Query- Launch On Need

Dear (Agent),


For more than two decades, NASA launch-imaging expert Ken Brown complained to upper management that debris would eventually bring down a shuttle. They didn’t listen. Brown could only watch as wayward pieces of foam and falling daggers of ice, threatened to wreck his birds.

Then on January 17th, 2003, Brown’s worst fear is realized while reviewing the previous day’s launch film: a small-suitcase-sized debris chunk smashed into Columbia’s wing during her ride to orbit.

Brown knows that if Columbia’s heat shield has been damaged, that in fourteen days the seven person international crew will perish in the inferno of reentry.

Although Brown contacts the necessary NASA officials about his findings, he is skeptical that sufficient action will be taken by management in time to save the crew. He decides to leak his findings to his friend John Stangley, a former CNN senior science correspondent.

NASA suddenly finds itself forced to respond to the international media’s demand for answers. Satellite imaging of Columbia is ordered, but the photos prove inconclusive. NASA then calls on two Columbia astronauts to perform an emergency wing inspection spacewalk, that reveals catastrophic wing damage.

NASA is challenged to solve the highest profile problem they’ve ever faced. The whole world watches and waits while NASA figures out how and if, it can safely bring the crew home.

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board was formed only hours after Columbia’s break-up February 1st, 2003. NASA engineers were asked by the Board if anything could have been done to save the crew. The Board’s final report published late 2003, contained a 22 page document created by NASA engineers, that outlined in detail how the crew might have been rescued.

Launch On Need, complete at 98,000 words, is a fictionalization of NASA’s rescue plan.

Thank you for your time considering my project for representation.

Sincerely,

Daniel Guiteras
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