wrote in message
oups.com...
Somebody posted something about the Shuttle programs often touted
"rescue ball" a while back ( I couldn't find the thread). Just
reading my new copy of Walking in Space (David J. Shayler) and he
states p.338. that ,"but although two were built they were never tested
in space and are now in storage. iN 1985 an IAF paper suggested that
there was the capability to use the MMU to transfer these rescue
spheres or a stranded EVA crewman, but that it was never tested
operationally. Again the MMU's have been in storage for
years.".........Doc


Shouldn't be much of a need. ISS ought to have two or three EMU's and two
or three Russian Orlan suits. Add that to the two or three EMU's on the
damaged shuttle along with two or three more EMU's on the rescue shuttle.
Worst case, this is going to take several airlock cyclings and maybe a
couple of extra trips back to ISS with a couple of astronauts hauling back a
couple of empty suits to ISS.

I think the "rescue ball" concept doesn't have much of a purpose now that
there are very few (none?) non-career astronauts flying on the shuttle to
ISS.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)