From Dan Foster:
wrote:

Just how do you practice bailing out of a space shuttle?

The CAIB report addresses exactly that point with a nice photograph of
someone fully suited up with lanyard attached to the bailout pole along the
side of a C-141 cargo plane at altitude, in the progress of bailing out,
while upside-down. It's a pretty nice photograph. See page 215 of the CAIB
report.

That is not an astronaut in that photo. It is a test jumper with
hundreds of jumps experience.

I expect that NASA would duly repremand any astronaut who got caught
in such high risk activity. And no astronaut would have the cool
presence of mind to maintain a thumbs-up (see photo) while sliding
down that pole. Ha!

A C-141 may not be a Space Shuttle, but the conditions were certainly
equivalent: level flight altitude, 20,000 feet or less, etc. (The procedure
starts at no earlier than 40,000 feet but IIRC, jumps don't actually start
until about 20,000 feet or so?)

I don't know if Shuttle crews are actually expected to do that practice
bailout for real, or if they normally go through the motions but not
actually jump. Certainly an element of risk if they went through it for a
realistic practice that may not ordinarily be commensurate with the number
of times they're likely to need to do this for real at the end of a mission.

(These points are addressed in my response to Jonathan above.)

I'm sure that the reason why there is no NASA requirement to practice
actual bailout is that the training poses a much higher risk than any
possible benefit that would come out of the small chance of needing to
use that training.


~ CT