ABC Radio (Australia) September 9, 2004
Space capsule crashes in desert
Reporter: John Shovelan
TONY EASTLEY: A space capsule returning to earth with a payload of solar particles has crashed into the desert in Utah after its parachutes failed to open.
Helicopters, fitted with special poles, were to have snatched the capsule before it hit the ground. NASA's plan for the $340 million Genesis mission was to have the capsule slicing through the atmosphere just like a frisbee - instead it tumbled uncontrollably.
From Washington John Shovelan reports.
JOHN SHOVELAN: At the landing site, the morning began with the two stunt pilots, whose resumes included work on action movies like Batman and Hulk, taking off as the capsule with its few grains of solar irons began its last decent.
The stunt pilots were hired after conventional helicopter pilots declined to attempt the mid-air retrieval. But the plan for the helicopters to hook the capsule as it fell at about two metres per second and gently place it on the desert sands below went awry.
PILOT: It looks like we have a no shoot, sir. Vector two-zero-zero. eight miles, look for an impact.
JOHN SHOVELAN: After three years in orbit under conditions of fierce heat and intense cold the parachute failed to open.
NASA scientist Andrew Dantzler said the samples though, may have survived.
ANDREW DANTZLER: The site samples have been returned to earth. But we don't know the conditions of the collectors that hold the science just yet. And we'll be learning that over the hours and days and weeks to come.
JOHN SHOVELAN: As novel as it seems, using stunt pilots to try and snare a capsule in mid air according to John Pike of Global Security.org was a sensible way of trying to bring the capsule and it's pay load to earth.
JOHN PIKE: The notion that you would be recovering a capsule drifting down on a parachute by an airplane, the way we did it back in the old days, or these helicopters, I think was an eminently sensible approach.
JOHN SHOVELAN: But a former NASA engineer Don Nelson says the disappointing result is the consequence of cost cutting at NASA.
DON NELSON: Well, one of the problems with this particular space craft is that it was designed and developed during the former administrator's reign, Dan Golden. And he had a faster, better, cheaper way of doing things. But what that really means is they were cutting a lot of corners.
JOHN SHOVELAN: While some scientists are hopeful the samples may have survived, others feared the fragile disks that held the atoms would shatter even if the capsule hit the ground with a parachute.
John Shovelan, Washington.
© Copyright 2004, ABC
