Catching spaceprobes with Very Large Hooks

[fluffymark]

Righty, say you’ve got this space probe thats got a very valuable cargo. In fact, lets say been pootling around the solar system for a few years collecting highly precious particles of solar wind, which nobody has ever managed to collect before. Valuable stuff. And you want to get it back down to Earth to analyse it, right? What would you do?

Say you plan to parachute the precious sample into the Earth’s atmosphere, and, wait for it....
attempt to catch the re-entry pod in mid-air before it hits the ground hard using a Helicopter with a Very Large Hook. *boggle* Total madness, right? Something more likely to be found in a outrageous Hollywood film plot?

NASA intend to catch the Genesis capsule in exactly that way tomorrow. And they’re even using Hollywood stunt pilots to do it. *stunned*. Expect a movie to be made of this one, methinks. Eeeep. I wish them lots of luck.

What I’d like to know is, who came up with this mind-boggling plan? And how do I apply for that job?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Sort of, the net is on the capsule rather than the aircraft.
The aim is to grab some of the shroud lines or the parachute with the hook, as it's a reasonably large target.
To catch CORONA capsules, some aircraft had weird devices like giant lacross sticks behind them. You have to wonder how they managed to fly properly like that.