6 Terrifying Emergency Escape Pods (That Aren't Worth It)

6 The Lunar Escape System

In the year 1500, Chinese bureaucrat Wan Hu attempted the first manned rocket flight by strapping hundreds of fireworks to his chair and lighting the fuse. He lifted a few feet off of the ground, and quite reasonably exploded. Roughly 500 years later, with the help of centuries of careful consideration and all the industriousness of mankind's collective genius, NASA sat down with intricate blueprints, cutting-edge technology and the greatest minds of the day, and said, "Hey, what ever happened to that rocket chair thing?"

This is the Lunar Escape System (LESS).

A sprocket of engineers (that's what you call a group of them -- we looked it up) called the Apollo Applications Program were planning a series of long-duration moon stays, and got all the way to the design stage before NASA pulled the plug. But the blueprints were already complete: AAP had laid out everything for these extended trips to Earth's moon. Even an escape system, should the lander fail after idle weeks spent on the abrasive lunar surface.

In the event of a lander failure, instead of curling up into a ball and seeing how many tears moon dust can absorb (Hint: It's zero. They just pool in your face mask), you could unpack the Lunar Escape System from beneath the ship, assemble it like an IKEA bookshelf, then siphon off fuel from the lander and strap yourself on.

Yes, we meant "on": You sat on top of the damn thing. There were no walls, no ceiling. Just a chair, you and open space.

Once you were belted into your hastily assembled rocket chair filled with stolen fuel, you simply aimed for that tiny glimmer of light in between the stars. That was your Command Module. It's been up there the whole time, orbiting the moon, ready to take you home. All you have to do is hit it ... exactly.

This was accomplished using math and explosions and little else: The computer was deemed "too heavy" to be necessary, so it was up to the copilot to run all the calculations on a scratchpad, trying to work out the precise trajectory of both the LESS and that pinprick of light miles up in space. And if he forgot to carry a 1 and delayed the pickup by a few hours, then you both died in a vacuum. Because the LESS had no life support systems, aside from the four hours of air in the suit's backpacks, much of which would likely be used in the preparation stages. If literally anything went less than perfectly -- if one external variable went wrong, or if any component failed -- two astronauts went hurtling off into the blackness of space on the worst Bungee Chair Ride in history.

5 The Launch Escape System

Let's set the scene: You and your crew are manning one of America's finest early rockets, and by "finest" we of course mean "whatever we could slap together out of war surplus as fast as possible, cuz we got to beat those commies in this here game of space tag!"

We don't know why that NASA scientist is talking like a grizzled old prospector; it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round. Besides, you've got bigger things to worry about: The launch countdown just reached zero, the rockets are firing and holy shit, you're doing it! You're going to space! You're going ... sideways?

Oh. Well, that's it. You're dead. You had a good run, but everybody knows that rocket launches are like first impressions: You only get one chance at them, and if something goes wrong, everybody is on fire.

That's how we, the ignorant, casual space fans, tend to think of rocket launches, anyway. But that's not necessarily true: NASA actually did have backup plans. If something went wrong on a launch, and your main rocket was set to explode, there was another, smaller emergency rocket attached to your capsule. The capsule would detonate a series of explosive bolts that detached your emergency rocket from the exploding rocket and rocketed you sideways away from the main rocket's explosion, and then, when you were far enough away, more explosive bolts would explode, detaching you from the main rocket's escape rocket and then rocket rocket explosion rocket.

Hey, don't fault them for fixing every problem with explosions and rockets; NASA was a group comprised almost entirely of rocket scientists. When you ask a bunch of plumbers to fix a car, they're all going to start looking for leaks.

But despite this whole system reading like a Michael Bay movie about the Fourth of July, the one time a Launch Escape System was actually needed, it was a total success. In 1983, a Russian Soyuz rocket tried to launch and things went awry. The Launch Escape System quickly boosted the capsule to safety, propelling the cosmonauts almost 2,000 feet, where they achieved G-forces of about 17G. They eventually parachuted down safely, 2.5 miles away from the launch site. When interviewed later, the commander said the first thing he did after the Launch Escape System initiated was turn off the cockpit voice recorder, because "we were swearing."

No seriously, that's what he actually said. Why would you even doubt that? What would you do while being flipped through a Jacob's Ladder of exploding missiles -- recite poetry?

4 The Personal Rescue Enclosure

Early space shuttles were designed to carry a crew of four, but usually packed fewer space suits than crew members, out of both concern for weight and a keen sense of cinematic drama that bordered on the cruel. Long story short: If the entire crew ever had to abandon the shuttle for some reason, somebody was getting left behind. Jesus, it's starting to seem like every troubleshooting guide for early space flight missions simply read:

Restart system.

Did restarting fix problem?

If yes, high five.

If no, die in space.

But it's not hopeless: You'll still have the Personal Rescue Enclosure! Designed to be an easy, low-cost alternative to a spacesuit, in the event of an emergency an astronaut crawled inside the PRE ...

... sealed it, donned an oxygen mask and safely waited for help to arrive. Here's what that looked like:

As you can see, the PRE was tiny. It was only about 3 feet in diameter, meaning you'd have to curl up into a tiny ball to fit inside of it, which shouldn't have been too hard, as the fetal position is a perfectly natural response to being abandoned in the cold vastness of space with nothing but a giant, clear hamster ball between you and the abyss. If the claustrophobia doesn't have you chewing your own arms off, you should be perfectly safe ...

