User:Dr. Gregory A. Rogers

Dr. Gregory A. Rogers graduated from medical school in 1983 from the Oklahoma State University College as Osteopathic Medicine. He first served as a U.S. Army flight surgeon for the 3rd Infantry Division in Giebelstadt, West Germany, from 1984 to 1987. Switching to the U.S. Air Force in 1989, he served as the Chief of Aerospace Medicine at the Eastern Space and Missile Center/Patrick Air Force Base/Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. After supporting 31 space shuttle missions from Kennedy Space Center, he wrote a space shuttle novel named "IMPACT". The novel included damage to the thermal protection system (TPS), similar in size and location to Columbia in 2003. He projected the problem would require a spacewalk and the use of a TPS repair kit.

These elements were suggested to NASA by the investigation committee after the loss of Columbia and her crew.Columbia did not carry the Canadarm, or Remote Manipulator System, which would normally be used for camera inspection or transporting a spacewalking astronaut to the wing. Therefore an unusual emergency extra-vehicular activity (EVA) would have been required. While there was no astronaut EVA training for maneuvering to the wing, astronauts are always prepared for a similarly difficult emergency EVA to close the external tank umbilical doors located on the orbiter underside, which is necessary for reentry. Similar methods could have reached the shuttle left wing for inspection or repair. For the repair, the CAIB determined the astronauts would have to use tools and small pieces of titanium, or other metal, scavenged from the crew cabin. These metals would help protect the wing structure and would be held in place during re-entry by a water-filled bag that had turned into ice in the cold of space. The ice and metal would help restore wing leading edge geometry, preventing a turbulent airflow over the wing and therefore keeping heating and burn-through levels low enough for the crew to survive re-entry and bail out before landing.