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NASA's Theoretical Rescue Plan for Columbia

posted by janrinok on Friday February 28 2014, @07:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the Are-you-sure-this-will-work dept.

germanbird writes:

"ArsTechnica has published a story taking a look at NASA's theoretical rescue plan for the space shuttle Columbia. The ambitious yet plausible plan was included as part of the report prepared during the investigation after the shuttle was lost during re-entry. I appreciate the author's perspective and his analysis of things as a sys-admin at Boeing he was much closer to the situation than most of us were. I for one would have liked to see the men and women at NASA given the chance to try to pull this one off, but I'm not sure it would have been worth the risk to the rescue team or even possible given the compressed schedule."

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @06:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @06:55PM (#9704)

    I remember shortly after Challenger there were talks of designing a new shuttle that ejected the entire crew cabin, separating it from the rest of the vehicle. This design would allow for a full abort during ANY part of the flight and a safe return for the crew.

    How about just having separate vehicles for the crew and payload? The crew could go up in a light, reusable vehicle designed for maneuverability and self-propelled landing capability, which could turn around and fly home at any point. Less fuel, more flexibility.

    The payload could go up on a separate disposable rocket. The payload varies by mission, but with the Shuttle you had to take the same vehicle every time, meaning the missions had to be planned around maximizing the use of payload space. It was a poor choice that, once NASA committed to it, were stuck with flying infrequent, costly, wasteful missions.