From the Archive: Long Nights

Those were a tough couple of months. I say months - it felt more like a couple years. And just a lot of long nights. You can ask my husband, he’s getting ready for bed and I’m still at my desk, writing emails…

We were nervous, all of us were. It was like a big anvil cloud hanging over everyone. Here was, really, the flagship vehicle of the program, and the whole idea that this, Ares II, even this engine, was the backbone of everything. And we felt like, was all of it at stake here? There was talk at headquarters about decrewing station if we couldn’t get Orion flying again, and all of it hinged on the flight five investigation.

Well, ultimately, I think the outcome was the best it could have been. I mean, you never want a situation like this to begin with, but what we saw was that our failure mode, really, was isolated to Ares II, and we all breathed such a sigh of relief. And that meant we could get Orion back in the air, we could get back to doing rotations. And we still lost some sleep getting the feed issue resolved, but I think it really validated the whole concept of this architecture. That decision to separate your crew, your astronauts, from your cargo - and that goes back to Augustine, goes back to the ESAS people. It was a tough situation, but I think it was a win, in the big picture, for a choice made all the way back at the beginning.

-Valerie Alvarado, MSFC