Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: MANY QUESTIONS (Shuttle cabin survival)
Message-ID: <1991Mar20.172607.3325@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1991 17:26:07 GMT
References: <0566B3896080344E@splava.cc.plattsburgh.edu> <1991Mar13.045435.3817@zoo.toronto.edu> <923@igor.Rational.COM>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <923@igor.Rational.COM> wab@yoda.Rational.COM (Bill Baker) writes:
>... Why not include
>some rudimentary survival system that might save the cabin after a
>high to medium altitude catastrophic failure?  It might be nothing
>more than a hellacious parachute built into the rear wall of the
>cabin...

The problem with this is that it's useful only if the separation of the
cabin is relatively "clean".  The Challenger cabin, in the tracking photos,
had all sorts of cabling and other junk trailing behind it.  Any of that
could easily have entangled a parachute.

If you start trying to ensure clean separation, you get into a lot more
complexity, including a lot of pyrotechnics that are dangerous to crew
and maintenance workers even if not used.  The weight starts to add up
quickly, too.  It's not an accident that ESA rejected an escape-capsule
design for Hermes.
-- 
"[Some people] positively *wish* to     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
believe ill of the modern world."-R.Peto|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry