Safety for Spacecraft Crashworthiness and Crew Survivability

Space capsule crew injury protection from landing forces originated from research originally conducted into fast jet ejection. There, the primary focus was on the protection of the pilot’s spine from over-compression and led to the one-dimensional Dynamic Response Index (DRI) for assessing the spinal injury potential of measured acceleration pulses. This resulted in the expansion of the DRI measure into the three-dimensional Brinkley Index which has been used extensively by NASA for the prediction of astronaut whole-body injury potential from landings, launch pad aborts and other transient acceleration events.