During NASA's Space Shuttle program, highly-trained NASA astronauts were supplemented by payload specialists, who were sent up to conduct experiments in microgravity. Their priority was the task they were assigned to do, and their space training was not as long nor as rigorous as that of career astronauts. In 1985, this presented a problem.
Physicist Taylor G. Wang was a payload specialist on the Challenger shuttle, mission STS-51-B. He designed the Drop Dynamics Module experiment, meant to study the physics of liquid drops in microgravity. Wang had been preparing for this experiment for years. But on the shuttle, the module did not activate. It was a serious setback, but Wang thought he could repair the module. He asked NASA for more time in orbit to fix the experiment. They said no. Growing despondent, Wang told Mission Control,
"Hey, if you guys don't give me a chance to repair my instrument, I'm not going back,"
That was quite a statement, and one situation NASA had never encountered before. What do you do? The mission commander and Ground Control spent hours talking to Wang, but to learn how the situation was resolved, you'll need to read the whole story at Ars Technica. You'll also learn about the steps NASA took in case that sort of situation were to come up again, which was rarely talked about at the space agency. -via Nag on the Lake
(Image credit: NASA)
