NASA Had a Plan For Rescuing Space Shuttle Astronauts Using a Big Fabric Ball : ScienceAlert

For most of us, this would be a nightmare.

Imagine being curled up inside a 90 centimeter (36 inch) fabric sphere with a small window and a small air tank while dangling from the Canadarm.

As your tiny sphere shifts, you’d see Earth out your tiny window, then the Space Shuttle, damaged by some accident or other that caused you to need rescuing, then Earth again. Panic would set in pretty quickly.

But that’s where Space Shuttle astronauts in an emergency could’ve found themselves if NASA’s Personal Rescue Enclosure (PRE) had been put into practice.

NASA developed the PRE simultaneously with…