NASA's Orion capsule makes splashdown in Hampton

On Thursday, NASA dropped 18,000 pounds of space capsule into a million gallons of water just to see what would happen.

Not unexpectedly, there was a huge splash.

The results will help safeguard astronauts on America's next-generation Orion spaceships, which will splash down into the ocean on return from manned missions, as opposed to the runway landings made for decades by the space shuttle.

The return to Apollo-style splashdowns makes sense, said Lynn Bowman, manager of the aptly named SPLASH Team.

Earth, she noted, is more than 60 percent water.

NASA Langley Research Center is testing the Orion crew capsule design and abort scenarios.

For the tests, NASA built a million-gallon "hydro impact basin" underneath its supportive steel gantry, where Apollo astronauts in the 1960s trained for moonwalks. Bowman said the Structural Passive Landing Attenuation for Survivability of Human crew team chose its name so it could have the acronym SPLASH.

On Thursday, the capsule was suspended from a collar that could be pulled up and back, then released to allow the spacecraft to swing forward, like a child's playground swing. Explosive bolts released the capsule at the proper time and allowed it to drop.

Depending on the angle of the capsule in the collar, the timing of the drop and the height of the swing, various scenarios can be tested.

"What goes up must come down," said Dave Bowles, head of exploration and space operations directorate. "What we're doing here at Langley is making sure when Orion does come back down, it comes down safely."

Nobody knows when that's going to happen because of federal budget battles.

Thursday's test was intended to see what would happen if the capsule landed in rough seas, impacting its heat shield and side structures.

As word spread that the test was about to begin, workers from various parts of the Langley campus began trickling in to watch. A previous test splashed about 10,000 gallons of water out of the basin, Bowman said, a spectacle that tends to draw sightseers. Thursday's test was the first time the news media had been allowed to watch.

Cherie Walton, an explosives safety officer at Langley, had brought a folding chair.

"It's really fun," she said. "There's this long waiting period. But that last minute is so exciting, when it flies through the air and splashes. That puppy really displaces water."

Technicians had begun preparing for the test at 6 a.m. Not until 3:18 p.m. did the crew begin pulling the collar and capsule into the swing position, and about 4, an expectant hush fell over the crowd.

"You'd think church was getting ready to start," someone whispered. Seven minutes later, the countdown began.

On zero, the cables released, the collar swung forward, the bolts popped, the capsule dropped and the water surged. "Yay!" cheered the crowd and then "Oooooo" as the capsule tried to tip over.

But the capture net of cargo straps and foam blocks held it upright, and Bowman smiled.

"This is exactly what we wanted to see," she said.

And the crowd agreed.

Diane Tennant, (757) 446-2478, diane.tennant@pilotonline.com