"Crazy fool! Why do you always jump? One of these days, you're gonna land on somethin' as stubborn as you are! And I don't do bits and pieces!" - Sergeant Johnson
Years ago I read a humorous sci-fi book that was basically a dystopian military bureaucracy on a space station. Imagine Catch-22 meets Office Space in space. It ended in the most epic way possible: with the hero using a one-man escape bubble to jump back down to earth, where he landed in Texas and walked into the nearest bar. Edit: I found it: Orbital Decay, by Allen Steele. At the time it was just a cool one-off, but I just found it it was the first of a series and he went on to become a best-selling author so I guess I've got some more reading to do.
It's been a long time since I read any Allen Steele but I remember him as being pretty above-average when it came to the realism side of things, with clear research and understanding of how space technology actually worked. Plot-wise I don't remember a thing, or even which book I read!
Some of the rescue pod systems were not designed to get you back to Earth, but just to keep you alive until a rescue can come get you. My favorite was the Space Shuttle's "Personal Rescue Enclosure", which was a beach ball-looking spherical thing that you curled up inside and could keep you alive in space for about an hour, just long enough for guys in space suits to toss you across from your stricken vessel to another shuttle orbiter. It was about as bare bones as you can get, low mass, low bulk, designed in the days before the LES suits when there were not enough space suits for a full crew of 7.
I read about those way back when. It made me wonder why we don't simply use inflatable structures for everything. Imagine a great big inflatable space station that could be carried into orbit by a single heavy lift launch vehicle. Ok, the solar panels and equipment would still be big and heavy, but it seems that would save some weight and bulk. (I'm sure there's a reason.) The human rescue pod seemed so simple, though it did depend on always having a vehicle for rescue missions ready to go at a moment's notice.
The Columbia disaster shows why a single system, no matter how redundant it appears, is *not* "Its own backup option". In spite of the assurances of program management and reliability engineering teams.
Sure, but we'll never have 100% safe space craft for the same two reasons we'll never have 100% safe cars or cell phones that last more than 2 years - cost and the randomness of existence. Compromises must ultimately be made
Fun fact: There were proposals for "Evolved Shuttle" involving liquid fuel boosters and an ejectable crew deck dating even before Challenger, but NASA couldn't afford the development cost of them. #FundNASA
The alternative to the single escape system is staying in the station. The chance of something happening both to the station and to the escape system at once is very low (and most likely would result in no astronauts left to save). Anything happening to the escape system after the escape is initiated, will be dealt with by means of the redundancy built into the "lifeboat" itself. After all, you can't board more than one ship at a time
@@limiv5272 My cell phone is still going strong after 4 years, but I get your point. NASA currently has required the Commercial Crew vehicles to have a "Loss of Crew probability" of 1 in 270 (i.e. 99.623% safe)
Nothing succeeds like success. You can return a lone stranded Kerbal from well within the orbit of Moho (very close to the Kerbol, the sun) to a fairly safe Kerbin orbit, where she can be rescued by economically feasible means, with something like that! The down-side is that it takes virtually the largest delta-V possible in the game to get the ion-drive-equipped lawn-chair rescue package payload to an orbital rendezvous that close to the sun. Or, about 30,000 m/s. Once she's aboard, the rest is fairly straight-forward orbit-wrangling. To be clear, it's an ion-thruster propelled lawn chair in my version. The mission is called "Big Intrasolar Technically Challenging Headache Prototype Long-range Electrically Accelerated Search/rescue Equipment". So-far it is by-far the hardest rescue-mission in this version of KSP. It's colloquially referred to by the technicians who operate the mission as "B*TCHPLEASE". The mission-patch is completely awesome, and the rescued Kerbal, Clauby, will get to wear it with pride. She will also out-rank even Valentina and Jeb when she gets home.
Hi Scott. Thanks for this video about the X-38. I worked on this vehicle at Houston, focusing on the High-Voltage and Low-Voltage DC bus distribution boxes. I wish I had better videos to send you of testing, but alas, I don't.
Way back when I worked for McDonnell Douglas (MDAC) at KSC I was part of a team that was supposed to evaluate systems for what was internally referred to as the GTFO (Get The F... Out) for Space Station. It never materialized. The problem with all these ideas is the additional cost to develop, build and maintain. The thinking always came back to using the transfer ship as the rescue ship because you already have it. Shuttle was a problem but even back in 1988 there was talk about partnering with the Russians for a long duration escape ship.
