[ale] OT: Space Shuttle Columbia

[Jeff Hubbs]

Chris -

I was thinking of this only in terms of an emergency re-entry, i.e.,
with tiles known to be compromised.  Such a thing, if it were even
possible, might require g-loading in excess of nomimal ranges but not so
high as to result in airframe failure or the pilot's losing
consciousness. 

My intuition tells me that you'd have to be near-superhuman to pull off
such a thing, especially without computer guidance, but near-superhumans
do exist...

On Tue, 2003-02-04 at 23:55, Christopher Bergeron wrote:
> Jeff Hubbs wrote:
> 
> >>rendezvous or an "unusual" re-entry.  
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >This is just wild idle thinking, but could there be such a thing as a
> >temp-limited re-entry?
> >
> >Everything about Orbiter re-entry is predicated on the notion of getting
> >it down to a certain altitude, speed, and heading at a certain location
> >on the Earth (essentially, the point of flare-out right before
> >landing).  What if you threw that out, decided you didn't give a crap
> >where it landed, and just tried to get it subsonic in an altitude range
> >where the crew could bail out?  I can imagine some kind of repeated
> >skipping operation, intentionally coming in a bit too shallow each
> >time.  I wonder if the simulators can even handle such.
> >  
> >
> Jeff, that's an ingenious solution!  I tend to think, though, that it 
> would require abandoning NASA's proposed next generation  re-usable 
> spacecraft.  
> 
> Just my .02 cents,
> CB
> 
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