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© 2017 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).

Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/curio/of-meteors-and-men/

In the early 1960s, General Electric proposed a system whereby an astronaut in a space emergency might abandon ship and return to the Earth. The system was originally proposed under the acronym M.O.O.S.E. (Man Out Of Space Easiest), but later replaced with the backronym Manned Orbital Operations Safety Equipment.

The compact design was roughly 200 pounds, and about the size of a suitcase. The endangered astronaut would don their space suit and exit the spacecraft with MOOSE in hand. Upon unpacking the MOOSE, the astronaut would strap a parachute to their chest, clamber into a polyester bag (while in a space suit, in microgravity), and activate a dispenser to inflate the bag with expanding polyurethane foam. Once fully entombed in hardened foam, the astronaut would use a hand-held retrorocket to orient the bowl-shaped escape pod, then engage a small rocket to propel themselves toward the Earth. An ablative heat shield would prevent the bag (and its occupant) from burning up on re-entry1, a radio would provide communication with ground-based stations, a manually-deployed parachute would ensure a survivable landing speed, and the foam underside would serve as a cushion for landing (or as a flotation device for a water-based landing). The polyurethane was formulated such that the astronaut could break their way our of the foamy cocoon upon landing, with easy access to a survival kit while awaiting rescue.

Despite the feasibility of this emergency escape pod, and an encouraging series of ground-based proving tests, neither the US Air Force nor NASA was interested. General Electric quietly shelved the project.

1 Contrary to common belief, when an object enters a planet’s atmosphere, the fiery heat that engulfs it is not due to friction with the air. At the supersonic speeds involved with atmospheric entry, much of the air cannot move aside fast enough, and the air trapped in front of the craft becomes extremely compressed. When a gas is compressed, its temperature increases proportionately, enough to cause combustion in the case of re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. Friction is a factor, but not a significant one.

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