The use of a cargo ship as a rescue ship is another option - the Dragon was quite capable of that. It does involve a reduction in payload capacity however.
@@allangibson2408 ... would it? Ôo Just a silly late-night thought and with a beer already gone down the drain: you'd need a short-term life support system and a few high-G seats for the passengers. If you managed to make portable modules of them you could stuff them into the Dragon (after ripping out the cargo if needed), attach them to a few built-in mounting points, and you're almost good to go. Question is how long this would take, but it might be an option.
@@44WarmocK77 The Dragon has a heat shield so that takes care of the first and biggest problem. You need a minimum of two hours life support for a crash re-entry - the Station EVA suits have 12 hours. The most likely case of need would be a collision that takes out the station by directly impacting the crew transport capsule and damaging the docking port as a result.
0:29 IIRC, police have to fill out incident reports every time they fire their service pistols. Maybe the imperial laser turret operator people have to do the same if they fire while the ship isn’t engaged in a battle, and their commander just didn’t want to do the paperwork?
Scott, “Home safely in any emergency” is quite a bold statement! Yes the spacecraft used today for ‘Orbital’ missions do indeed have redundant systems. But should anything happen to to the spacecraft itself, such as broken hatch hinge, puncture to the skin of the craft or damage to a window seal or cracked glass panel, the integrity of the airtight worthiness would be in jeopardy! I believe the X-38 was an outstanding idea and something similar should still be pursued. Even if the ISS gets retired, we are still going to be putting people in space and they should have some kind of lifeboat pre-staged in orbit. Just my two cents…
Especially since humans are (hopefully) returning to the Moon in the near future. Some sort of escape craft on the Lunar Gateway would be needed since it would take days for a rescue mission to get there assuming that a vehicle is ready to go and there are no delays.
The appleTV series "Foundation" takes the escape-pod trope to the whole new level where every only-sarcophagus-sized escape pod is also a complete cryogenic space craft that easily reaches 20% of the speed of light (without warp/teleport), and that can travel for 100 years between more distant stars without running out of fuel/power, and that can abort and restart cryosleep, and that functions as 1-time-atmopspheric-entrance-vessel. As narrative device, it is very close do the Tardis or the time machine of Bill&ted, if only in size, and that it is not a time machine.
You forgot the fact that it somehow still needs parachutes for reentry (instead of just propulsive landing), and it somehow sinks to the bottom of the ocean, whereas you are supposed to whip out a lifeboat from a lifeboat aka a kayak even though the original escape pod was a perfectly capable interplanetary spacecraft with a life support system… (I'm really miffed at how the tech doesn't make sense in that show)
@@BrotherCheng Hey, give him a break he was literally one of the first primates to even think of these things! But yeah, some of the tech is um… a little off, shall we say :)) Still enjoyable though. Doesn’t distract that much from the plot. I think the politics and the magical math voodoo are more annoying tbh.
The X-38 was never the ACRV. They were two different vehicles and project offices. The ACRV preceded X-38, originally being called the Crew Emergency Return Vehicle. The name was changed because NASA didn't like the word Emergency in the name and what it implied. The ACRV had proposals from Rockwell and Lockheed for entry vehicles, Rockwell's being a scaled up Apollo of course. I worked as an engineer in both projects. I was responsible for the three paintings of the ACRV that you used in the video when talking about SCRAM. The vehicles in the paintings are clearly marked ACRV. The X-38 was always referred to as the X-38, never as the ACRV. At one point during ACRV, our office had discussions with the Russians about the US obtaining Soyuz capsules to fill the role of a return vehicle until we got the ACRV operational.
@@scottmanley I started pretty early in the ACRV project office and it was a competition between Rockwell and Lockheed who both had capsule designs. When it folded, I went back to the engineering directorate. The X-38 started shortly after that and I worked on various parts of the project, modeling, wind tunnel, parachutes. I can honestly say I never heard anyone at any level refer to it as the ACRV or CRV or X-CRV, always as the X-38. That doesn't mean it wasn't referred to as the later two in some literature, but I doubt ACRV. It just never crossed my path. Interestingly, Orion, NASA's next manned vehicle is sometimes referred to as Apollo on steroids. Something we were working on 30 years ago.
