Trauma Support for Orbiting Crew

Psychologists have been called in to help the three-man crew of the International Space Station cope with their stress and grief in the wake of the Columbia disaster, as they remain lost in space with little prospect of rescue.

The three astronauts - Americans Donald Pettit and Kenneth Bowersox and Russian Nikolai Budarin - have been marooned since the space shuttle crashed as it prepared to land at the Kennedy Space Centre three weeks ago, killing all seven crew members.

Although the trio have enough supplies to keep them alive for several months, and have a Soyuz capsule to use as an emergency escape vehicle, the uncertainty they are experiencing and the loss of their comrades has led concerned ground control staff to call in trauma counsellors.

'One thing we talked about is standard grief responses and the types of emotion you might feel,' Bowersox said last week. It is now planned to have regular sessions with psychologists based in the station's ground control room, he added.

In last week's interview, all the astronauts revealed that their emotions over the loss of their friends on Columbia had been amplified in orbit because of their sense of solitude. The crew had been scheduled to return to Earth aboard the space shuttle Atlantis next month, but all flights are on indefinite hold while investigators try to determine the cause of Columbia's break-up.

Bowersox said he and his crew were resigned to having to stay in orbit as long as necessary, even up to a year. He also revealed that, if the crew were eventually forced to return in its Soyuz capsule, they would need emergency training sessions with specialists on the ground 'to make sure our skills are beefed up a little more than they are now'.

News of the crew's psychological problems come as controversy mounts over fresh claims that Nasa had ignored warnings about Columbia's safety. One email from a senior engineer described the status of the craft as 'survivable, but marginal', in the days before its destruction.

Robert Daugherty of Nasa's Langley research facility in Hampton, Virginia, wrote two days before Columbia's break-up that its condition had been compromised after it had been struck by debris during lift-off. In particular, he voiced concern that damage to thermal tiles near the wheel compartment seal could have opened a hole there.

The board investigating the accident now accepts that Columbia suffered a breach in its left wing, based on analysis of rising temperatures inside the wing's wheel compartment.