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Similar protocols for the Shuttle of course; was in Gambia in 1990 and got chatting with some NASA folks just sitting round the pool at a nearby hotel - they to
by tragomaskhalos 8y ago
Similar protocols for the Shuttle of course; was in Gambia in 1990 and got chatting with some NASA folks just sitting round the pool at a nearby hotel - they told us they were there as there was a specific abort phase whereby the Shuttle would glide across the Atlantic and land at Banjul airport (whose runway NASA had paid to have extended for this purpose!); in that unlikely eventuality they would have to leap into action, otherwise it was a nice few days in the sun for them.
- QuotedForTruth 8y agoThere were a lot of these runways across the Atlantic. I wonder how many at a time they staffed with people like the people you met. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Shuttle_landing_sites#Transoceanic_Abort_Landing_Sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Shuttle_landing_...
- tragomaskhalos 8y agoAfter posting I checked the dates from memory vs shuttle launch dates from Wikipedia, and this would have been some weeks before the launch ; so I wonder if in fact their job was to drop into the various emergency landing areas and just do a check that everything was lined up just in case; otherwise it'd be very costly to have teams in situ at all of them.
- QuotedForTruth 8y agoThe shuttle was a very expensive program! Each launch was something like $450 million. I wouldnt be surprised if they had small teams at 2 or 3 runways as contingency plans. If the shuttle landed some where they would definitely need help getting out of it and I doubt it would be much cheaper to keep locals trained and ready.
- Maakuth 8y agoSadly the shuttle abort protocols were not effective for Challenger-like, catastrophic failure modes. My, admittedly layman's, understanding is that Apollo abort system would have been able to evacuate the crew in a number of pretty dire scenarios.