In many movies and media that depict real-life spacecraft, or near-future spacecraft that are logical progressions of real-life spacecraft, they show the abort handle or button or switch. What would happen in real-life if this handle was pulled during any given moment during space flight; takeoff, orbit, halfway to the moon, etc.?
In: Technology
It really depends on the space craft. In the case of Apollo and the Falcon 9 hitting the abort during launch fires explosive bolts and emergency thrusters that will kick the spacecraft away from the rocket. Which allows it to land safely. Now the abort button on say the lunar module if pressed would fire the accent stage thruster forcing the decent stage away from the accent stage allowing the lunar module to reach lunar orbit. There is really no abort during the trip to the moon. If a spacecraft has to return like Apollo 13 did you have to change the craft delta v to basically slingshot around the moon.
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