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> Question: let's say an anomaly occurs, and it has to land using the chutes .. on land. How's that going to feel? The seats look to be suspended well above th
by mhandley 12y ago
> Question: let's say an anomaly occurs, and it has to land using the chutes .. on land. How's that going to feel?
The seats look to be suspended well above the floor. That gives you the ability to smooth out the pretty large instantaneous acceleration from hitting the ground faster than intended. I imagine you won't be reusing that particular Dragon again, but the astronauts should be fine.
- seacious 12y agoProbably pretty similar to how it feels when soyuz capsules land on land on parachute descent. It's not a new technique.
- mhandley 12y agoWell, the Soyuz does depend on retro-rockets to cushion the final impact. If those don't fire, it's not going to be a soft landing. If I recall correctly, that did happen on one of the Soyuz landings, resulting in some broken teeth from the impact.
- mikeash 12y agoIt makes for cool videos, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2X2kaqYatI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2X2kaqYatI If you don't know what's going on, it looks like the thing explodes on impact.
- BrandonMarc 12y agoman, you weren't kidding. to the untrained eye, that doesn't look like a successful landing. I wonder if airbags, similar to the mars rovers, would do well to cushion the landing.
- mikeash 12y agoIn reading up a bit on NASA's Orion capsule, a parachute landing on ground with air bags to cushion the impact was apparently a serious option for a while, before they decided to go for a water landing instead.