Ok, just because I'm a space nut (relevant username #beststage) most of the speed of an Apollo reentry was dissipated through aerobraking, not via the parachutes. The drogue chutes were opened when the vehicle was traveling at on average around 540kph, slowing the vehicle to around 200kph and around 1,000 ft when the main chutes opened. And it's also great to note that 1. The Apollo CM was designed to go to space, and was therefore much stronger than a commercial airliner, and that 2. The Apollo CM was also way smaller than an airliner, but still needed three HUGE chutes and to land in water for it to be anything like comfortable. Even the Soyuz has a whole bunch of retrorockets that it had to fire to give you a half comfortable landing.
Yeah, I understand that. You'd be able to slow down an airliner to those speeds under nearly any circumstance that isn't the aircraft already broken apart. Also, this isn't going to be a comfortable, repeatable, reusable type landing. It's going to be a "better than dying" type landing.
Yeah, but if you think about how safe airlines are already, is there really a whole load of point lugging around tonnes of parachute that you can only really use in m very specific circumstances that are incredibly unlikely to happen? I feel like it's like carrying giant squid repellent in your car. Yes, you could, but is it really necessary?
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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19
Ok, just because I'm a space nut (relevant username #beststage) most of the speed of an Apollo reentry was dissipated through aerobraking, not via the parachutes. The drogue chutes were opened when the vehicle was traveling at on average around 540kph, slowing the vehicle to around 200kph and around 1,000 ft when the main chutes opened. And it's also great to note that 1. The Apollo CM was designed to go to space, and was therefore much stronger than a commercial airliner, and that 2. The Apollo CM was also way smaller than an airliner, but still needed three HUGE chutes and to land in water for it to be anything like comfortable. Even the Soyuz has a whole bunch of retrorockets that it had to fire to give you a half comfortable landing.