I was reading an article about NASA at The Guardian and realized that NASA’s “safe haven” plan has a flaw.
So what will happen if a hole is found, a space repair proves useless and Collins and her six crewmen are marooned in space? The answer, says Nasa, is its ‘Safe Haven’ plan. The crew will bail out of Discovery, climb into the International Space Station (their mission destination) and wait – amid rapidly dwindling oxygen and water supplies – for a rescue shuttle to arrive from Earth.
Getting off the ground, through the atmosphere, into space, into orbit, into a stable orbit, and docked with the ISS is no mean feat. The difficulties of an ISS mission do not start when you undock.
If the emergency plan at 50 miles per second is, “Navigate to safety,” count me out.
And can’t we send robots until we have a better means of propulsion? As our technology stands we can’t get out of the solar system. What are we going to do on Mars? Terraform? Let the machines go to space at a fraction of the price and let’s focus on Spaceship Earth and better space travel tech.