... for about one hour.

That's how much oxygen the PRE holds. But if you happen to be in one of the many places in outer space that can't be reached in an hour, there's the matter of guidance and propulsion, which you won't have to worry about, because the PRE has neither of those things. With the short life span, the complete lack of control and the tight quarters that have your legs practically wrapped around your own head, the only thing we can imagine the PRE being useful for is spending a good, solid hour kissing your ass goodbye in the relative privacy of outer space.

3 The Noah

The Noah tsunami escape pod is marketed as "the only product guaranteed to protect against tsunamis, earthquakes and typhoons." And while that descriptor brings to mind images of concrete bunkers and invincible robots, you're going to need to scale your expectations down a little if you want to avoid disappointment.

No, even more than that.

Way more. OK, let's just scale them aaaaallll the way down to a metal ball with a stripper pole in the middle of it. Because that's what the Noah is:

The Noah's main, and essentially only, defense against a foaming wall of death is the fact that it is both sealed and buoyant. When the wave hits, the pod should be (and you know better than to find the phrase "should be" reassuring by now, don't you?) carried along with the tsunami, rather than sink under it.

So what's the problem, then? The only danger in a tsunami is sinking -- not being crushed by all the debris that's been lifted up and hurled at you by the wave, not being buried beneath thousands of tons of wreckage above you -- it's totally just the sinking thing, right? And this here doesn't sink.

We've established that.

So you're good to go. You can crawl smugly into your giant Pac-Man orb and just wait for that wave to pick you up and whip you along at about 45 mph, where you hopefully never encounter another solid object. Because on the off chance that you do run into something -- and this stupid world tends to be full of those pesky "somethings" -- that means you're getting into a near highway-speed collision inside of a glorified Pokeball with a frightened stripper grimly contemplating her own mortality.

2 The SEIE MK 10

Quick, think up a concept for an escape pod on a submarine.

Time's up!

What'd you come up with? It's a buoyant metal sphere, isn't it? Half this list is inappropriate spheres for desperate optimists to die inside of, but this time it finally makes sense! Huzzah!

Nope! You're way off. That's not how you escape a submarine. This is:

That's the Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment Mark 10. It's like a dry suit for the frumpy and self-conscious submariner. It's even got a little built-in fanny pack so you can embarrass any potential Aqua-Men you pass on the way up. The SEIE is carefully weighted so you will float at a relatively slow rate to avoid decompression sickness, and, because these designers have thought of everything, it's also a life raft.

No, there isn't a life raft and supplies in that fanny pack, silly. Who wants to get out of that big ol' suit and climb into a whole separate thing? That sounds hard, and you just survived a submarine crash. Don't you deserve to take a little break? You simply press a little valve on the suit and ...

Bam.

A one-man life raft. A completely autonomous -- though totally immobile, leaving you bobbing there awkwardly with your legs dangling beneath you like shark commercials advertising the bloated beach ball stuffed with tasty meat filling that is your bright red body -- and self-sufficient flotation device. This isn't a peek into the wacky, failed future: SEIEs are being deployed on American submarines right now. If you just can't wait to get your Baron Harkonnen on, they can even be bought off the Internet this very second.

1 Project M.O.O.S.E.

Project MOOSE is the single most terrifying form of transport ever devised by man. Here it is:

Oh hey, that doesn't seem so bad. It looks like a seed or something. Kinda cute. So what does it do, float or something?

Wait, is that a space suit? Does that ... does that say "parachute," "ablation shield" and "crush up foam"? Yep, this right here is an escape pod designed for astronauts to return back to Earth, from outer space ... without a ship.

Imagine it: The worst has come to pass, and your shuttle is breaking apart. You climb into the airlock and start to unpack the escape pod. In bright red letters, it says: The MOOSE. Well that's ... less than confidence-inspiring, isn't it? Also a bit worrisome: The fact that the thing that you're about to hurtle downward in at incredible speeds, through a burning atmosphere, to the Earth's surface, miles below, all fits inside of a suitcase. It's all just a bit disconcerting.

And that's before you pull it out and realize the whole thing is nothing more than a transparent plastic sack with a bit of metal underneath and a rocket for guidance ... that you hold. With your hands. It looks like a bag that you'd bring home groceries in and a small fire extinguisher. That's your entire spacecraft. But oh well. Your alternative is certain death, so you might as well opt for the uncertain death that the MOOSE offers. You shake that bag out, lay inside of it ...

... press a button on the canister inside, and are covered in what science calls "high-tech heat-resistant polyurethane cushioning gel," but we'll just call it "death lube" (because all it really does is grease your screaming way into the afterlife). So the goo fills the bulk of the MOOSE, and that's it. That's the end. Your spaceship is now complete: You, in a wet sack of foam.

So how about it? Feeling confident about firing yourself at the planet below?

No?

It's OK. That doesn't come as much of a surprise. After all, MOOSE stands for "Man Out Of Space Easiest." Not "quickest" or "safest" or "sanest," just "easiest." Somebody asked the question: "What's the easiest way to get a man out of space?"

And the answer, of course, was "Fuck him. Let him fall."

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For more terrifying vehicles seemingly designed on the back of a middle school Trapper Keeper, check out 7 WTF Military Weapons You Won't Believe They Actually Built and The 5 Most Mind-Blowingly Huge Machines Built By Science.