The Crazy Plans For Emergency Spacewalks To Save The Space Shuttle 

"Surfed back from space, at mach 20, in a flying brick." What a great line.

"The case where a brave shuttle astronaut would have to ride in the back of the space shuttle instead of, you know, in the cabin with everyone else" - I think I've had KSP flights like that.

2. A person in a spacesuit without cooling will over heat in something around 15 minutes. That happened during the pre-breathe phase of one of our vacuum chamber suit training test for an astronaut. However, it heat isn't too bad with the helmet off. Since the prebreathe was a sea level pressure, the astronaut recovered once his helmet was removed.

3. Story Musgrave was a tough guy. He was in a thermal-vacuum test of some mission related tools in our Chamber B and almost got frostbite on his thumb and forefinger from operating tools and other cold (-120 deg F?) for an hour or two in that vacuum test. He explained that his fingers were cold for a while, but then the cold feeling went away. We had to incorporate a test rule to require crew members to stop every 15 minutes to report how cold they felt and to give their fingers a chance to warm up a little. I saw Story's finger tips after he got out of the chamber and his thumb and forefinger were with white with oval areas of a very odd looking grey tint.

"surfed back from space at Mach 20 in a flying brick" That has to be the most hilariously accurate description of the humanity's space programs.

Story Musgrave did 6 space flights and also got 6 accademic degrees whilst having 7 children. Holy Moly ! And on the seventh day he rested. Before doing his 12 hobbies.

RU-vid subtitles just displayed: "Hello it's got manly here...."

Hi Scott, the best line I heard whilst listening to an EVA when they where building the ISS using the Shuttle was when a pin refused to go into a hole after being hit, the astronaut reported that it was not working to mission control who replied with the classic line "we suggest that you hit it with a bigger hammer", the astronaut did as he was told and the bigger hammer worked.

Fun fact: "Glideslope of a brick" In the late 80s I had the privilege piloting a full scale shuttle sim. It was "heavy" to put it mildly. The good news was that one way or another, you'd wind up on the ground.

1. A "rescue sphere" was proposed at one time. Shuttles would fly the inflatable space suit fabric spheres in a addition to the two or three spacesuits. The sphere included oxygen bottles with masks for breathing and the exhaled oxygen would pressurize the sphere. If something came up that would prevent a re-entry, a rescue shuttle would be launched. Two crew members (or maybe three) would help the other crewmembers don the spheres then they would don the spacesuits, depressurize the shuttle and transfer the spheres to the rescue shuttle. Of course, the two crewmembers in the rescue shuttle would have to don spacesuits and depressurize that cabin.

That story about the standing re-entry reminds me of the Martian. "They drank 3 whiskey sours, drove their corvettes to the launchpad and took off into outer space."

You should do a Smarter Every Day parody, but say "I'm Scott and you're getting manlier every day"

Story Musgrave = Legend. No question, what an extraordinary Human Being on every level.

Wow those openings on the underside of the shuttle where the main fuel tank connected look awesome. I love seeing aerospace grade materials, fittings etc up close. Just imagine how many hours went into designing even the smallest details of each spring length, strength, resistance to wild temperatures etc. I never even thought about how they plumbed the fuel from that big orange tank, through the shuttle and into the main engines.

Mussgrave was lucky there was no flight attendant to tell him "you must go back to your seat Sir." :-D

My question is: Who was holding Story Musgrave's beer while this was happening?

"I'm a backseat astronaut. Ride safe?!? Yeehaw!"

Hi Scott, about 15 years ago, I had the privilege of spending a couple of weeks on a research project with two retired astronauts (Mario Runco and Jeff Hoffman). In one of our late night scotch sessions, they described the contingency spacewalk to close the umbilical doors. It’s more or less as you said, though they referred to it as the “Cowboy Spacewalk.” The idea was to attach a laundry bag to the end of a tether, swing it over their heads while in the suit, and catch it in the gap between the belly flap (that’s under the SSMEs) and the trailing edge of the wing, not the gap further out in the wing. From there, they would tighten up the tether, climb down it, and then swing around underneath the orbiter. From there, they would then reach out to where the doors were, then basically use a ratchet to run the mechanism and close the doors. Here’s the catch: in order to reach from the tail flap to the doors, the astronaut performing the EVA had to have at least a 6 foot arm span. In later missions, they apparently realized that the shuttle was maneuverable enough that instead of going through that whole rigamarole, the astronaut would be dropped off free-floating in space, and the shuttle pilot would then use the RCS thrusters to maneuver it around them and present the belly to the astronaut (potentially in concert with the SAFR system).

This reminds me of an alternate history story I read where the Columbia crew actually learned about their damaged tiles and did some of these procedures to try and fix them.

"Nobody has ever attempted an unsecured return from orbit? Here, hold my TANG"

6:30 just going to gloss over the fact that they seriously considered stuffing ice in a potential hole in the shuttle wing?

