I was referring to passengers, not crew.

Plus there is no way or need to launch a crew that much faster.

Sure there’s a need. Ending our costly dependence on Russia.

The answer is yes. Flight Aloha Airlines 243, Qantas Flight 30, Southwest Airlines Flight 2294, Southwest Airlines Flight 812 and probably more. Not to mention the crash that was advoided because the crew had oxygen.

In the case of an LAS there is justification for it(it has worked two times saving two russian crews from certain death). And the new designs have MORE than one function so they are not total dead weight. Plus there is no way or need to launch a crew that much faster. Musk is the one furthest ahead and he thinks he can be ready by 2014 at the earliest.

“a point of agreement.”

I guess sooner or later it had to happen. Unfortunately your single paragraph response is kind of ‘dense’ (i.e. number of words per inch). Maybe my eyes are getting too old, but they blur out less than halfway thru. Or maybe your attention span is shortening. ;=)

The LAS on the sidemount monstrosity was useless junk to say it mildly. It was the same for a LAS on Shuttle. A LAS would not have said anyone on Challenger. A beefed-up pressurized sections with chutes might have. But the problem of a vehicle as complex and unique as Shuttle do not even come close to the simplicity and well-understood design of an inline LV.

Sorry, a LAS on its own means nothing, much.

In all the person-hours on airplanes, have oxygen masks ever saved a single one?

My answer is, “yes.”

“a point of agreement.”

I guess sooner or later it had to happen. Unfortunately your single paragraph response is kind of ‘dense’ (i.e. number of words per inch). Maybe my eyes are getting too old, but they blur out less than halfway thru.

Except it hasn’t.

Any station in earth orbit will have some sort of capacity to return crew. In the case of the ISS the ACRV was cancelled and Soyuz takes its place. NASA needed the ACRV because the shuttle can only do 2 week missions, but the station has longer missions (3 months). The Bush administration canceled the ACRV and handed that function over to Soyuz which limits ISS crew to 6. Soyuz unlike the shuttle can stay in space 3 or 6 months I think. With a military sub there probably is no practical way to design an escape pod in. The sub would flood faster than you could get to the pods and I have no idea what they would do to the design of the sub.

A vehicle traveling BEO beyond the moon might not have an escape capacity because there is no point. It would take weeks or months to return if you even could return without going all the way to your destination first. It is not like Soyuz where you use it both as a crew transfer vehicle (earth to LEO, LEO to earth) and if needed a crew escape vehicle (i.e. just have the ability to remain viable for X days and start within X amount of time).

Now if you have a vehicle capable of landing on earth(you carried a capsule) and you are within a few days of earth(very lucky) then you might be able to leave a stricken BEO craft.

Anyway for a space station the need to evacuate has not always been for technical reasons. In fact no space station has killed a crew yet. However medical reasons are a problem. In the case of low g, it seems to aid in the formation of kidney stones (Russians have had to cut a mission or two short for this reason). Also psychological reasons too (Russian cut one mission due to the mental state of a crew member).

“We flew the shuttle for a couple of decades without a valid launch escape system…(the pole etc was useless)…I go back and forth on the Challenger post mortem as if a LAS would have saved the crew (ie had there been something on the shuttle…I dont think it would have…a non shuttle capsule on top of the rocket is a different thing).”

The shuttle was designed with the arrogance that Titanic was designed with and the cost of adding one after the design phase was not trivial. They thought they could design a spacecraft safe enough that the risk of an LAS was greater than the reward. In addition the Shuttle’s side mount design was driven by the need to carry cargo as well as it’s lifting capacity. The Shuttle was not designed first and foremost to be a crew carrier. The ccdev craft are.

I can understand why Navy ships don’t have the boats (i.e. they could block gun placements which interferes with the very function of the ship).

It is just that I do not see a LAS project as being so expensive or the need to get to the ISS so pressing it is impossible to do for a capsule commercial or otherwise. Apollo, Soyuz, and Mercury have escape systems. Gemini, the flight of Enterprise and the first four flights of Columbia had ejector chairs (with their limited use). Removal of the ejector chair was done because of the need to fit a crew of 7-8 people(it also saved mass on the remaining orbiters as the floor didn’t have to be so strong….but that mass savings didn’t equate to more performance crew wise..).

I mean today there are parachutes for small planes if they get in trouble, but of course such a system would not work on a large aircraft.

You cannot protect against everything, but would you be willing to buy a ticket on a plane without say oxygen masks because the risk of depressurization is lower than the risk of a rocket explosion? Removal of seatbelts and airbag (which also can do harm) because automobiles have a lower fatality rate than the Shuttle, Apollo, or Soyuz?

I dont think we disagree much…and you hit on it with the notion of the “seat” in most military aircraft…its there for combat…not because of the issues with the planes…now it works if ANYTHING goes wrong but it like the chute…are there for combat.

SImbergs point (and I am not meaning to be negative Rand ) in my view is a valid one, the issue is what is it worth to have that capability which takes lots of mass and whose survivability is problematic IF we are moving into an era where launchers are pretty “safe” (which is another word here for predictable)

So a reasonable issue to compare this with is “lifeboats on a ship”. Naval vessels (at least US ones) do not really have enough “boats” for everyone or really anyone. What they have are personal flotation devices and lots of rafts that are suppose to go popping off…and again they are for battle. Crews are expected on ships to fight hard to save teh ship (or boat) including taking casualties to save the ship. Some of the highest awards for bravery went to the black gang on the USS Franklin which went BACK into the engine room as the ship was in peril to try and save her (they did). We lost people on Lexington, Yorktown, Hornet and Wasp who either stayed to fight the fires/flooding or were trapped as they did so…during WW2.

Ocean liners have lifeboats and in theory drills to make sure everyone gets to their seats…but that has not always worked out either (BTW the Titanic had lifeboats with room in them).

Any “non LEO” vehicle will not have an ACRV, I dont see why the station has an ACRV…

We flew the shuttle for a couple of decades without a valid launch escape system…(the pole etc was useless)…I go back and forth on the Challenger post mortem as if a LAS would have saved the crew (ie had there been something on the shuttle…I dont think it would have…a non shuttle capsule on top of the rocket is a different thing).

I think (gasp) that the entire notion of an LAS is one whose time has past. RGO