In the early 1960’s, everybody in the aerospace community knew that the skies would soon be filled with space vehicles, civilian and military. And where there are lots of people, eventually something will screw up. Consequently, corporations such as Martin studied escape capsule concepts. In the case of Martin, what they came up with was “EGRESS” (EMERGENCY GLOBAL RESCUE, ESCAPE, AND SURVIVAL SYSTEM). It was a modification of the B-58 Hustler escape capsule; beefed up, provided with a re-entry heat shield and a basic attitude control system, and in some versions, stretched sideways to fit two.
As was normal for such efforts, Martin’s artists whipped up promotional artwork. In one case, the artist managed to slip through one rare bit of reality. In this two-seat EGRESS, the left-hand occupant – basically the pilot – is a square-jawed stoic test pilot straight out of central casting. In the right-hand seat – a passenger – is a man who clearly has a better grasp of the dire situation than his oblivious buddy.
Diagrams of EGRESS:
7 Responses to “The best piece of aerospace art EVAR!”
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Oh, that’s a gem!
It reminds me of the José Jiménez line:
“Is that a crash helmet you are wearing?”
“Oh, I sure hope not…” 🙂
That one gets bookmarked.
I sent a link to this over to sci.space.history and .policy BTW.
…Oh man, that *IS* priceless! Almost as much fun as seeing the whining catamites at 3D Gladiators all get caught sucking dead toads! A classic find, Scott!
Call me old fashioned, but if I were going to try a emergency escape from a spacecraft, I’d sort of like to be wearing a full pressure suit.
There’s info on the B-58 escape capsule this was evolved from here:
http://www.ejectionsite.com/eb58caps.htm
One of these men took his Valium…one of these did not…
Of Course the Guy on the Right when looking at the pictue is calm…. After all HE’S got the joystick!
Randy
[…] early 1960’s concepts out of Martin Aircraft were the EGRESS survival system (a modified B-58 Hustler ejection seat/capsule married to a re-entry heat shield […]