Escape pod

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For other uses of the term, see Escape pod (disambiguation).

An escape pod is a capsule or craft used to escape a vessel in an emergency, usually only big enough for one person. An escape ship is larger, more complete craft also used for the same purpose. Escape pods are usually seen in science fiction, but have been used in real life to escape from supersonic aircraft.

Famous escape ships/pods include:

[edit] Non-fiction

  • The B-58 Hustler, XB-70 Valkyrie, F-111 Aardvark and B-1A Lancer all used enclosed escape crew capsules of some kind, because they were intended to fly too high or too fast for safe use of conventional ejection seats.
  • Although not designed or intended as one, Apollo 13 used the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) as a lifeboat when the service module suffered an explosion causing the command module to have to be shut down. The 3 man crew lived for an extended period in the 2 man LEM and even used the LEM's engine to realign the trajectory of the entire vehicle. The crew exited the LEM "Lifeboat" shortly before re-entry, jettisoning it and using up the last power and O2 in the service module that they had saved by using the LEM.
  • The single Soviet "Mike" class submarine did have an escape capsule, that was jettisoned upon it's sinking in 1989. Some Soviet submarines like the Oscar class are rumored to have escape capsules for the crew. (The sinking of the Kursk in 2000 makes this doubtful). However, the Typhoon class Ballistic Missile submarine is also rumoured to have escape pods located near or about the sail. Evidence for this can be found in a German Documentary on the Typhoon class submarine, "Sewerstal" .
  • The documentary can be downloaded or viewed at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4891097475505544351

http://rapidshare.com/files/1430969/typhoonsmall.avi.html

[edit] Fictional uses

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In the movie, President Marshall (Harrison Ford) is taken by Secret Service officers to an escape pod inside the Air Force One airplane, but he launches it only as a decoy and remains hidden inside the plane. The pod is based on the Command Module of the Apollo spacecraft.
The President of the United States escapes Air Force One in an escape pod and lands inside the New York City prison.
Despite there being at least two movies and one computer game featuring Air Force One with an escape pod, the aircraft does not officially carry one.
Players can eject from ships if they are destroyed.
At the end of the first film, Ellen Ripley attempts to kill the Alien by blowing up the Nostromo and escaping in the ship's lifeboat Narcissus. The pod, with Ripley and Jones the cat aboard, is recovered some 57 years later at the start of Aliens.
At the beginning of Alien³ the hibernating bodies of Ripley, Hicks, Newt, and Bishop, are automatically ejected to safety in an emergency escape vehicle when aliens loose aboard the ship cause a fire. The vehicle crash lands on a nearby prison planet, killing Hicks and Newt.
All ships in EVE Online carry one-man capsules that essentially are the ship's cockpit for the hard-wired pilots. These capsules are automatically ejected upon hull breach, functioning as escape pods complete with built-in life support and faster-than-light propulsion.
At the beginning of the game the protagonist, "Master Chief", abandons the Pillar of Autumn warship and lands on the Halo in an escape pod, which is referred to as a lifeboat.
As one of the mission objectives in the level "Air Force One: Anti-Terrorism", Joanna Dark has to escort the President of the United States to an escape pod. In the next mission, after the plane has crash landed, Joanna has to find the pod and activate a distress beacon before rescuing the President from his captors.
Not long after the beginning of the game the player has to enter an escape pod before the ship they are on explodes. The escape pod lands on a nearby planet, and the player has to rest in the safety webbing so that they can survive the landing.
During the Alliance-Reaver space battle, the Alliance Operative abandons his crumbling warship in a bridge escape pod.
Mr Burns uses an escape pod to flee his nuclear power plant, which is undergoing a meltdown thanks to the incompetence of Homer Simpson. His assistant Waylon Smithers makes a vain attempt to gain access, protesting "For the love of God, sir, there are two seats!", to which Burns replies, "I like to put my feet up."
The main antagonist starship Spaceball One features escape pods. Mel Brooks' character, President Skroob, runs for one pod, but a circus bear beats him to it, and declines to vacate it.
In the pilot of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a flashback to the Battle of Wolf 359 depicts Commander Benjamin Sisko and Jake Sisko escaping the doomed USS Saratoga in an escape pod.
In Star Trek: First Contact, Captain Picard decides to defeat the Borg that have assimilated the USS Enterprise, by using the ship's self-destruct mechanism. The crew escape beforehand by means of numerous small escape pods.
In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Changing Face of Evil," during the Second Battle of Chin'toka, the crew of the USS Defiant used escape pods to evacuate when their ship was completely disabled by a Breen power draining weapon.
Escape pods are also used (but rarely seen) in a few episodes of Star Trek: Voyager when shipboard crises forced the crew to flee the eponymous vessel. Often the crew were able to return to the ship once the danger had passed.
In the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "In a Mirror, Darkly," escape pods are used by the crew of the mirror universe ISS Enterprise to escape a Tholian Web. Several of the escape pods are destroyed by impacting the "threads" of the web before Enterprise itself is destroyed by the contracting energy structure.
In Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith General Grievous abandons his Trade Federation cruiser above Coruscant using an escape pod, and jettisons the other escape pods as to prevent the escape of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi from the stricken vessel.
Near the beginning of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO escape the Rebel Blockade Runner when it is captured by a Star Destroyer; Princess Leia directs them to deliver vital strategic information to Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine, where the pod crashes, and the droids are first captured by Jawas and later bought by Luke Skywalker's uncle.
All multiplayer ships have an escape pod which can be used by passengers and the pilot to escape from the ship. The player lands on the last planet they set foot upon.
Goa'uld ships are equipped with sarcophagus like escape pods designed for a single occupant. Anubis' mothership also possessed an escape pod capable of hyperspace travel.
As the ship Rodger Young is destroyed above Planet P, Carmen and Zander evacuate in one of the ship's escape pods; however their pod lands in a bug cave deep underground.
  • In Solaris (1972) by Andrei Tarkovsky the astronaut Kris Kelvin tries to get rid of the ghostlike incarnation of his former wife by locking her in a space pod and firing her out into space.
In System Shock the player can attempt to depart Citadel station in an escape pod after setting the self destruct sequence but SHODAN prevents the launch.
In System Shock 2 the player launches himself into the body of The Many using one of the UNN Rickenbackers escape pods. At the end of the game, SHODAN is seen possessing the body of one of the survivors that managed to get into a Von Braun escape pod.
In the episode The Foot Soldiers Are Revolting, Alpha One sends out Shredder and Krang into Dimension X space by throwing them into an escape pod in the Technodrome and launching it away. Later in the episode, they manage to return.

[edit] See also