Our sons grew up watching Star Wars and constructing elaborate space ships out of Legos - not uncommon for young boys in the late 1970s and 80s. One of our boys, Zeb, always wanted to work in space. “Sure, sure,” we said, “you can be anything you want to be.”
But when, after graduating from U-32 in East Montpelier and getting his Bachelor of Science from Stanford, he was then admitted to a Coop program at NASA as part of his graduate work at Stanford. We figured we’d better start taking him seriously.
He's worked at NASA for 16 years now and is a flight director. But in 2005 he worked on EVAs - extra vehicular activities or Space Walks - instructing astronauts and developing protocols for everything from how to repair a space station power box with a toothbrush to repairing Space Shuttle thermal blankets with a surgical stapler. It was his job to imagine the unimaginable and fix it.
During the flight of STS 114 in 2005, just two years after the Columbia disaster, the same problem that resulted in the destruction of Columbia – debris separating from the external fuel tank on ascent – unexpectedly recurred during the launch of Discovery. Additionally, some material - called “shim shock” that was routinely used to fill the gaps between thermal tiles had come loose and was protruding.
Every evening we were shown on television the little gap fillers poking out between the tiles that posed so great a threat on re-entry. The race was on in Houston to figure out how to cut away the material without scratching the exterior of the shuttle. Just nicking the surface of the ship would lay it open to the intense heat generated on re-entry.
After days of brain storming and experimenting in Houston, Zeb was among those who proposed a solution. “Pick up your check list,” Houston told the astronauts. They protested with measured but mounting frustration, “It’s not in the checklist. We have no procedure for this. The checklist won’t do us any good.”
Mission Control repeated, “Please pick up the checklist.”
“There is nothing in it about this,” the crew reiterated.
“Take hold of the clear plastic cover of your manual and rip it off,” Houston instructed. “Now cut a slit in the center of the sheet of plastic. You will lay that against the surface of the shuttle, allowing the shim shock to protrude through the slit. Holding the blade of the hacksaw very carefully against the plastic, you will cut away the filler.”
The answer wasn’t in the checklist; it was the checklist.
And it was right there all along in plain sight.