Hi David, did you happen to know an artist at JSC named Pete Colangelo? I believe he was the one who did the paintings of the SCRAM recovery ops with the USCG Dolphin as well as the one at 7:07 in the video.
There are a lot of jobs that involve handling explosives. There aren't very many that involve being handled by explosives. But we're talking about astronauts here. The proposed return methods aren't *that* much more dangerous than their regular jobs.
The idea of using a paraglider wing to land is quite interesting. Normally we don't like wings on spacecraft, let alone rockets, because they introduce additional drag and weight which is a big no-no at the moment of launch and cruise. However, paraglider wings are very light (because they're made of fabric) and are stowed until use, so they might be a workable solution to land a rocket. Would be pretty cool to see a giant reusable suborbital rocket land on a giant parawing.
Rocket lab is working on this idea, they are currently using a parawing for a soft sea landing and want to use that same system to catch their rocket from the air using a helicopter.
Wings on orbital lifters aren't as bad as SpaceX's PR makes them seem like. A aluminium construction/winged flyback Heavy-lift Vehicle from NASA's SPS study had a similar payload to Starship, yet only 4000t mass when fully fueled - less than simply the fuel mass of Starship, and even with some mass reserve!
The Rogallo wing used in hang gliders was originally developed as an inflatable wing to bring down the Gemini capsule on land. I'm not 100% clear on what the landing gear was supposed to be--the test vehicle had big fixed wheels but obviously that wasn't realistic.
Why do you have to mention another infuriating fact about politicians cancelling nearly complete awesome stuff?! Have mercy on us. We're not made of stone!
The important thing for funding wasn't the fact that it was 65% complete, but the fact that it still was 35% incomplete. On the ISS, they were looking for every saving they could find, no matter the reduction of its capabilities.
Hi Scott! Big fan of yours! Could you talk about material wear down in space-stuff? There's much overoptimistic talk about o-neill cylinders, generation ships, giant space stations and such, but after looking at the back of my fridge, I'm thinking there's no way we can live in such a thing and expect for it to work continously with people inside for decades or centuries. Maybe you've heard about wear-and-tear and maintenance on the MIR, ISS,etc? Thank you very much, even if you don't answer to this question!
I've seen the X-38 on display at the Evergreen Air and Space Museum! I Initially thought it was a pretty detailed mock-up, but looking closer at it, I realized that it was an actual vehicle! So cool!
I've always wondered why they don't just make the battle stations BE the escape pods. If you're about to explode you don't want to have to run for a pod.
In all fairness to the Sci-Fi genre and their escape pods, humanity is nowhere near the level of orbital construction (we have zero orbital construction, only orbital assembly) that would necessitate the need for escape pods. The fact that we send pods up means by default, we have pods available to bring people down, so there's no need to engineer anything else as it's purely an expense that essentially gains you nothing in return. When we get to the point where we're building oil tanker/cargo ship sized ships in space and we're not launching crew modules every time there's a shift change, the whole 'life boat' system will have already been revisited and figured out, and put into place so people can stay in orbit, work, and come back when the new crew arrives in what surely will be something much bigger than a soyuz or dragon. Perhaps Starship delivering 100 people at a time for a one month rotation. I highly doubt with an orbital platform on fire and breaking apart in a worst case scenario, we'd not have escape pods not scattered about so that whatever ship that is the usual crew ferry isn't sitting there waiting for every last person to board while everything burns and deorbits around it.
Hazegrayart, a channel that does animations of various spacecraft and space launch systems (both historic ones as well as speculative, experimental vehicles that never flew) has a video of the lunar escape system. It's pretty nutty, like two lawn chairs on a rocket.
I worked on the Space Station Centrifuge Facility, before it was cancelled. Very interesting concept. Extremely low vibration, 1.8 meter diameter, with six animal cages, with any two opposite side cages being able to be removed while the other four keep spinning
I like how with MOOSE they go "deorbit yourself first, THEN build your reentry vehicle." So if absolutely anything goes wrong in inflating a giant plastic bag with foam while you're inside, you have no abort option to get back to orbit.
Years dont matter. Mission count does more so. How many missions involved humans onboard? This is a similar issue with aircraft parts failing being reported via dates, rather than time being *used.* If something fails 1/10 missions, for example, but only flies every 5 years... then a 60 year thing would only have 1.2~ fatal failiures on record.
