How NASA Engineers Helped Rescue Trapped Chilean Miners
The poor Chilean miners who were trapped underground for weeks got some help escaping from an unlikely source: NASA. AOL News has a great story on the NASA engineer who helped design the capsule that brought the men up. The account reads like a terrestrial version of Apollo 13. It's awesome. Laura Parker reports:
When Cragg turned over the design elements to the Chilean navy, which refined them and built the capsule, the rescue craft that emerged looked as if it belonged on a science fiction movie's drawing board. Shaped like a cigar canister, with a drop-through escape hatch at the bottom, the capsule is designed to bring all 33 men up, one at a time, on a 20-minute ride from the hellhole where they have been trapped since Aug. 5. It is 13 feet long and weighs 926 pounds. "NASA is in the business of building unique, one-of-a-kind vehicles," Cragg told AOL News. "I thought we could help."
Read the full story at AOL News.
Image: Chile/AP.
Alexis Madrigal is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the host of KQED’s Forum.