Trapped underground since early August, thirty-three miners in Chile will be using a modified NASA-designed rescue capsule – able to bring each miner topside from over 2,000 feet below ground.
News reports have spotlighted the efforts of NASA engineer Clinton Cragg, who designed the rescue capsule with a specially-assembled team at the space agency’s Langley Research Center in Virginia.
Taking the original NASA capsule design, the Chilean navy refined them and built the capsule.
NASA responded to a request from the government of Chile, submitted through the U.S. Department of State, to provide technical advice that might assist the trapped miners.
The NASA team of two medical doctors, a psychologist and an engineer traveled to Chile to assess the situation in late August.
That team consisted of: Dr. Michael Duncan, deputy chief medical officer in the Space Life Sciences Directorate at Johnson Space Center; physician James Polk and psychologist Albert Holland from NASA Johnson; and Clint Cragg, principal engineer with the NASA Engineering and Safety Center located at NASA’s Langley.
To assist in the rescue effort of the trapped miners, NASA’s long experience in training and planning for emergencies in human spaceflight and its protection of humans in the hostile environment of space was called upon.
By LD/CSE