OK, I may have gotten carried away in the broader scheme, but let's focus on your claim that Columbia had a separable crew cabin designed to survive reentry down to an ejection-capable altitude

EP Gondine said: You have to remember that Columbia was vehicle one - structurally it was different from the later shuttles. As for where you can get the information on the Columbia abort system, including the explosive bolt crew cabin/main body separation system, the NASA library may be about it, unless you happen to know someone who has a private copy of it - someone who really does not want to be bothered by most people... and I'm pretty sure that I can't help you there. The people who need(ed) that material, certainly have it - you might want to contact one of them -

Sure, I know that Columbia was different in certain ways, and know that Columbia originally had ejection seats which were removed after the first four test flights.

But the separable crew compartment thing just doesn't make sense. As I said, I've read a LOT of technical documentation on the shuttle program and have never ever seen a reference to such a thing. I read everthing I could find about Columbia's first few flights back when they actually happened, and no one ever suggested the crew had the ability to escape in that way. Why wasn't the public told that in 1981 if it was built in at the time?

I've been on discussion boards where people who were actually involved with the engineering way back when are debating obscure points of the design of Gemini capsule. You're telling me that as a whole, the space community has forgotten that a truly major feature like that existed on Columbia, and then was removed and never built into the subsequent four orbiters? That not a single retired engineer or a single enthusiast who DID go find the docs in the NASA library has been speaking about this?

It is even less credible to suggest that such information is essentially "lost" at NASA -- only to be found in some obscure file in a library, or some former employee who won't want to talk about it. IF that capability was really installed on Columbia, and later removed, that would have been a MAJOR engineering change, involving many workers and many many documents. Just as signifcant as removing the ejection seats themselves, and not something that would just have been forgotten by everyone involved.

If you're saying this was merely a design that was considered but never built, that's another thing, but you seem to be saying it really flew like that.

Not to mention, a quick Google search found several post-2003 articles about the Shuttles which specifically talked about NASA considering the addition of a crew-compartment separation system for emergencies, and rejecting it because it would require major redesign of the vehicles and cost at least 1 billion. Are you saying that none of the journalists in question, none of the technical people they talked to, remembered that such a system ALREADY HAD BEEN DESIGNED AND BUILT-IN before!? To Columbia at least.

I suppose you could be implying there has been a NASA conspiracy, going all the way back to the late 1970s, to keep quiet the fact that such a system was ever built in, but you seemed to be saying you were NOT claiming that. And why would they have such a conspiracy anyway?

Sorry, EP, but I can not find this claim of a crew cabin jettison capability even remotely credible until you provide some sort of documentation to back it up.