@@Trek001 Well, there have been some fights aboard Soyuzes, plus that doesn't have anything to do with the design. As for the problems - a 2/135 loss of vehicle probability is pretty good by rocket standards. And another fun fact: There were proposals for "Evolved Shuttle" involving liquid fuel boosters and an ejectable crew deck dating even before Challenger, but NASA couldn't afford the development cost of them. #FundNASA
I don't think a single one of us would have said a word about the 240p video.. this is probably one of the few channels that actually goes out of their way to find actual footage vs stock clip over and over with some lame robot voice lol
US government: how much will escape system cost? NASA: IDK few hundred million US government: How much to train new astronauts? NASA: Few million US government: we have all the info we need
In KSP I made up and tested a tiny escape pod concept: Docking port, probe core, battery, inflatable airlock, and 4x drogue chutes. Your ship still needs to be healthy enough to start the deorbit, but that tiny list of parts will safely splashdown a Kerbal from at least up to 2km/s reentry. The docking port is the heat shield, and the docking port/probe core/battery stack make it the fat and heavy end of the pod so it reenters that way nicely. I very loosely based it around the inflatable "rescue-ball" concept that's featured in the "Space Shuttle Operator's Manual".
I don't remember if ESA had anything invested in the X38 but they were pretty pissed on its cancellation. Seems to me if they really wanted to use that for their access to space, they probably could have added some funds to get NASA to finish. They were so close to a working model. The X 33, 34, and 37 also got chopped about the same time.
MOOSE, or something very much like it, appeared in a novel I read years ago called Orbital Decay. In the story it was treated by the characters as almost a joke because it was clearly insane and probably suicidally dangerous and indeed had never ever been used. I had no idea when I read it that 30 odd years ago that something like it had seriously been considered at one time.
I've read that book. Orbital Decay by Allen Steele. IIRC one of the characters uses the MOOSE and does indeed require a stiff drink after surviving the landing.
There was also a non-reusable tactic, a temporary HS paint lube, it wouldn't save the outer structure, but the cargo/humans in. The X-15a used this to assume lasting long horizontal, but was effective as re-enter burn. ANY craft can. The original shuttle just lact a surrounding heat shield paint, on the color & decal area, for imbalance dive, could've saved many lives.😔
Scott!! You forgot the PRE! (Personal Rescue Enclosure) Truly one of the weirdest ideas NASA has imagined. Only for crew transfer, but worth mentioning.
The rogallo wing, which went on to become the modern hang glider, was developed by Francis Rogallo and NASA as an entry control method during the Apollo era (I think)... also worth a read!
During the mid 60s this was projected for use on an Air Force design for a Gemini capsule that would land on skids. It would have even better cross-range capability than a paraglider, which is what is shown in this episode. Well, as a hang glider it has benefited a lot more people in its own way. Idk if Rogallo invented this for use in Gemini, or if the Air Force knew of his design and adopted it.
The ram air parachute has rather displaced the Rogallo wing - and skilled pilots can glide them for hundreds of miles (and that’s from a ground launch).
Thank you for this information. Been interested in this subject forever.i used to picture everyone having " mini shuttles " but just dreamcatcher.i think we haven't seen the end of this vehicle
As was pointed out to me in a forum a while ago, why would you abandon a spaceship? It's got all the stuff you need; and it's not as though it's going to sink.
Loss of vessel integrity, ala gravity, would be a good reason. You don't want to be left without a way to get back if shit goes haywire and the vessel is rendered uninhabitable.
Presumably if you're abandoning your spacecraft it no longer has all the things you need. Perhaps there's no more oxygen because the life support failed or it all leaked out. Perhaps it's on fire. Or maybe the spacecraft itself is fine, but the heatshield is scuppered and you have no rescue coming.
The only aerospace escape capsule that I was aware of (until just now and the new to me example of the B-58) that was actually built and used was on the F-111. They were reported to work quite well in actual use. Of course, the problems that an in-atmosphere escape capsule need to solve are far simpler than of an orbital escape capsule; and that is sugar coating it!
Actually they didn't work well, mass of the capsule made landings really hard to the point crew could not leave it afterwards, in one time capsule was used both pilots ended with broken spines!
