John Schutkeker writes:

jeff findley wrote in
:

What you're talking about is similar to the vehicle NASA has wanted to
evacuate the crew from ISS in an emergency. They've wanted this for
decades. They don't have it yet because such a thing is neither cheap
nor easy to do. Eventually the CEV will be capable of such a mission,
but the shuttle won't be around when the CEV starts to fly manned
missions.

NASA has an ISS evacuation module, but I assume that it's only large enough
to hold three people, since ISS never has very many crew members. Besides,
if the Shuttle crew docked with the ISS and used their escape capsule to
return to earth, then the ISS would be without an escape capsule.

NASA has no such thing. You're talking about the Russian Soyuz
capsule. They're only cheap to build because they've been building
them for decades. Every Soviet/Russian space station visited by
people has used Soyuz as their manned transport/rescue vehicle.

I'm suprised you think that this would be a difficult and expensive
prospect. All you need to do is get to LEO and stay aloft long enough to
evacuate the crew. The mission is extremely short, and the equipment
requirements look like the absolute minimum to me. It looks like the rough
equivalent of a Gemini mission.

You prove my point. The Gemini mission was neither cheap nor easy to
do, and only held two astronauts. Same goes for Apollo (CM), and NASA
had equipment to turn one into a 5 man rescue configuration (would
have been used for a Skylab rescue mission, if the CSM docked to
Skylab failed in any way).

Jeff
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