Stu left a comment on my post about the Kobayashi Maru which got me thinking about lifeboats on spaceships. The idea of lifeboats on spaceships has been around as long as people have been imagining giant spaceships. The Fhloston Paradise from The Fifth Element is a 'recent' example.
Lifeboats on spaceships in deep space are only useful if there is any hope of another ship being able to reach them in time before their life support gives out. In the days of sailing ships, any boat carried on a ship would be equipped with a mast and sails and would be able to sail on to a distant shore.
I'm imagining any ship capable of a deep space voyage would have a massive propulsion system. Any lifeboats it could carry could not. If a lifeboat had a propulsion system big enough to enable it to reach a safe haven, it would be as big as the original ship. Perhaps when we start sending manned ships into deep space, we should send them in groups, kind of like the
Nina, Pinta and the Santa Maria. That way if disaster befalls one, the other ships in the convoy could be a safe haven for the survivors.
1 comment:
The only reason to leave a spaceship is that the life-support system ceases to work.
The lifeboat does not need a large delta-V. Ist only need to get you outside any
(thermonuclear?) explosion radius away from the wreck.
It merely needs a long-functioning life-support system, to survive
until rescuers come. So lifeboat is perhaps the wrong analogy.
Think of it as a desert-island.
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