Vamoose in Space: Forgotten Escape Pod Sought to Bring Astronauts Home Safe

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  In the 1960s, a team of GE engineers proposed a design for a single-person space escape pod called Man Out of Space Easiest (later changed to Manned Orbital Operations Safety Equipment), or MOOSE.
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MOOSE at work.
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  A detailed image of the escape pod.
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  A concept drawing of escape capsule.
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Commercial spaceflight is fast becoming reality. In fact, well-heeled passengers can already book seats on the first private space flights. This brings up an interesting question: What will safety devices look like in passenger spacecraft?

It turns out that GE engineers have already given it some thought. In honor of #GravityDay on Sunday - 9.8 meters per second squared is roughly the rate of acceleration of objects free-falling near Earth's surface – we dusted off a proposal dating back to the 1960s. At the time, a team of engineers proposed a design for a single-person space escape pod called Man Out of Space Easiest (later changed to Manned Orbital Operations Safety Equipment), or MOOSE.

The engineers designed MOOSE to weigh just 200 pounds and fit inside a suitcase-sized container. It used a small rocket motor for power and contained a PET film (the flexible silver-colored plastic material used by marathon runners and emergency crews) as a heat shield, two pressurized canisters filled with polyurethane foam, a parachute, radio equipment and a survival kit.

Astronauts in an emergency would leave the craft wearing a space suit, climb inside the PET bag and fill it with the insulating foam. The motor, as shown in the diagram, sticks out of the bag and eases the astronaut safely into the atmosphere. Once the astronaut falls to about 30,000 feet above Earth’s surface, a parachute deploys and slows descent to 17 mph. This is when the foam comes into play, serving as a cushion for when the astronaut touches down (it could also be used as a flotation device should the person land in water). The astronauts would then use radio to signal rescuers.

MOOSE was intended only for extreme situations and the effort to realize the design was later abandoned. Many advances in materials and technology have occurred since then. Some of them were on display during daredevil Felix Baumgartner’s free-fall from the stratosphere last year.