3 ms·
They were kinda useless, operationally-speaking. Half the crew members were on the lower deck and surrounded by significant hull structure, and so couldn't eje
by na85 7y ago
They were kinda useless, operationally-speaking. Half the crew members were on the lower deck and surrounded by significant hull structure, and so couldn't eject. The first two shuttles were only designed around a crew of 2 where this design made more sense.
Irrespective of that, the ejection seats only work for a very limited period of the shuttle's operating envelope. IIRC it's something like only the first 2 minutes of flight where the ejection seats could be used. And in most cases where you'd be able to eject, the solid rocket boosters were still firing and it was theorized that as the shuttle passed a pilot who had just ejected, the exhaust gases would ruin the parachute and/or kill an ejecting pilot anyways.
By the time the SRBs burnt out, the shuttle was too high/fast to eject.
- catalogia 7y ago> The first two shuttles were only designed around a crew of 2 where this design made more sense. Only the first I think, unless you're count Enterprise (which couldn't go to space.) Challenger (the second orbit-capable shuttle) never flew with less than four crew. Incidentally, the ejection seats of questionable worth in Columbia weren't without NASA precedent; the Gemini program also used ejection seats which similarly had a pretty narrow window of usefulness at best. One of my favorite pictures ever is this shot of the Gemini capsule with both hatches open, giving a pretty clear view of how the seats would have worked: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Armstrong_and_Scott_with_Hatches_Open_-_GPN-2000-001413.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Armstron...
- greedo 7y agoThat's a great photo! Really illustrates how small the capsule was.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- beerandt 7y agoSince Enterprise was initially intended to go to space, (to be completed after the flight tests) I'd count it for design purposes. STS-1 through STS-4 all had a crew of 2 on Columbia.