CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are well-trained to handle emergencies, but ultimately, they must have an escape route.
Just what that route will be is one issue facing NASA as it weighs concepts for a next-generation reusable launch vehicle, a successor to the space shuttle. With the X-38 crew return vehicle on ice, the cheapest short-term escape option is what's now docked at the station: a Soyuz capsule.
The Russian craft could take all three astronauts back to Earth if the station were disabled or if a member of the crew required an emergency medical procedure. If the crew expanded to six as the station grows, the addition of a second Soyuz capsule would be the cheapest and fastest option to support the return of all six, according to NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel.
"They've got a number of studies ongoing with regard to various options, and certainly one of the options being looked at is two Soyuz capsules," panel member Roger Schaufele said.
"We'd rather have a CRV, crew return vehicle, to bring them home," said Dr. Jeff Jones, flight surgeon for the station's current crew. "But that vehicle is on hold because of funding."
Without a new vehicle, the station crew couldn't grow beyond six. But a new vehicle might take 10 years to develop at a cost of $8 billion to $10 billion, the panel reported. Crew return is a last-ditch option reserved for critical failures aboard the station, a lost ability to supply the crew, or a medical emergency. The latter is deemed the most likely, the safety panel said. So the "safe haven" alternative to a return vehicle -- creating a secure place for the crew to stay if there's a fire or other crisis -- wouldn't help an astronaut who needed surgery.
That's why the crew is trained and equipped to handle a number of medical problems, Jones said. "They have a full set of medical diagnostic hardware, kind of like a little physician's bag in a box," he said.
They have a variety of drugs, as well as a respirator; equipment to insert a tracheal tube; intravenous tubes; routine first-aid items, such as a thermometer; and even an ultrasound unit for examining internal organs. Station resident Peggy Whitson will try out the ultrasound later in this mission.
Even though NASA has done some microgravity surgery drills on high-flying aircraft, there are no plans to perform surgery aboard the station. "That's the kind of circumstance where we would bring the crew home," Jones said.
Treating a serious condition in space would be like trying to treat cancer or another grave illness in harsh Antarctica -- hence multiple rescue missions to the South Pole to bring back ailing researchers.
With just one Soyuz on the station, all three crew members would leave if one needed evacuation so no one would be left aboard without a means of escape, NASA spokesman John Ira Petty said.
But a Soyuz might not be the best way to bring a patient home, Jones said. "The Soyuz is not really equipped for medical evacuation."
Two escape vehicles might be preferable to one, however, if one craft were damaged or unreachable. "The hazard could be between you and your means of escape," Jones said.
There could be a combination of two Soyuz or a Soyuz and crew return vehicle. In some scenarios under study in the Space Launch Initiative at Marshall Space Flight Center, where three contractor teams are vying to create the next-generation shuttle, the new craft also could serve as a crew return vehicle.
"If you're going to build a crew transport, building crew rescue capability is not that big a deal," said Dennis Smith, manager of the Second Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle Program Office at Marshall.
One issue is how much time the vehicle would spend in orbit. If it stays docked at the station for six months or a year, its need for power changes, and so does its requirements for withstanding collisions with space debris.
Another option is to have one shell for both the new shuttle and the crew return vehicle.
"You could build one vehicle that does both jobs," Smith said. "You could build one vehicle that looks the same, but the insides are different." One advantage is the two vehicles would have the same properties when it comes to reentry and landing.
Yet another concept would put a more primitive escape pod, a direct descendant of the Apollo-era spacecraft, inside the next-generation shuttle. Such a pod might be delivered to the station by rocket, too.
If building started today, a vehicle could be ready by 2009-2012, Smith said, but with the kind of funding the Apollo moon shots had, it could be possible to move more quickly.
"We went to the moon in nine years with almost no knowledge of how to get to the moon," he said.
Several next-generation concepts and an analysis of their pros and cons have been submitted to NASA officials, who are expected to narrow them down when proposing the 2004 budget.
NASA tries to anticipate problems and employ redundant systems on the station and shuttles, so it would be unlikely to have a complete failure of power, communications or oxygen that would make escape essential.
"We work really hard to prepare for a lot of eventualities, and we do that because safety is such a high priority with us," Petty said.
Published under license from FLORIDA TODAY. Copyright © 2002 FLORIDA TODAY. No portion of this material may be reproduced in any way without the written consent of FLORIDA TODAY.
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