Central Florida News reported this on Nov. 4, 2006.
KSC Safety Roller Coaster (click for full coverage)
NASA plans to build an $8 million roller coaster at the launch pad for the next generation of space vehicles.
Astronauts could use the coaster rail car system to escape from the launch pad in an emergency.
This $8 million dollar roller coaster caught my attention immediately, and just out of curiosity, I'd like to know how much it would be for a ride.
After a quick search on Wikipedia, the first human spaceflight was launched in the 1960's. There were a total of 116 launches in the past 45 years with 4 failure/partial failures.
If the new escape system has, say 20 years life, so the chance it get used mathematically would be around twice in the life time. I assume the basic construction would last much longer, thus subtract at least half of the total building cost.
The result for each ride for the system will be roughly $2 million dollars.
I know this is important system and it would save lives when emergency. I just feel it's something won't be done anywhere else then in the US.
A million dollar roller coaster for escape, how much cooler can this be?
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