
: >There is an emergency oxygen system that is capable of maintaining a
: >breathable atmosphere in the cabin for long enough to come down, even
: >if there is something like a 5cm hole in the wall that nobody tries
: >to plug.

Josh Hopkins (jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu) replied:
: Wow.

: Double wow.  Can you land a shuttle with a 5cm hole in the wall?

Personnally, I don't know, but I'd like to try it sometime.

Programmatically, yes, we can land an Orbiter with a 5 cm hole in
the wall -- provided that the thing which caused 5 cm hole didn't
cause a Crit 1 failure on some of the internal systems.  There are
a few places where a 5 cm hole would cause a Bad Day -- especially
if the 5 cm hole went all the way through the Orbiter and out the
other side, as could easily happen with a meteor strike.  But a
hole in the pressure vessel would cause us to immediately de-orbit
to the next available landing site.

-- Ken Jenks, NASA/JSC/GM2, Space Shuttle Program Office
      kjenks@gothamcity.jsc.nasa.gov  (713) 483-4368