Personal Rescue Enclosure on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
The personal rescue enclosure (PRE), or "rescue ball", was a device for transporting
The personal rescue enclosure (PRE), or "rescue ball", was a device for transporting astronaut
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...
s from one Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...
to another in case of an emergency. It was produced as a prototype but never flew on any missions.
The ball was in diameter and had a volume of . The structure comprised three fabric layers and incorporated a window and a zipper to allow the astronaut to enter and exit the ball. The ball enabled one crew member to curl up inside and don an oxygen mask
An oxygen mask is a mask that provides a method to transfer breathing gas, breathing oxygen gas from a storage tank to the lungs. Oxygen masks may cover only the nose and mouth (oral nasal mask) or the entire face (full-face mask). They may be ma ...
and hold a carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...
scrubber/oxygen
Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...
supply device with one hour's worth of oxygen. The ball would have been connected by an umbilical to the shuttle to supply air until the airlock
An airlock is a room or compartment which permits passage between environments of differing atmospheric pressure or composition, while minimizing the changing of pressure or composition between the differing environments.
An airlock consist ...
depressurized. The rescue ball containing the crew member would have been carried to the rescue shuttle by a space-suited astronaut.
The PRE was designed to protect humans in space in the event of an emergency where not enough full space suits were available. It was developed in the 1970s and 1980s to support the Space Shuttle program
The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its ...
. The PRE was designed to be used in conjunction with a fully suited astronaut that would provide mobility to the person in the ball. The ball's life-support systems consisting of oxygen and a carbon dioxide scrubber could support a person for about an hour.
The life support system that supplied oxygen was called the Personal Oxygen Supply, or, alternatively, it could be supplied with oxygen from an external source after being sealed. The ball was made of fabric, and was sealed by way of zippers, with a small circular window to allow the occupant to see out.
NASA evaluated three methods of transporting the balls:
*By hand, a suited astronaut would haul the balls
*By robotic arm, a robotic manipulator arm would move the balls through space (see Canadarm
Canadarm or Canadarm1 (officially Shuttle Remote Manipulator System or SRMS, also SSRMS) is a series of robotic arms that were used on the Space Shuttle orbiters to deploy, manoeuvre, and capture payloads. After the Space Shuttle ''Columbia' ...
)
*The balls would be attached to a line between two spaceships and pulled along like a clothesline.
Dimensions:
* sphere
*As a flexible not rigid item this figure would be subject to some variation, especially if not pressurized.
*Materials/construction methods
**Fabric consisting of three layers
*** urethane
***Kevlar
Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s as ...
***Thermal protective layer (outermost)
*Window constructed of Lexan
Polycarbonates (PC) are a group of thermoplastic polymers containing carbonate groups in their chemical structures. Polycarbonates used in engineering are strong, tough materials, and some grades are optically transparent. They are easily wor ...
See also
*Space suit
A space suit (or spacesuit) is an environmental suit used for protection from the harsh environment of outer space, mainly from its vacuum as a highly specialized pressure suit, but also its temperature extremes, as well as radiation and ...
*Rescue Agreement
The Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space, also referred to as the Rescue Agreement is an international agreement setting forth rights and obligations of states concer ...
* Single-person spacecraft
References
External links
*{{cite web, url=http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2002-000207.html, publisher=grin.hq.nasa.gov, title=ABSTRACTS/GPN-2002-000207, accessdate=2017-02-23, url-status=dead, archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060718083341/http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2002-000207.html, archivedate=2006-07-18 Space Shuttle program Rescue equipment