12-20-2013, 01:12 PM
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Needville and Shiner, TX
Posts: 6,134
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Shreadvector
FYI, The Space Shuttle crew module was designed by the same folks who worked on the B1 and therfore it was originally going to be ejectable as a complete module. Weight became an issue, so they scrapped that idea. The extra weight would have included the retrorockets and huge parachutes for the module plus the guillotines to sever the wiring and tubing.
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Yeah, I always thought that would have been a good idea... sorta like the crew module on the FB-111 Aardvark... but the weight simply precluded the idea from happening.
We have good evidence that if it had, even a catastrophic failure like Challenger would likely have been survivable-- they know that at least part of the crew was probably conscious and likely all were alive when they hit the water...
Wouldn't have done much for Columbia though... a tumbling crew module after an orbiter breakup on reentry would burn up without a heat shield and stable entry...
Later! OL JR 
PS... sounds like the same kind of engineering that argued that Titanic would be it's own lifeboat thanks to the watertight compartment bulkheads... and we all know how that turned out...
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