Gene Locke wrote:I was researching the PX-15 project, the Benjamin Franklin, also known as the Gulf Stream Drift Mission, and had a thought. Considering that space exploration is once again taking off, so to speak, I find it suprising that nobody has reviewed the whole undersea/space analog mission template.It's probably been forgotten. The guys working on the space program now are too young to remember it. NASA has probably filed all the information with the National Archives. I'm a bit of a space nut as well as being into submarines, so maybe I'm just seeing things from a different perspective. Seems to me that revisting the mission model for the PX-15 could provide some valuable data for both manned space flight and marine science.I've played with the idea of a drift sub. I don't have a safe place to operate one (the Chesapeake Bay is the nearest big water; the rivers are too shallow, too narrow, or too traveled). The concept seems a good one. No power would certainly reduce both the number of penetrations and the complexity of the electrical system. M -- Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you will be dismembered and broiled in a garlic sauce. |