In article ,
says...

In article ,
says...
BTW, did the shuttle crew have cranks to manually lower the landing
gears like on planes at some point in time? Or is the time between
landing gear deployment and touching ground so short that it was
pointless to add manual gear deploy cranks?

No. In a contingency (e.g. no hydraulic power to lower the landing
gear), there were pyros which would operate what amounted to pneumatic
cylinders which would force the gear down. Clearly "one time use", but
in an emergency, it's better than crashing into the runway without
landing gear.

Here is a cite:

LANDING/DECELERATION SYSTEM
http://www.spaceshuttleguide.com/sys...n_system.htm#L
anding_Gear_Doors

Note how complicated all of this is. Lots of redundancy and backups
built into the system because it *had* to work or the crew was dead.
Unfortunately, all that complexity drives up costs.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.