Dirty Laundry Grappling Hook? I have a feeling that in a life or death situation, that any kind of laundry would have been acceptable.

I remember STS 1 mission and hearing the payload doors could be closed by a hand crank in the payload bay. Until the Spacelab module was in place and blocked the crank. The Canadian Arm could be jettisoned by explosive bolts.

There will always be those heroes who went a step further for others, 61 years old just shows he had the knowledge of surfing the trip down, I bet he was singing away at a beachboys song too!! ☺️

I remember I had pictures of Musgrave and all the STS crews on my bedroom wall when I was a kid. My dad would always bring home the press glossies from NASA before each mission. I also remember how in school, we'd get to watch the launches live in class whenever they happened during school hours. The shuttle launches were a big deal during the early part of the program. Sadly, I also remember seeing the Challenger explosion live in school and not really understanding what had happened until I got home. The teacher just turned off the TV and pretended nothing was amiss. Must've been a difficult choice for her at the time.

I can just imagine the austronauts pulling over in space, putting on their spacesuits, and replacing a flat tire on the landing gear with the spare as if the shuttle is the family car xD

14:22 You can tell he's pretty chuffed with himself.

5:01 look at those cloud patterns! A textbook case of vortex shedding I've ever seen one

Sometimes flying safe takes a back seat to arriving safe.

Story is a legend. I like to think that his stunt helped build confidence for contingencies where an EVA crew would have been stuck riding in the back without a seat. Awesome video, Scott.

They had self propelled eva suits early in the program, but for some reason(likely cost) stopped developing them. Having these suits could have mitigated tones of the issues related to on mission inspection and repair. My guess is that the umbilical doors were meant to be serviced, if needed, by an astronaut in one of the eva suits. Maybe a great idea for a scott manley video to look into those!

It's amazing how similar the space shuttle was to old wood-and-cloth aircraft.

Story Musgrave is a man's man. He's also a brilliant intellectual with a common man's approach to things.. But that's my opinion of him based on what I've seen over the years.

5:00 that is one huge von karman vortex pattern in the backgroud

I've had the pleasure and honour of working with Story Musgrave - he is a remarkable man in many aspects which most people are not aware of. His other accomplishments include trauma surgeon and test pilot for NASA's T-38 chase plane fleet, in addition to designing all of the tooling and procedures for the first repair of the Hubble telescope (and actually carrying out the three of the five repair spacewalks). He is the only astronaut to ever have flown on all five shuttles and he was a personal friend of Wernher von Braun.

I worked for the first 3 Shuttle missions at Cape Canaveral and I have an original manual that breaks down everything inside or outside the space shuttle. I am basically keeping it from many people that would probably enjoy it more than I do. It is in excellent condition!

Thanks for the Story Musgrave anecdote. I had the pleasure of hearing him speak at GE about how his rural upbringing and life experiences prepared him for spaceflight and ultimately the Hubble repair mission

2:19 80% nitrogen 😌

Dang, that new intro is as lit as the SRBs

another quality piece of entertainment and education from our fave space nerd...... Scott " I'm given you all she's got Captain" Manley.....

Has anyone seen my dirty laundry? Anyone? C'mon guys, where did you hide it? Outside?

Story Musgrave is one of my favorite astronauts. He's a modern-day Renaissance Man. He's done a little bit of everything it seems.

Scott, If there was ever Best episode ever on your channel. This would be the best episode! Particularly because of the closing comments. “Surfing” lol. Love it!

Riding back to Earth in the trunk, that would have been something! I was thinking of Story Musgrave while you were talking about that and then you mentioned him :-)

I think we need a *robot like TARS* for these tasks

5:01 There are some beautiful cloud vortices spilling off downwind of an island seen below the shuttle.

One of the payload bay door tube cutters is on display at the Atlantis exhibit where the procedure is briefly described. The spacelab hiccup isn't mentioned there, very interesting detail. Also, I'm convinced Story's efficient hairstyle was critical in allowing him to keep cool enough to make it through reentry standing up without any cooling.

5:00 wow great fluid dynamic of clouds

Starship v1 is stacked!!!

You want me to fill a hole on the heat shield with ice..... and I thought my manager comes out with some whacky ideas!!

Thanks for some little known Shuttle history.👍🚀👍

As an aircraft mechanic it is pretty funny to see things similar to my job but just done in space. Knowing how frustrating it can be on earth I can imagine the challenge in a suit in space!

Dang this was a great video. Nostalgia is in over time for me. I was as excited watching the space shuttle missions back then as I am watching SpaceX today.

you're such a great dude, Scott. with the most bad-ass combination of hobbies/passions ever!

Being on the underside of the Space Shuttle out in LEO looks absolutely terrifying to me, I mean EVAs already are panic inducing to watch when they are pretty close to the front but man I can't imagine what it's like to be on the underside. Then again I have a crippling fear of heights and can't even be on a ladder and look up so that might have something to do with it.

