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NASA to Test Emergency Ability of New Spacecraft
coondoggie writes "NASA this will show off the first mock up of its Orion space capsule ahead of the capsule's first emergency astronaut escape system test. NASA said it will jettison the full-size structural model off a simulated launch pad at the US Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The launch escape vehicle sits atop the Orion capsule which is slated to be bolted on an Ares rocket. The escape vehicle is made up of three solid rocket motors as well as separation mechanisms and canards, and should offer the crew an escape capability in the event of an emergency during launch, according to NASA."
they'll have this whole thing ironed out for when that one guy has to go to Mars alone
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4205/app-c.html#section2 Ah, Saturn V... good times. Glad we've once again remembered it's a better idea to have the astronauts at the TOP of the stack rather than stuck to the SIDE of the stack.
The shuttle had no escape system.
But was it hubris, callousness, or bean counting? One from each column?
I'm somewhat embarrassed for NASA that they feel the need to press release this. It should be right up there with "NASA To Tighten All Screws On New Spacecraft". Of course you're going to do that.
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Somewhat offtopic, but I still don't think you should name any space project "Orion" unless it involves nuclear propulsion! It's... misleading.
Columbia originally had ejection seats for the Commander and Pilot for the first few flights. After crews exceeded two people, however, they replaced the seats with normal ones because it wouldn't be fair for only two of the crew to be able to eject while the rest perished.
Excuse me? During launch? They're supposed to get into an emergency capsule if something goes wrong during launch? Okay let's just ignore the whole idea of how fast they'd have to be and say they're really, really fast astronauts...how the hell is anyone going to get up out of their seat and into a capsule while they're pulling what like 7 Gs? I'd like to see someone even lift their arm up let alone get up.
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I skimmed the article looking for details on the ejection system itself, but nothing stood out.
I'm guessing this is an ejection system strictly for non-moving spacecraft, right? I mean I can't imagine the speeds those shuttles reach, and having a piece of it suddenly pop open and eject the crew. Debris would be flying for miles.
The shuttle should have been an evolution from Apollo. Make the orbiter a stretched, winged service module. Install a hatch in the command module heat shield (this was trialled for the Gemini wet lab). For launch and landing pack the crew into the CM using the rescue mode layout. During launch use a launch escape system. This will get you past the Challenger failure mode. During reentry the LES won't be there but you can use the reaction control system to achieve separation.
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Interestingly enough, early designs from North American Rockwell for the Shuttle included a crew escape system similar to what was going to be implemented in the North American Rockwell B-1A - which in itself was based on the F-111's Crew Escape Module, where the Crew Cabin / Cockpit blasts away from the rest of the vehicle using solid rocket motors. When the decision was made to use the area where the motors would have been for the extra crew seats and stowage, the whole escape system was scrapped. So much for hindsight.
--ScottKin
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No. Columbia's crew, the one which blew up during launch (or was that Challenger?) was probably alive when it hit the ocean. Whether they were conscious is not public info, but they were alive for a while, based on evidence that some of them tried to put on oxygen bottles, IIRC. They could have used an escape pod.
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Not that I've ever put on an oxygen mask, but I suspect I'd find it difficult if I was unconscious.
Do you have a reference for this? I'm a mild space geek and I've never heard it before.
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People who have investigated the ejector seats on Soviet military aircraft have commented that in some ways they were better than ones used on many NATO planes,and the armor on Soviet helicopters was truly impressive. After all, who do you think worked on the Soviet space and military aircraft programs? Hint: they weren't heroic Stakhanovite peasants. They were the sons and daughters of Party members, the people who were on top in the Soviet Union. And middle class people are notorious for caring an awful lot what happens to their children.
So I guess what I am saying is, there is no a priori reason for believing that the US and USSR attitude to space flight safety was significantly different, but, as Arthur Clarke once commented, the Russians preferred to go with solid, proven, perhaps over-engineered systems even if they were bigger and heavier.
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MSNBC comments.
All three sources say the same thing: 3 of the 4 air packs were activated which can only be done manually.
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I have to admit, I get a burst of geek pride when I see the shuttle actually building something in space, even if it's the deeply flawed space station. Back in the 90's, it burned me up to see the shuttle just dicking around in low earth orbit, not doing much but performing breeding experiments on fruit flies and floating around in the cabin. $500 million a launch and the damn thing isn't doing much on orbit when it's there! But building the space station, that's one of the original meat and potato missions planned for the shuttle. Neato! And to see that sucker in space, then see it come down through the atmosphere and land like a plane, oh so cool.
But you know what? None of that stuff was really necessary. There's no financial sense in retrieving satellites from orbit. The servicing of the Hubble was a very unique situation, it's almost always easier to treat each satellite as an expendable unit, send another one up when the last one wears out. The cost of launch is so high that "servicing" missions to install new components, refuel the thrusters, etc, all would end up significantly more expensive than sending up a brand new satellite.
As for building space stations, it really does make more sense to have a light man-rated vehicle that has 99.9999% reliability and a big dumb booster with 99% reliability sending up the big pieces. A shuttle really isn't needed for building anything in space -- things like the cargo bay arm should be a part of the station already. I believe one of the cut modules for the station would have been a super-arm, a multi-segmented robot that could walk it's way around the station, anchoring itself on special pads that would provide support and power. One or two of these arms could move anywhere on the station and help attach incoming modules every time they're boosted.
What we really need for a revolution in space, we need bigger boosters. Why did pepper used to be worth more per ounce than gold? Because getting to the far east was so damned expensive, caravan or ship, it was a dicy proposition. Why is pepper cheap as dirt now? Affordable transportation. Lower the cost of transport and whole new worlds of possibility are opened.
I remember reading about the Orion drive for the first time and smacking my head in awe. They weren't talking about building finnicky paperweight rockets, they were talking about constructing true spaceships in frickin' shipyards, launch weights that dwarfed naval destroyers! Ok, so maybe using open fusion explosions to propel the ship ain't politically correct but I've seen some very intriguing theoretical designs for clean nuclear propulsion, the kind of stuff with ehough ISP to get big, heavy things into earth orbit. Screw rockets and capsules, I want to see us launching stuff that looks like Battletech DropShips. Let's have some goddamn ambition, for chrissake.
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