@@randomnickify Interesting. What you say makes sense. My recollection was based on media reports far in the past (before the internet!) on Australian operations of the F-111. You are no doubt better informed than I am. Spine damage was a potential problem for all ejection systems that I am aware of. Having actually witnessed a zero-zero ejection while I served, I'm not surprised. It is brutal.
@@MarkHarrisonBNE IIRC the Australian F111 ejections were all over water - none were zero-zero. The capsule proved to be a fine lifeboat - quite seaworthy. I wonder if the other escape pod ideas all floated?
Bravo, you are very well informed. In my youth it was published this inflated recovery life raft, it was after Apollo 13 mission. Thank you for this documentary, I watch your films with great interes.
I'm always interested in more of the "unsung" history behind our space exploration, so this is just right up my alley! Thanks, Scott (and those involved in making the episodes)!
The Test-Flight Hardware for the X-38 still exists outside of NASA's buildings in Houston... I've seen it.. I wish it would be restored and displayed somewhere.
Thanks for the video Mr. Manley, it is neat and clear as usual. Just wanted to express my disagreement with the "emergency escape system" being the same ship that transports the astronauts to and from Space. Giving redundancy to every system onboard do not provide a redundant separate mean of escape. Gemini had rocket-propelled ejection seats, Apollo had its solid rocket motor on top. Then, the Space Shuttle had yes maximum redundancies but no escape system, and blew up twice. Soyuz and Dragon both have escape systems; because the First Corollary to the Murphy Law clearly says that: "Your astronauts are going to need an escape system the moment you remove it from your Spaceship". Thank you - once more - for all the continued and very well documented updates you keep providing. Me lazy, I just thumb up and watch them...
aslo the spacex dragon capsule itself can also be a escape pod for the iss! with a massive crew capacity from as low of 6 to a maximum of 12 astronauts and more than enough fuel after being docked from being launched from earth to help get the astronauts back down in a emergency! it even has its own dedicated solar and battery power supply that can even help keep some of the iss systems powered in a emergency and it's also far cheaper then the most what NASA could come up with! heck starship could even cram a dragon capsule in some variants like the moon and cargo variants for an emergency if spacex wanted to! or they can even have crew be transferred from earth to the starship for interplanetary long range missions via dragon capsule to save a lot more fuel for starship's missions for going to the moon and mars and beyond!
Fun fact: There were proposals for "Evolved Shuttle" involving liquid fuel boosters and an ejectable crew deck dating even before Challenger, but NASA couldn't afford the development cost of them. #FundNASA
I think Skylab 3 suffered problems with 2 thrusters. Which is worse because then you have to consider the possibility that there is a flaw in the whole batch. The Cm could easily come back with one or even 2 failing thrusters, but what if on the return journey one or more fail? So while the crew was in Skylab in orbit, Houston and contractors a. tried to find out if there is a fundamental problem with the thrusters and b. simultaneously preparing the rescue CM. The backup crew was involved in both efforts. he irony is that by finding that the crew could come back, the backup crew cancelled their chance for their own space flight (in the long gap til the shuttle). And of course Al Bean and co. brought the thing back in probably one of the more interesting flights with a Apollo CSM. Also even when Freedom was still freedom, the idea of buying/renting a Soyuz was already floating around. Not quite sure, where i read that. Jerry Bosticks book probably or Stafford..
Imagine if the inspections of the Shuttle thermal protection system was done more seriously from the start and that the Shuttle had an escape capsule like this, then the Columbia disaster would've been prevented. Just my 2 cents.
It would make Shuttle heavier and even more useless it already was, Columbia disaster would never happen because entire program would bankrupt before then.
Fun fact: There were plans for "Evolved Shuttle" involving liquid fuel boosters, wingtip fins and an ejectable crew deck, but NASA couldn't afford a new orbiter fleet that was necessary for the plan. #FundNASA
This was something that was thought of long before. My uncle designed and built an inspection drone called AERCAM in the late 80’s/early 90’s but it never flew save for one demonstration mission in ‘97, because it was simply too heavy due to scope creep by the big heads at NASA Johnson. Interestingly, one of its’ descendants flew aboard Cygnus last year as part of one of its post ISS departure missions. Hopefully a positive sign of things to come for future missions.