One thing not mentioned about Musgrave's case is that that flight deck isn't exactly spacious. The total standing room from floor to ceiling is maybe exactly 6'4" is you're standing directly under the dorsal windows on the roof. Anywhere else and you'd likely have to be stood bending over at high-G and during landing.

Best video of the YEAR SCOTT!!!! THIS IS MORE LIKE IT. CAN WE PLEASE HAVE MORE CONTINGENCY PLAN CONTENT IN THE FUTURE THANKS!!

I like that something good game from your laptop being stolen, it's cool that you switch up the intro more frequently now. Keep up the good work

So the unlucky astronaut gets to ride in the back of the Space Station Wagon. [Thumbs UP!] Also, Nice Sandia Labs tee-shirt! I'm a Los Alamos boy myself. Props for New Mexico.

On Christmas Day 1993, I was a last-minute extra on a flight out of Sarajevo to Zagreb on a Skylink IL-76. All the troop seats were taken up by soldiers heading home on leave, so I and the Army Command Sergeant-Major sat side-by-side on the floor of the plane with our backs against a plastic-wrapped pallet of kit-bags and flew out that way, hanging onto the cargo rails and admiring the decorative duct-tape patches over the bullet holes in the fuselage. I thought that was a pretty badass way to travel until I read about Story Musgrave's standing landing on the freaking space shuttle a few years later. I tip my kevlar brain-bucket to you, sir. (P.S. Love the gunstar on your shelf, Scott! Keep up the great work.)

No, letting Columbia reenter without a contingency EVA was crazy.

Oh wow, i caught one early for once, this is gonna be great i can tell!

I love your videos, Scott, thanks for being so entertaining while you educate.

I love this kind of info, and thanks for the link to Wayne's blog - I'm already hooked!

@5:00 Stephen Robinson was my Aerodynamics Professor at UC Davis 😍 what an amazing individual

Has anyone of you ever wondered how you would perform CPR in microgravity?

Great Story Musgrave tale of daring do. I had the opportunity to hear F. Story Musgrave at a small speaking event at his old alma mater, the University of Kentucky. He described the reentry event and showed some very interesting pictures he had taken of the plasma flowing over the orbiter during reentry, but he didn't make it sound nearly as heroic. Real heroes don't brag about their heroic exploits.

Very interesting segment, Scott. As always, thanks much for sharing. Steve

My first thought was "will it involve jumper cables?" Like Scott's vid on the Lunar Module.

Love the shuttle intro

No fear! It's amazing that this man basically rode a smoking hot hot dog cart back to the ground at 2 gs and was able to film the plasma streamers at the same time... mind blowing!

Every single video you have made and I've watched and that is a lot, has been interesting and educational, including this one. Thanks!

Would be very cool to have a VR game to play these kinds of missions.

"Get out and fix something!" - Stephen Cox

I had the pleasure of meeting Story. He attended my father’s high school (St. Marks in MA). He was speaking at their 25th reunion IIRC

Thank you very much for doing these videos.

Could you do a video about Water Plasma Propulsion? This seems interesting!

Columbia alternate ending

As always, awesome, informative and entertaining videos!

Nice presentation Scott. The story about Storey was great!

I’ve met Musgrave, definitely a unique guy.

Honestly this just makes me question why they removed the MMUs

This is one of the best, thanks Scott.

Learning something new every episode!!!

2:17 80% nitrogen 20% oxygen, of course :)

I've heard that Russian safety protocols for space walks were a lot more relaxed than US protocols. That might make an interesting video as well sir.

That was a great ending story. I enjoyed this video very much.

Wow, what a story 👍 Thanks for sharing 👍😀

What happened to the adhoc beatbox intro? Bring it back!

Still think the shuttle was great craft. Just needed liquid boosters instead of the solid rockets. To much vibrations and not safe. The boosters caused the challeger disaster. And the vibrations did not help with the foam coming loose on Columbia either. Wish we could have put two falcon 9 ,s to boost the shuttle up. Would have been epic.

Fantastic picture and sound quality... and great presentation as usual !

You always find the coolest stories and then you tell them so well :)

Story Musgrave is a steely-eyed missile-man! We need a Story Kerman in KSP!

2:16: 80% Oxygen or 80% Nitrogen?

Enjoyed this as usual Scott - every hairy moment of it. :p

Scott thank you so much for all the information.

Actually, the closed payload bay doors during reentry were critical not because of the air dynamic but structural integrity.

pfff almost as jankily designed as when I accidentally hit EVA during reentry and Bob Kermin has to frantically find the hatch again before he gets whipped off into oblivion

Nice thunderbird you got there, Scott! Gave me a chuckle when in noticed it halfway through :)

This was excellent