cliffw@sequent.UUCP (Cliff White) (09/15/89)
In article <31816@ames.arc.nasa.gov> yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) writes: > Later > today the crew members will practice driving in the M113 tracked > vehicles at the Shuttle Landing Facility. Commander Don Williams Please pardon a (possibly) stupid question-but why is the crew practicing tank driving? How does this relate to space work? cliffw
hogg@db.toronto.edu (John Hogg) (09/15/89)
In article <21679@sequent.UUCP> cliffw@crg1.UUCP (Cliff White) writes: >> >> Later today the crew members will practice driving in the M113 tracked >> vehicles at the Shuttle Landing Facility. Commander Don Williams >Please pardon a (possibly) stupid question-but why is the crew practicing >tank driving? How does this relate to space work? Well, they're not actually tanks; they're Armoured Personnel Carriers. A Shuttle exploding on the pad would be detrimental to the health of anybody nearby. Therefore, the escape system for the astronauts involves a set of baskets on slidewires that get them to the ground quickly (think of Outward Bound river crossings), followed by APCs to get them off to bunkers with at least minimal protection en route. Professional drivers would probably do better, but that would expose non-essential personnel to the effects of an unscheduled on-pad catastrophic microstaging. So (at least some) astronauts get to add APC driving to their resumes. I can't come up with anything more sensible, but it still sounds like something out of a James Bond movie. Specifically, the one with the beautiful girls and the mad villain bent on destroying the world. -- John Hogg hogg@csri.utoronto.ca Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (09/15/89)
In article <21679@sequent.UUCP> cliffw@crg1.UUCP (Cliff White) writes: >Please pardon a (possibly) stupid question-but why is the crew practicing >tank driving? How does this relate to space work? Emergency escape procedures for things like pad fires involve going down slide wires from the tower and then piling into an armored personnel carrier -- not technically a tank but close enough for the media -- and driving away. -- V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu