/sci/ - Science & Math

>The FIRST lifeboat was designed to be folded up in a small container on the outside of a space station. An<astronaut abandoning ship would enter the pod through a small hatch leading to the outside. After inflating the paraglider with Nitrogen fed through a hose or from gas bottles, the escapee would fire solid rockets attached to the closed hatch cover to de- orbit the craft. The fall from orbit (400,000 ft.) down to 120,000 ft. would take half an hour, withattitude control jets used for maneuvering. Once it became aerodynamic in the lower atmosphere, the paraglider could be steered by wing warping. The landing would take place anywhere within a footprint 450 miles wide and 1400 miles long.