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."

Comments

Hopefully

[Corpuscavernosa]

they'll have this whole thing ironed out for when that one guy has to go to Mars alone

It's 1963 all over again!

[BadEvilYoda]

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.

Re:It's 1963 all over again!

[SacredByte]

The thing you overlook in declaring the shuttle "safer" than previous launch/re-entry vehicles is this:

When we built the previous generations of spacecraft we didn't know WTF we were doing -- Especially with the earliest attempts (made by the US) after the launch of Sputnik; We were trying to get something up fast, not something up safely.

The shuttle has been a compromise since its very inception. It was designed to be able to intercept/capture (as well as launch) satalites. Because of this, it doesn't really go up high enough to be [extremely] useful. Additionally, when we look at the first major shuttle disaster (challenger?), it was due to thermal failure of critical parts (Read: not designed to launch when it was cold out), which lead to nice fireworks.

But then again, my grandfather worked on [pieces of] most of the early space programs (he worked for G.E.), so my opinion is clearly biased...

Re:It's 1963 all over again!

[Rakishi]

BS. Using misleading statistics to prove a point does not prove a point. The Soyuz has a lower fatality rate than the Shuttle and that's going back to the 60s. It has a flawless fatality record for longer than the shuttle has even existed. Unlike the shuttle failures for it (well launch.re-entry ones) are far from fatal and even then it has a lower failure rate if you don't count the pre-shuttle era I think.

Now consider that the Soyuz is likely flown/managed by people whose attention to safety would give NASA managers heart attacks and just how much of a fuck up the shuttle is become evident.

Re:It's 1963 all over again!

[johno.ie]

The Soyuz rocket has been launched over 1700 times, according to this wikipedia page. I don't think that's completely accurate, I think that's counting the R-7 and all its derivatives. About half of that number would be my guess for the current Soyuz design.

There have been a few variations of the Soyuz manned spacecraft as technology has improved. The current version can support a 3 person crew for 30 days. When docked to a space station it can survive for 6 months in space and safely re-enter with a crew. The 98th manned Soyuz was launched in October last year. There have been 2 flights where the crew died, the very first flight when 1 cosmonaut died, and a flight in 1971 when 3 cosmonauts died. AFAIK there hasn't been a fatality on a Soyuz mission in almost 37 years.

Not counting Enterprise, because it never went to space, the shuttles have flown 121 times. There have been 2 fatal flights with 7 people killed each time. Counting Apollo 1 NASA have lost 17 astronauts in it's history but still haven't had anyone killed in space.

johno

Project Orion?

[arodland]

Somewhat offtopic, but I still don't think you should name any space project "Orion" unless it involves nuclear propulsion! It's... misleading.

Re:The real story...

[Saberwind]

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.

One man, one way mssion to mars

[cizoozic]

He won't be alone they are sending along some ducks for company. For god's sake I hope one of them is that Aflac duck - Either that or the guy is Gilbert Gottfried and they disable any proposed escape mechanisms.

Re:do what now?

[Bobb9000]

The summary doesn't describe the system itself very well - if that was how it worked I'd agree it'd be idiotic. The "vehicle" the summary mentions is actually just a separate rocket engine attached to the nose of the capsule. If something goes wrong, the astronauts don't have to go anywhere; the bolts holding the capsule onto the main Ares launch vehicle blow, and the escape rocket fires, lifting the entire Orion capsule off the Ares rocket and high enough into the air to get clear of the launch pad and any unpleasant explosions. Then the escape rocket separates from the capsule, while the capsule is hopefully high enough to land softly by parachute. For more info (and pictures), see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_escape_system and here: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/orionlas.htm.

Re:The real story...

[MichaelSmith]

The shuttle had no escape system.

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.

Re:The real story...

[ScottKin]

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

Re:do what now?

[darkmeridian]

The astronauts are seated in the capsule during launch. The emergency system is basically a rocket on top of the capsule. If there is an emergency, the rocket fires and pulls the capsule away from the stack.

Re:do what now?

[codepunk]

You went to college didn't you? It shows!

It is the same sort of escape system attached to the top of the
capsule as the soyuz spacecraft has. If you do some searching it
is a tried and proved emergency escape system. Look for Soyuz T-10,
a fire on the pad occurred during launch causing a explosion that
destroyed the pad. The cosmonauts where launched to safely by their
emergency escape rockets.

Soviet attitude to safety

[Kupfernigk]

It may come as a surprise, but the attitude to things like crew safety in the old USSR was actually pretty good. In WW2 Stalin executed his head of the Air Force for attacking the safety of Soviet aircraft, but Stalin was a monster and his successors weren't. Spaceflight was post-Stalin, you know. Kruschev, whatever his faults, was probably no worse as a human being than Kennedy.

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.