"Stuf4" wrote:

It is *easy* to augment the design of this pressure vessel so that it

It is? Care to elaborate on that assertion? "Easy"?

then becomes a crew escape module. It is also easy to determine c.g.
limits of this module so that after orbiter breakup it has a stable
flight. An escape module design that would have permitted safe escape
for both -51L and -107 crews need not have had excessive weight.

These assertions seem to go against what I have read. Why do you say this?
Can you refer to some published studies?

After pyrotechnics separate the module from the rest of the vehicle, a
small motor can be used to build separation (-51L showed that no motor
at all is needed). Then instead of a giant parachute designed to give
the escape module a soft landing, all that is needed is a
stabilization chute system that slows the module down enough for the
crew to bail out of (no escape pole needed because the wings are long
gone).

I'm not sure that pyrotechnics to separate the crew module from the rest of
the vehicle would go over so well, but that's just a hunch. The idea doesn't
seem so bad given that the crew module had in the case of 51-L separated
from the fuselage, but in the case of Columbia, do we know? In practice, it
might not be so easy to build.

Jon