Space Shuttle Emergency Landing Sites

[Toroid]

I caught part of the show 'What on Earth' on the Science Channel today. They said NASA maintained 33 alternate landing sites for the shuttle program which I found odd. On a partial list is Diego Garcia Island that the SSP whistleblower Tony Rodrigues said spacecraft use to pick up cargo.

SPACE SHUTTLE EMERGENCY LANDING SITES
Tony Rodrigues: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3zfTy-SCEg
Diego Garcia: Google Maps

 

[Double Nought Spy]

Nothing odd about being prepared when you are landing an unpowered glider shaped like a brick. Look into the X-15 program for some interesting history. Each mission was carefully planned--for months-- with several alternate lake bed landing possibilities and pretty much every other contingency situation the planners could dream up.

By "maintaining" landing sites, they mostly meant having procedures in place and plans made for landing at former SAC bases and the like. There are some thick concrete runways at air bases all over the place, several miles long, suitable to land a shuttle in an emergency. Joe Engle could probably have landed a shuttle on a highway if he had to. He was an X-15 pilot and the only astronaut to land a shuttle manually. He did that at Edwards, where he flew X-15s fifteen or twenty years earlier.

 

[Castle-Yankee54]

I caught part of the show 'What on Earth' on the Science Channel today. They said NASA maintained 33 alternate landing sites for the shuttle program which I found odd. On a partial list is Diego Garcia Island that the SSP whistleblower Tony Rodrigues said spacecraft use to pick up cargo.

SPACE SHUTTLE EMERGENCY LANDING SITES
Tony Rodrigues: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3zfTy-SCEg
Diego Garcia: Google Maps

Thank you......that show is hysterical!!

 

[CasualBystander]

Umm... 32 shuttle landing sites aren't an unexplained mystery.

The shuttle if it had to do an emergency return or had a reentry problem might land almost anywhere.

It doesn't really have propulsion and is a glider.

 

[nivek]

Umm... 32 shuttle landing sites aren't an unexplained mystery.

The shuttle if it had to do an emergency return or had a reentry problem might land almost anywhere.

It doesn't really have propulsion and is a glider.

Has the space shuttle crew ever attempted a landing in an ocean?...

...

 

[CasualBystander]

Has the space shuttle crew ever attempted a landing in an ocean?...

...

That would get ugly.

The landing speed of a shuttle is 200 knots (230 MPH).

Landing speed of Airbus A320 (like on the Hudson) is around 130 and if he stalls it it could be lower.

Further the shuttle is coming down at a steeper angle.

Plus anything in the cargo bay would probably penetrate the cabin - which would break loose from the fuselage anyway.

It was not viewed by NASA as a survivable event.

 

[spacecase0]

33 on the entire earth ?
that seems to few.
could it be that only 33 had 100% survivability ?
they should have hundreds more that would work less than ideal, all rated on how good they are.

 

[CasualBystander]

33 on the entire earth ?
that seems to few.
could it be that only 33 had 100% survivability ?
they should have hundreds more that would work less than ideal, all rated on how good they are.

The Shuttle Runway is 4,572 m long (almost 15,000 feet) and astronauts complain it isn't long enough.

At that the runway needs a special surface to provide maximum braking traction.

 

[pigfarmer]

The Air & Space Museum at the Udvar-Hazy Center now has Discovery, among many, many other really cool things.

When I was there they had Enterprise which was only used for glide testing and never made orbit. They shuffled Enterprise over to the tail end of the USS Intrepid in Manhattan and it's at an angle as if it were landing in a big weird bubble thing on the flight deck. From the looks of it they might have changed the stance. Worth a look if anyone is in town.

 

[Toroid]

That would get ugly.

The landing speed of a shuttle is 200 knots (230 MPH).

Landing speed of Airbus A320 (like on the Hudson) is around 130 and if he stalls it it could be lower.

Further the shuttle is coming down at a steeper angle.

Plus anything in the cargo bay would probably penetrate the cabin - which would break loose from the fuselage anyway.

It was not viewed by NASA as a survivable event.

So, the shuttle couldn't return with a full cargo bay?

 

[humanoidlord]

Has the space shuttle crew ever attempted a landing in an ocean?...

...

bad idea, it has no floaters, unlike the space capsules

 

[CasualBystander]

So, the shuttle couldn't return with a full cargo bay?

It could return with cargo - but the securing mechanisms were designed for a 3+ G acceleration with the force absorbed by the engine partition.

10 G crash landing (deceleration) with the force absorbed by the crew cabin would make bad things happen.