Parachute maximum limits? ISS parachute to earth? (hackertalks.com)

submitted 4 months ago by jet@hackertalks.com to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca

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The astronauts on the ISS that are stuck and can't parachute back to Earth... but why not?

The highest jump I could find was 39km (Stratos jump)

Is it the height from the planet? The speed of the ISS? If we wanted to design ISS escape pods, what would be required?

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[-] SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 21 points 4 months ago

It's mostly the velocity. Orbiting a planet just means having enough kinetic energy to fall toward a planet, but continually overshoot and miss. They need some way to slow down dramatically, which is usually accomplished with rocket thrusters. If they just strapped on parachutes and jumped out, they'd orbit the Earth alongside the ISS.

this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024

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