If no Columbia disaster, would ISS be complete now?

[vt_hokie]

If the Columbia tragedy had not occurred, and making the huge assumption that all subsequent shuttle flights were successful, where would the ISS be today in terms of construction? Also, as I recall, Barbara Morgan was slated to fly on Columbia's next mission, which was to be its first flight to the space station. Is she still slated to fly on one of the remaining shuttle missions? <br /><br />Also, had the RCC panel damage occurred on an ISS flight rather than a now exceedingly rare "old style" life sciences flight, what are the odds that the damage would have been seen? With the cargo bay doors obscuring the view of the inner leading edge RCC panels, I wonder if it might have still gone unnoticed. On the other hand, they were aware of the foam strike, so perhaps they would have made a point of examing the area. In any case, what a terrible case of random bad luck that the damage occurred on a non-ISS related flight!

 

[shuttle_rtf]

I thought Columbia was too "heavy" to get the ISS?

 

[lampblack]

Arithmetic says -- assuming five flights per year -- that they'd have done perhaps another four flights in 2003, five in 2004, and three (or so) so far this year.<br /><br />If everything worked and everyone got back safely, that gives us 12 flights post-Columbia through the present time. Can anyone share where that would have put us with ISS construction?<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#0000ff"><strong>Just tell the truth and let the chips fall...</strong></font> </div>

 

[vt_hokie]

<font color="yellow">"If everything worked and everyone got back safely, that gives us 12 flights post-Columbia through the present time. Can anyone share where that would have put us with ISS construction?"</font><br /><br />Well, that would have gotten us "U.S. core complete" with the addition of Node 2, plus 3 or 4 additional flights. IIRC, the Hubble servicing mission might have flown by now.

 

[bene]

If Columbia hadn't been lost, and assuming every mission had flown as planned, we'd have seen the truss and solar arrays in place by January 2004, US Core Complete with Node-2 in February 2004, Columbus attached in October 2004, Canadian hand for SSRMS attached sometime in early 2005 and would be almost ready for Kibo in 2006.<br /><br />

 

[toothferry]

yep.. if the Columbia tragedy hadn't of occured then ISS would be a much brighter star in the sky for us today. <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" />

 

[vt_hokie]

Wow, what a difference that would have been! Now, we'll be lucky to see that by 2010. <br /><br />Damn, what are the odds of the f-ing foam strike occuring on one of the only non-ISS missions left in the manifest? If it had been any other flight, they might have had a chance. Given that the foam strike was known about and did raise eyebrows, odds are the ISS crew would have been asked to examine the orbiter prior to docking.