Posted on 04/27/2012 3:28:25 PM PDT by Kaslin
>>”I wonder if anyone ever considered leaving a shuttle at the space station as a lifeboat?”
Good question.
Answer:
A Soyuz space capsule took the first crew to the International Space Station in November 2000. Since that time, at least one Soyuz has always been at the Station, generally to serve as a lifeboat should the crew have to return to Earth unexpectedly.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/soyuz/index.html
In theory, the station crew might also climb into one of the American spacecraft used to transport humans to and from the ISSeither the Discovery, the Atlantis, or the Endeavor. But the U.S. shuttles are used mainly to deliver equipment to and perform construction on the station, and they have only enough power to stay in orbit for about two weeks. The Soyuz, by contrast, is a lightweight, energy-efficient vehicle that can remain docked at the space station for up to six months. There’s always at least one Soyuz docked at any given timeand two when a new crew is rotating in.
There have been past attempts to create a dedicated exit pod. In the late 1990s, NASA started developing a “crew return vehicle” for emergency situations but later scrapped the project.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/03/cosmic_lifeboats.html
At Roll Out! The Enterprise crew was there at Trekkie request.
There was a time when I was pleased to hear the words, Space Shuttle. These days those two words remind me that with thirty years to formulate something better, our government did nothing. They gave away something like $15-20 trillion dollars in welfare during that time, but... “NO SPACE PROGRAM FOR YOU!”
I’m not saying we had to develop something with 100% government funds either. Some space focused contests giving out perhaps $100 billion over that period in time, would have sparked a new space boom.
$100 billion vs $15-50 trillion... Guess that was just too much to ask.
“Space Shuttle”, there! Now thrust upward and twist...
Ping.
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