Question Chance of this happening

[Kaito]

I was daydreaming today, and this scenario popped into my head:

An XR-2 rolls out onto a runway on Ascension Island and looks to its left to see an XR-5 heading full speed towards it for take-off. The XR-5 pulls up, but its nose wheel smacks into the XR-2, breaking it off, causing the nose to pitch downward, causing excess stress on the wings, causing them to break off, causing the XR-5 to crash into the ground, killing the crew and destroying the cargo onboard.

That cargo was scheduled to be attached to a space station, which was scheduled to be completed being built in a month, and those parts were essential. So, the construction is halted. However, those parts also contained a docking module for a return vessel from a lunar mission, who's TEI was 1 day ago.

The lunar vessel does not have a "CSM", just a non-standard docking port. The vessel is carrying regolith samples that will help NASA determine the best way to turn the moon dust into drinking water to help support the semi-permanent lunar base. The lunar base is low on water, and since Ascension Island is shut down because of the accident, the base can no longer get a water transport, seeing as how a ship that was supposed to send the water was on Ascension Island.

Congradulations moron, you just killed the lunar settlers.

So lets go over, in a nutshell, what went wrong:
-Station cant be built
-Regolith samples cant be returned
-Astronatus on moon die

What are the chances of this sequence of events happening? I know things like "the special docking port" aren't going to happen, but still

~Kaito

 

[Hielor]

I was daydreaming today, and this scenario popped into my head:

An XR-2 rolls out onto a runway on Ascension Island and looks to its left to see an XR-5 heading full speed towards it for take-off. The XR-5 pulls up, but its nose wheel smacks into the XR-2, breaking it off, causing the nose to pitch downward, causing excess stress on the wings, causing them to break off, causing the XR-5 to crash into the ground, killing the crew and destroying the cargo onboard.

That cargo was scheduled to be attached to a space station, which was scheduled to be completed being built in a month, and those parts were essential. So, the construction is halted. However, those parts also contained a docking module for a return vessel from a lunar mission, who's TEI was 1 day ago.

The lunar vessel does not have a "CSM", just a non-standard docking port. The vessel is carrying regolith samples that will help NASA determine the best way to turn the moon dust into drinking water to help support the semi-permanent lunar base. The lunar base is low on water, and since Ascension Island is shut down because of the accident, the base can no longer get a water transport, seeing as how a ship that was supposed to send the water was on Ascension Island.

Congradulations moron, you just killed the lunar settlers.

So lets go over, in a nutshell, what went wrong:
-Station cant be built
-Regolith samples cant be returned
-Astronatus on moon die

What are the chances of this sequence of events happening? I know things like "the special docking port" aren't going to happen, but still

~Kaito

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_disaster

 

[ryan]

That would be an intresting scenario to fly, you have to get to the lunar crew in your XR2 before there O2 runs out, a sort of beat the clock flight and looming in the corner will be the clock counting down the time you have to get to the lunar vessel.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

And I'd fire the mission planner. Having a mission go active and rely on something that might or not happen is...bad...

 

[Hielor]

That would be an intresting scenario to fly, you have to get to the lunar crew in your XR2 before there O2 runs out, a sort of beat the clock flight and looming in the corner will be the clock counting down the time you have to get to the lunar vessel.

In the original scenario, the XR2 was specified to have been struck by the nosewheel of the XR5--I doubt that it will be going anywhere anytime soon...

 

[Nerull]

No sane person would ever launch a mission like that. It's suicide. We all know how often delays happen - would they let the mission crew die because there was a rain delay and they missed their launch window?

You have support infrastructure in place before you launch. If you're that close to completing it, than you can wait a few days to launch the mission.

 

[RisingFury]

The chances of this happening are pretty much 0.

- For one, the crew on the Moon will always have a way back home without having to wait for a ride from Earth.

- A space port will never be handled the same was an an airport is. There won't be taxing and taking off all over the place the way you see now, making collisions between two space craft pretty unlikely.

- Even if it came to the impact you described, it wouldn't be as dramatic. The nose gear would be torn off and the front of the XR2 would be smashed...

 

[Hielor]

- Even if it came to the impact you described, it wouldn't be as dramatic. The nose gear would be torn off and the front of the XR2 would be smashed...

If the XR5 tried to pull up before having sufficient speed, it's very likely that he would've stalled, causing him to crash similar to the manner that Kaito described.

 

[Star Voyager]

I would like to know where the ATC is in all this. No sensible person would build a spceport without ATC.

 

[Hielor]

I wuld like to know where the ATC is in all this. No sensible person would build a spceport without ATC.

Runway incursions can happen even at towered airports...

 

[Star Voyager]

That's true, but even a common airspace frequency, you know...

 

[MJR]

It would be the pilots fault. You are supposed to look well around on takeoff and turns close to the airport.

 

[TMac3000]

Certainly the crash itself is possible: no matter how good pilots are, accidents can still happen. But the dramatic consequences you described are most unlikely. Astronauts and mission control people are far too carefull to not think about something like that before clearing the mission. They would probably have a DG-IV or two on standby at Cape Canaveral to take over the mission if the XR launch got scrubbed.

 

[insanity]

ATC, trained pilots (you have to be a damn good pilot before you even come close to putting your hands on the yoke of any spacecraft), and proper planning would nullify the chance of this scenario happening. However, anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

 

[Piper]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_disaster

That's the first thing that came to my mind too. As for runway incursions, they do happen a lot more then people realize, even with trained pilots. It wasn't a runway incursion, but I had a bit a close call today actually. I was flying at 2000ft over a section of Ottawa called Bell's Corners doing a 360deg turn, when another aircraft radioed in to tower saying he was over Bell's Corners at 2000ft. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy about that, luckily everything turned out fine, he wasn't that close and I was able to continue on to the airport at that point.

So yes, stuff like this happens a lot more often then people realize (this was not my first close call, I've had a lot closer), even at controlled airports/airspace (like what happened to me today), and with very experienced pilots (like Tenerife, which was also controlled). In fact, the Captain of the KLM B-747 that essentially caused the crash at Tenerife, had over 11,000 hours, and was one of the best and most experienced pilots that KLM had at the time.

With all that said, I can't imagine a base on the moon not having it's own way to get back to Earth in an emergency. In all likelihood, it would have some form of escape spacecraft for emergencies just like this, just like the Soyuz modules on the station.

 

[RisingFury]

If the XR5 tried to pull up before having sufficient speed, it's very likely that he would've stalled, causing him to crash similar to the manner that Kaito described.

Stalled? Like it's actually flying on wings..........................

From what I've seen, the XR either pulls up or it dosn't. You have to reduce throttle or kill the engines to get it to stall. Even if you get it to stall, hitting the engines makes it go up right away.



Oh and let's not compare airports to space ports. Rockets have a tendency to go straight up, opposed to planes... which makes their thrust quite considerably higher.
That said, I'd expect the ATC and spaceport procedures to be quite a lot different then airport procedures. For one, rocket powered craft would be towed out to the runway (if they would indeed take off from runways) and second, because of the massive thrust and noise levels, I would think they wouldn't launch within 5 minute intervals.