I don’t think they teach you this at Space Camp.
Let’s say you’re an astronaut and things aren’t going your way. You and 7 others on the space shuttle are in imminent danger and you gotta get out of there. (… and by “there,” I mean still within the Earth’s atmosphere.) How would you do it?
Believe it or not there are two necessarily outrageous ways for astronauts to ditch their craft and head back to solid ground.
The first case happens if something goes awry while you’re still on the launch pad. How would you get from inside the shuttle to the ground, far enough away so that you don’t get blown into bite-sized chunks by the millions of pounds of rocket fuel surrounding you? Go ahead. Take 30 seconds and guess. Unless you already know, you’re not going to figure out how NASA does it.
- First, you need to unhook yourself from the 80+ pounds of stuff that’s in your spacesuit and head for the exit hatch.
- Next, run out onto the platform you walked into the shuttle on (You can see it in the picture above)
- There’s an elevator you took to bring you to the level you’re at. Walk behind it.
- You’ll see a number of large wicker baskets with their rims at floor level. These baskets are attached to a steel cable which runs from the platform you’re on (189 feet in the air) diagonally to the ground. It isn’t the world’s biggest zip line (that’s in Sun City, South Africa), but it might be the most expensive.
- Get into one of those baskets. Oh, and make sure you get in backwards.
- Pull the release cord and travel really fast into a pre-assembled pile of sandbags to cushion your fall.
- The basket should actually fly through a carefully placed opening in the sandbags, leaving you next to a very armored bunker.
- Get inside and close the door so you don’t get hit by flaming pieces of space shuttle.
- Now you have two options. You can wait in the bunker, or…
- …In case of emergencies, NASA keeps four M113 Armored Personnel Carriers from the 1960s at the back entrance of the bunker. They are purposely fully-fueled with their engines running and keys in the ignition so that fleeing astronauts can just hop in and get out of there if they need to. They look like this:
- There are no drivers waiting for you in those vehicles. Grab the controls and put the pedal to the floor…if you know how.
NASA has this whole procedure set up and ready to go with every space shuttle launch. There’s actually some video of this procedure being executed in a training exercise here.
There’s another scenario that may require a bailout. If for whatever reason you’re in the shuttle and can’t land, you and your crew still have an escape. Are there ejection seats? Maybe a secure escape pod like in Air Force One (the movie)? Nah. That’s too simple.
Luckily, on board with you is ICES, or the Inflight Crew Escape System. Fancy name, not so fancy otherwise. Basically, it’s a system that coordinates blowing out an exit panel so you can leave through it. And by “leave,” I mean hooking yourself up to an 8.75 foot long pole that sticks out the side of the shuttle, then letting go of it and falling 10,000 feet to safety at 230 miles an hour.
The pole actually serves a relatively important purpose. When you’re flying as fast as you are up there, it’s critical that when you jump out that you head in the right direction. The reason astronauts are strapped to the pole as they fall down it is to make sure that fall in that right direction.
As all this is going on, the shuttle is actually flying itself to make sure the craft stays level for the 90 seconds it takes for everyone to bail. I’m summarizing the procedure to a ridiculous extent — you can read the full official procedure from NASA (it’s long and detailed = boring) right here.
Bonus!
This post is tagged emergencies, nasa, space shuttle