Destination Mars by Andrew May

Author:Andrew May
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785782268
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

Risk management

The increased complexity of a crewed Mars mission – considering life support, radiation shielding, spacecraft size and the need for multiple launches – explains why the step from the Moon to Mars is so much bigger for humans than for robot probes. It’s not just that more equipment must be built and more work must be done on mission planning, but there’s also the matter of checking that every system and subsystem is going to function the way it’s supposed to. In the context of the risk-averse and safety-conscious NASA that emerged in the wake of the Apollo 1 fire, this means going through a long, step-by-step process of technology validation and flight testing before a trip to Mars can even be considered.

The Apollo mission profile was much simpler than one to Mars would be, but it still went through a methodical process of incremental testing. The flight that everyone remembers – Apollo 11 – only happened after a long series of shakedown tests of each subsystem and procedure. The astronauts themselves, many of them coming from a test-pilot background, understood the need for this as well as anyone. Popular media may portray them as risk-taking daredevils, but the opposite is closer to truth. A case in point is Apollo 10 – a mission that is forgotten by most people, and baffling to those who do remember it. By the time Apollo 10 was ready for launch in May 1969, Apollo 8 had already tested the CSM in lunar orbit, and Apollo 9 had tested the lunar module in Earth orbit. The programme called for one more flight before the actual landing mission – a test of the lunar module in orbit around the Moon.

But was that necessary? Based on media stereotypes, one might imagine the Apollo 10 crew pushing to be allowed to land, while over-cautious NASA management insisted on ticking that one last box on the checklist. In fact it was the other way around. Senior NASA administrators, still worried that Russia might get to the Moon first, were desperate to cut to the chase and go straight for a landing. But the commander of Apollo 10’s crew, Tom Stafford, knew they couldn’t do that. It was too much of a risk – the spacecraft still had too many systems that hadn’t been properly tested. He assured his bosses that if Apollo 10 was switched from a routine shakedown flight to a history-making Moon landing, ‘this flight crew won’t be on it’.

The purpose of testing, of course, is to minimise the chances that something will go wrong. But it’s impossible to reduce this risk to zero. At any point during a space mission something may go wrong, and it makes sense to have plans ready in advance to deal with every imaginable contingency. In the jargon of rocket science, they’re called abort modes.

The best-known case of an abort mode being invoked happened in April 1970, three days into what was supposed to be the third Moon landing flight – Apollo 13.

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