Although the shuttle program has deployed several satellites with PAM-D motors, this was not one of them. The Delta II rocket also uses PAM-D as a 3rd stage engine, which in this case, launched a GPS satellite back in 1993.
Mmf. If I ever get the chance to go into orbit, I think I'll fly Soyuz.
I personally don't like the taste of my knees, but as long as it gets you there I probably can't argue.
Soyuz has its landing parachute system to fall back on in the event that a stage fails post-escape tower jettison. But you're right - it's definitely a safer configuration that shuttle for manned launches.
The quick answer is no.
The earliest that the shuttle can turn back toward land & make it back safely is at about 6 minutes after liftoff - and that's with the engines still running. At Mach 2, 46,000 ft and headed away from land, by the time you could get turned back around (structural limits keep you from doing this very quickly - hence the breakup) you would lack sufficient altitude and airspeed to make it back to land. Crew bailout options were not available until post-Challenger so jumping out over the ocean was not practical. The closest you could come would be ditching in the ocean - attempt a belly landing on the water. Likely, the vehicle would have flipped end over end, broke apart and killed the crew anyway.
Even if the ground (mission control) had realized that the breakup was about to happen, the shuttle has no capability to jettison the SRBs and/or ET early. Once you light those things, you're going to go somewhere - and you're going to head in somewhere's direction for just over 2 minutes until the SRBs burn out.
And to all the turkeys arguing over whether it exploded or not:
The fireball - or whatever you want to call it - occurred subsequent to the breakup of the vehicle. While the ignition source could have been 1 of many things (3 still very hot main engines dragged through a plume of LH2/LO2 perhaps?), it certainly occurred AFTER the failure event.
It did not explode.
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Although the shuttle program has deployed several satellites with PAM-D motors, this was not one of them. The Delta II rocket also uses PAM-D as a 3rd stage engine, which in this case, launched a GPS satellite back in 1993.
I personally don't like the taste of my knees, but as long as it gets you there I probably can't argue.
Soyuz has its landing parachute system to fall back on in the event that a stage fails post-escape tower jettison. But you're right - it's definitely a safer configuration that shuttle for manned launches.
The quick answer is no. The earliest that the shuttle can turn back toward land & make it back safely is at about 6 minutes after liftoff - and that's with the engines still running. At Mach 2, 46,000 ft and headed away from land, by the time you could get turned back around (structural limits keep you from doing this very quickly - hence the breakup) you would lack sufficient altitude and airspeed to make it back to land. Crew bailout options were not available until post-Challenger so jumping out over the ocean was not practical. The closest you could come would be ditching in the ocean - attempt a belly landing on the water. Likely, the vehicle would have flipped end over end, broke apart and killed the crew anyway. Even if the ground (mission control) had realized that the breakup was about to happen, the shuttle has no capability to jettison the SRBs and/or ET early. Once you light those things, you're going to go somewhere - and you're going to head in somewhere's direction for just over 2 minutes until the SRBs burn out. And to all the turkeys arguing over whether it exploded or not: The fireball - or whatever you want to call it - occurred subsequent to the breakup of the vehicle. While the ignition source could have been 1 of many things (3 still very hot main engines dragged through a plume of LH2/LO2 perhaps?), it certainly occurred AFTER the failure event. It did not explode.
Dress...man. I'm I the only one who sees the 'irony'? Shouldn't it be Dresswoman?