"Forebody Separation Hybrid" Shuttle Crew Escape [was 'Ejection seat...']

I was tickled to find an official report that illustrates a "Forebody
Separation" concept for shuttle crew escape where the entire nose of
the orbiter is designed to separate away:

Report "GAO-04-203":
PDF- http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04203.pdf

Considering that this came out after Gehman, I was very interested in
reading it. I was delighted to find that it had an entire appendix
devoted to a "Comparison of Crew Escape Concepts". And if you dig into
it you'll find that Page 14 (pdf18of31) has "Figure 3: Space Shuttle
Crew Escape Design Concepts".

Quote:

"Forward body separates aft of crew module and staged return to earth
(land or water)."


I found this document last Wednesday when I was googling around.
Actually what I was looking for was a quantification of the ballast
carried on the shuttle (an important fact for a current discussion
about payload penalty resulting from having an escape module
capability). The search term I used was:

["space shuttle" ballast]

The very first hit was this GAO report about "Further Improvements
Needed in NASA's Modernization Efforts".


By no means do I see this as proof that this would have been the
smartest way to get astronauts safely to the ground in a
Columbia/Challenger-type scenario. Someone may unearth a document
showing that this very scheme was studied back in the early 70s, and
that the idea was rejected for significant reasons.

My primary concern here is that I see those early studies on crew
escape, followed by those early difficult decisions to eliminate all
crew escape options, to have been an important part of the answers that
Rogers and Gehman were commissioned to find for us.

Since this was not part of their report, as far as I have read in all
that has been released, then it would be excellent if others would take
this unturned stone and have a look at what's underneath.


~ CT