"David E. Powell" wrote:

"John Mullen" wrote in message

And to me the survivable aborts are an indication of the robustness of the
1960s design. The people on Challenger would have loved a surviveable
abort
system. The people on Columbia would have loved merely to have suffered a
nasty landing incident.

Well nobody ever flew on Buran to find out I guess. As for Challenger, any
survivable system under those circumstances, or in Columbia's
disintegration, would have had to be a heck of a system. The forces involved
in both cases were literally unimaginable. I am not sure if Buran could have
survived either disaster, or how she could have fared with her own mechanics
over time. Nobody can know that, I suppose.

Well columbia's solution would have been to park to the ISS and stay there until
NASA
can get their arse in gear and rush another orbiter into orbit...

As to Challenger, my understanding of post accident investigations were that the
crew were pretty
much all recovered together, and still strapped to their seats in the cabin, and
that they may
have still been alive post explosion (though unconscious). An ejection seat
system that could have blown them clear
of the crew compartment in such a major system failure would possible have been
useful. Remember Columbia
originally flew with ejection seats for pilot and commander. It would not have
been impossible to design the orbiters
with ejection seats for all crew members (just need to design the deck panels to
blow away before the folks
on the lower level go rocketing upwards into the ceiling).