“Thanks in part due to the strict rationing of laser bolts” That gave me a good laugh, I’ve always wondered why the Star Destroyer held its fire. I guess even A New Hope had to rely on plot armor!
"Rocket-powered lawn chair." 3:33 Something you'd see at a Fourth of July picnic after a full helping of Ground Beef Tacos and Loaded Refried Bean Sauce.
Anybody else notice the Apollo CSM in the CERV proposal? Either they were gonna convince the manufacturer to build some new ones, or they were gonna upcycle the ones they had left over. A ship originally built to go to the moon, reused as a lifeboat.
But obviously the problem with the spacecraft being its own lifeboat is that no matter how many backup systems you have, if a micrometeoroid or space debris punches a hole through it, you aren't going anywhere.
I remember as a student in the 80's, looking at a side by side drawing of an orbiter and a Soyuz and thinking, "huh, it looks like the shuttle could just grab a Soyuz, put it in the payload bay and bring it back to...oh, I see". I'm sure Reagan would have considered it.
One reason the Space Shuttle was always so incredibly expensive is because it was far bigger than it needed to be for the intended civilian uses (compare it with the Soviet Buran). The military insisted it had to be capable of retrieving large satellites ...
You didn’t mention all the Dream Chaser craft on the outer ring of the Voyager Station concept.. since it would be impossible to dock to the outside of a spinning station then the only purpose they could serve is as escape pods..
@@Forest_Fifer that was on the axis of rotation.. I said the outside of a huge spinning ring. It’s actually not impossible to dock there.. just not useful or practical.
After watching the Challenger accident during my earlier school days, I spent weeks doodling up ideas of each astronaut in the shuttle being in their own hexagonal-shaped pod within the shuttle cockpit that would eject during an emergency. 9 years old is not enough experience to consider all the factors that this would require, but I was always hoping someone would come up with something even if they didn't use my idea. Now, literally decades later, and much more versed in seeing what was available as well as reading many sci-fi, "parallel" sci-fi (which is to say, Plausible, yet fiction), and real accounts of people with a low center of gravity (due to obviously large spherical-named 'personal' equipment), I find that this ought to be a good video.
7:30 To be fair, exposure to vacuumed, lack of oxygen and or water will also make any medical condition worse. Including the medical condition usually called "perfect health"
I could also imagine some of these things being used during a medical emergency. Especially the automated ones since someone might be to sick or injured to actually fly the thing.
An escape pod is one of those things we won't perfect, probably, until a few people have died. I imagine any given escape system will be heavily dependent on where the nearest human presence is that has an energy surplus great enough to rescue them. If I was going to be in deep space most of the time, I'd probably spring for a really good black box instead of an escape pod. With a station in low orbit, ideally, every module would be able to survive re-entry and control their descent to some degree. In the middle, there's an ocean of 'hope we got enough fuel'.
I think a good explanation for why the gunners in Star Wars didn't shoot the escape pod is that instead they digitally tagged it so that they get a cut of the profits if the pod is salvaged. That's the best idea I can come up with.
In Jan 1999, while working in Houston, I took a tour of the Johnson Space Center and saw one of those vehicles in a semi-clean room and the tour guide said that one was actually going to be flown to the ISS. Now I know why I never heard of it actually flying.
I see the escape capsule as an essential addition to a manned version of Starship. The Augustine Commission recommended in 2010 separating human beings from cargo in launch systems. I foresee a Cargo Starship, a Tanker Starship, an Interplanetary Starship, and a Lunar Starship as major variations of the design. But the most important will be the MANNED Starship which will come in an Orbital version and a Suborbital version for point-to-point Earth transport of humans. If you switch to a human-ONLY design, you eliminate the pressure to maximize cargo lifting capacity and you can afford the "cargo" to be human life preserving equipment to allow escape during ascent at all stages with no "black out" or "dead man" zones. Let us hope Elon has the foresight to pursue such a thing. I am certain that NASA will never sign off on Starship as "man rated" for NASA astronauts without such systems, so that may be the pressure Elon needs to do it. I am just afraid he will launch Jared Isaacman's Polaris 4 crew without going to that trouble. If so, I will be praying for their safety, but I don't really accept the idea of divine intervention.
Scott could you do a video on what type of sensor's spacecraft used to determine things like altitude Orientation and orbital velocity. I find it hard to believe that you could calculate it so precisely with just Accelerometers
