Since I’m using an astronomical Alces as the guiding spirit of this blog, I thought it would be appropriate to recognize the space moose that came before. The first astromoose I discovered in my space fandom was an Apollo era moose that never came to be, but lives on as the starting point for all orbital emergency plans. GE proposed the Man Out of Space Easiest (MOOSE) system as a “satellite life jacket,” a suitcase-sized container that unfurled into an astronaut sized reentry bag equipped with a handheld retro rocket for deorbiting and canisters of foam to create a proper aerodynamic shape and “pot[] the man and equipment in the vehicle.” It would have looked something like this:
Apparently they later changed the backronym to Manned Orbital Operations Safety Equipment which, while still excellent, feels a little less exciting. If you’re interested in reading more, check out the description of the system on page 145 of the Abort Volume of the Analysis And Design Of Space Vehicle Flight Control Systems report. This 1969 document has some good discussions of Apollo era abort systems and considerations of different abort phases and earth approaches, but more importantly it contains some amazing skedaddling-out-of-orbit concept vehicles that should tickle your retro escape pod fancy:
While MOOSE is basically an inflated microwaved astronaut bag filled with packing peanuts, some of these other proposals look far more comfortable and dare I say it, almost modern. The paracone looks far comfier than the confined space of MOOSE and there is a definite resemblance to modern inflatable heat shield research.
But wait, there is yet another MOOSE! While poking around for more info on skydiving from orbit in a magical briefcase, I discovered the 1993 Manned On-Orbit Servicing Equipment design project from the University of Maryland College Park. The timing of this proposal makes a lot of sense, since NASA was preparing to send the Shuttle to do some serious orbital surgery and correct the refractory errors that had hobbled the Hubble. Of course NASA went on to complete 3 Hubble service missions with the Space Shuttle and continued the scientific reign of the telescope without the help of the MOOSE service ship.
Instead of bringing the relatively spacious satellite workshop that was the Space Shuttle along with you, the MOOSE orbital servicing plan is a little more Kerbal, cutting out non-essentials such as crew comfort and a nice sheltered work space. This MOOSE would probably have been more comfortable than getting roasted in a bag, but basically amounted to a live-in toilet with some manipulator arms, engines and RCS thrusters for chasing down satellites, a heat shield for delta-v saving aerobraking maneuvers and the most adorable set of spacesuit arms sticking out the front.
The discomfort would be temporary, however, and you’d fly back to your space station after 2-3 days of wrenching and transfer orbits and unwind. While we are definitely entering an era of CubeSats, SmallSats and mega-constellations of “commodity hardware” that will be more expendable than past satellites, we will continue to have on orbit servicing needs, especially as we start to live and work in space. It looks like the next generation of orbital repair and refuel missions will be conducted by robots: Northrop Grumman recently docked it’s Mission Extension Vehicle to Intelsat IS-901 to act as a life extending guidance and control system.
While the two MOOSE systems we’ve discussed never came to be, I have to assume that they will be cited as foundational schemes for many space projects to come, and while the near future of satellite repair is going to be robotic, we can’t be more than a few years away from a Red Bull sponsored astronaut diving from low earth orbit in a bag while heavy metal plays in the background.