[wkat4242]

Didn't the shuttle have this harebrained thing where the crew were supposed to climb all the way to the exit hatch in their pressure suits, extend a boom along the wing in full flight and then parachute out along it?

I thought I read about that. Of course that's effectively no actual escape system lol. They'd be long dead by the time they managed all that in an out of control shuttle.

[dlgeek]

Yep. That's supposedly for them to ditch in the event that the main engines fail but the shuttle is controllable - they don't have enough energy for a trans-atlantic abort, so they glide and bail out over the ocean.

Harebrained is right.

[dylan604]

No idea is a bad idea, but it can be harebrained.

How far did this plan go? Just because it was discussed and documented and thought through does not mean it was something that was actually going to happen. Was this actually developed and the parts&pieces put into place with procedures written up in the flight manual?

[nordsieck]

> Was this actually developed and the parts&pieces put into place with procedures written up in the flight manual?

Yes.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/escape-spe...

[tekla]

It was a proposed mechanism that was never taken really seriously.

[nordsieck]

> It was a proposed mechanism that was never taken really seriously.

I guess it depends on what you mean by that. Astronauts were trained on the system and it was aboard the shuttle.

Did the astronauts believe that it's likely that the system would save them? Probably not.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/escape-spe...

[wkat4242]

> Did the astronauts believe that it's likely that the system would save them? Probably not.

Yeah personally I would have taken my chances ditching the craft, tbh. It would probably ditch pretty well considering it doesn't have huge engine pods under the wings.