The Backup Space Shuttle - A Rescue Mission that Never Launched

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81.7 seconds after launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 16, 2003, a dinner-plate sized piece of insulating foam tore off the space shuttle Columbia’s orange external tank and impacted the leading edge of the orbiter's left wing at a relative velocity of 545 miles per hour. The energy from the impact was enough to shatter the orbiter’s thermal protection system - damage that would later allow super-heated atmospheric gases to penetrate the vehicle during reentry. The entire sequence was caught on camera in slow-motion, yet NASA's Debris Assessment Team failed to adequately identify the danger.

But what if NASA had conducted an in-orbit inspection of the Columbia and determined that it was impossible to get the craft back to earth? In a final report on the accident, released in August of 2003, a section titled “STS-107 In-Flight Options Assessment” laid out a startling possibility. The space shuttle Atlantis was already undergoing preflight checks for a mission to follow two-months after the Columbia launch. Could the Altantis have been sent on a rescue mission in time? It would have been a daring attempt - one never tried before, and one racing against the clock to reach the crew of the Columbia before they ran out of air...

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