A SPACE-AGE solution to the problem of rescuing people from burning
skyscrapers has been designed by an aeroscape engineer. It’s a vertical take-off
platform that zooms up tall buildings so people can escape through the windows
onto the comparative safety of the platform.
Horrified by NASA’s Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986, David
Metreveli—who was then working at the Moscow Aviation
Institute—designed a rocket-powered escape pod for the Soviet Union’s
space shuttle the Buran. But the Buran project was abandoned and in 1993
Metreveli emigrated to Israel, where his company DM Aerosafe Group is developing
new aeronautical escape…
