Quote Originally Posted by Elizabeth Greene View Post
There's the problem. You're thinking of these as being lifeboats ejected from the spacecraft. That wasn't the case. The idea was that everyone would climb into these inside the failing spacecraft and then someone in an EVA or IVA suit would pick up the balls, clip them onto a lanyard, and pull them out through the airlock. That's why they the Spaceballs didn't have any propulsion systems on board; it would have been dangerous to have hypergolic or cold gas thrusters stowed inside the Shuttlle.

If the idea sounds super sketchy to you, you're right and NASA agrees. The technology never flew because of the first limitation you mentioned (no way to launch a second shuttle fast enough). The emergency plan was, IIRC, to don IVA pressure suits (the orange ones they used at launch), search for the leak, flood make-up gas to keep pressure in the cabin, and abort to reentry. In the event of a rapid depressurization the make-up gas couldn't handle long enough to don IVA suits then we would have renamed a bunch of high schools. That was the reality of being a shuttle astronaut.

The abort plan for the ISS is almost precisely what you describe. Whenever anything major goes wrong, (fire, leak, etc) they can pile into the abort spacecraft (Soyuz or crew dragon), and abort to reentry if the situation cannot be controlled. There are always enough abort craft attached to the spacecraft to hold all of the crew aboard.

(I am not an expert on this topic.)
I was thinking there was a Soyuz craft similar to the retired US space shuttle permanently docked at the ISS just for that reason.
Instead of retiring all of the falling bricks to museums one of them could have been remote launched without a crew and docked there as well.
I've never liked the USA having to rely on any other country for a ride into or returned from the ISS.
The whole world's space program is about 50 years behind where it could have been by now.
To me the ISS is just skylab 3.0 Construction started in 1998 wasn't even completed until 2011 and originally only slated to operate until 2020. then extended until 2024 but possibly may get another reprieve through 2028 or 2030. I think there are a lot of factors to consider one of which may be radiation shielding saturation, metal fatigue, systems repair or the possibility of future upgrades.
I realize it is not thought feasible or even possible to gently nudge it into a high orbit due to differences in LEO and HEO design characteristics, but if it were possible I think parking it half way between the Earth and the moon even if it took 10 years to nudge it to an orbit that far out could yield many benefits they may not even know about at this time. like possibly a way station for mining operations further out in the asteroid belt to be shuttled to the moon or to the earth.