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:''For other uses of the term, see Escape pod (disambiguation).''
An 'escape pod' is a capsule or craft used to escape a vessel in an emergency, usually only big enough for one person. An 'escape ship' is larger, more complete craft also used for the same purpose. Escape pods are usually seen in science fiction, but have been used in real life to escape from supersonic aircraft.
Famous escape ships/pods include:
★ The B-58 Hustler, F-111 Aardvark and B-1A bomber all used enclosed escape crew capsules because they were intended to fly too high or too fast for safe use of conventional ejection seats.
★ Some Soviet submarines like the Oscar or the Typhoon classes are rumored to have escape capsules for the crew. (The sinking of the ''Kursk'' in 2000 makes this doubtful).
★ ''Air Force One'' film:
::In the movie, President Marshall (Harrison Ford) was taken by Secret Service to an escape pod inside ''Air Force One'', but he launches it only as a decoy and remains hidden inside the plane. The pod in ''Air Force One'' is based on the Command Module of the Apollo spacecraft.
::Despite at least two movies featuring ''Air Force One'' with an escape pod, the aircraft does not officially carry an escape capsule. However, this cannot be refuted since the exact specifications of the aircraft are classified.
★ ''Allegiance''
::Person that is piloting a ship ejects in an escape pod upon destruction.
★ ''Alien'' film series:
::At the end of the first film, Ellen Ripley attempts to kill the Alien by blowing up the ''Nostromo'' and escaping in the ship's lifeboat ''Narcissus''. The pod, with Ripley and Jones the cat aboard, is recovered some 57 years later, at the start of ''Aliens''.
::At the beginning of ''Alien³'', the hibernating bodies of Ripley, Hicks, Newt, and Bishop, are automatically ejected to safety in an emergency escape vehicle, when aliens loose aboard the ship cause a fire. The vehicle crash lands on a nearby prison planet, killing Hicks and Newt.
★ ''Escape from New York'' film:
::The President of the United States escapes ''Air Force One'' in an escape pod and lands inside the New York City prison.
★ ''EVE Online'' online game:
::All ships in EVE Online carry one-man capsules that essentially are the ship's cockpit for the hard-wired pilots. These capsules are automatically ejected upon hull breach, functioning as escape pods complete with built-in life support and faster-than-light propulsion.
★ '' video game:
::At the beginning of the game, the protagonist, "Master Chief", abandons the ''Pillar of Autumn'' warship and lands on the ''Halo'' in an escape pod, which are referred to as Lifeboats and Lifepods.
★ ''Perfect Dark'' video game:
::As one of the mission objectives in the level "Air Force One: Anti-Terrorism", Joanna Dark has to escort the President of the United States to an escape pod. In the next mission, after the plane has crash landed, Joanna has to find the pod and activate a distress beacon, before rescuing the President from his captors.
★ ''Planetfall'' interactive fiction game:
::Not long after the beginning of the game, the Feinstein explodes and the player has to enter an escape pod before it does. When the Feinstein explodes, the escape pod lands on a nearby planet, and the player has to rest in the safety webbing so that he/she can survive the landing.
★ ''Serenity'' film:
::During the Alliance-Reaver space battle, the Alliance Operative abandons his crumbling warship in a bridge escape pod.
★ ''The Simpsons'' TV show:
::Mr Burns uses an escape pod to flee his nuclear power plant, which is undergoing a meltdown thanks to the incompetence of Homer Simpson. His assistant Waylon Smithers makes a vain attempt to gain access, protesting that, "For the love of God sir there are two seats!", to which Burns replies, "I like to put my feet up."
★ ''Spaceballs'' film:
::''Spaceball One's'' secret weapon is its ability to transform into ''Mega Maid'', a colossal cleaning lady holding a gigantic vacuum cleaner, with a head like that of the Statue of Liberty, and escape pods in the spikes of the crown. Mel Brooks' character, the President, runs for one pod, but a circus bear beat him to it, and wasn't going to give it up.
★ ''Star Trek'' science fiction series:
::In the pilot of '', a flashback to the Battle of Wolf 359 depicts Commander Benjamin Sisko and Jake Sisko escaping the doomed USS ''Saratoga''.
::In '', Captain Picard decides to defeat the Borg that have assimilated the USS ''Enterprise'' in orbit of Earth, by self-destructing the ship: the crew escape beforehand by numerous small escape pods.
::In the '' episode "The Changing Face of Evil," during the Second Battle of Chin'toka, the crew of the USS ''Defiant'' used them to evacuate when their ship was completely disabled by a Breen power draining weapon.
::They were also used (but rarely seen) in a few episodes of '' when shipboard crises forced the crew to flee the title vessel, though they were eventually able to return to the ship once the danger had passed.
★ ''Star Wars'' film series:
::In '', General Grievous abandons his Trade Federation cruiser above Coruscant using an escape pod, and jettisons the other escape pods as to prevent the escape of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi from the stricken vessel.
::Near the beginning of '', the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO escape the Rebel Blockade Runner when it is captured by a Star Destroyer; Princess Leia directs them to deliver vital strategic information to Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine, where the pod crashes, and the droids are first captured by Jawas and later bought by Luke Skywalker's uncle.
★ ''Star Wars Galaxies'' online game:
::All multiplayer ships have an escape pod which can be used by passengers and the pilot to escape from the ship. The player lands on the last planet they set foot upon.
★ ''Stargate SG-1'' science fiction series:
::Goa'uld ships are equipped with sarcophagus like escape pods designed for a single occupant. Anubis' mothership also possessed an escape pod capable of hyperspace travel.
★ ''Starship Troopers'' film:
::As the ship ''Rodger Young'' is destroyed above Planet P, Carmen and Zander evacuate in one of the ship's escape pods; however, their pod lands deep underground, inside a bug cave.
★ In ''Solaris (1972)'' by Andrei Tarkovsky the astronaut Kris Kelvin tries to get rid of the ghostlike incarnation of his former wife by locking her in a space pod and firing her out into space.
★ ''System Shock'' computer game series:
::In ''System Shock'' the player can attempt to depart Citadel station in an escape pod after setting the self destruct sequence but SHODAN prevents the launch.
::In ''System Shock 2'' the player launches himself into the body of The Many using one of the UNN ''Rickenbacker''s escape pods. At the end of the game, SHODAN is seen possessing the body of one of the survivors that managed to get into a ''Von Braun'' escape pod.
★ Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine
★ Lifeboats
★ ''Lifepod'' movie
An 'escape pod' is a capsule or craft used to escape a vessel in an emergency, usually only big enough for one person. An 'escape ship' is larger, more complete craft also used for the same purpose. Escape pods are usually seen in science fiction, but have been used in real life to escape from supersonic aircraft.
Famous escape ships/pods include:
| Contents |
| Non-fiction |
| Fictional uses |
| See also |
Non-fiction
★ The B-58 Hustler, F-111 Aardvark and B-1A bomber all used enclosed escape crew capsules because they were intended to fly too high or too fast for safe use of conventional ejection seats.
★ Some Soviet submarines like the Oscar or the Typhoon classes are rumored to have escape capsules for the crew. (The sinking of the ''Kursk'' in 2000 makes this doubtful).
Fictional uses
★ ''Air Force One'' film:
::In the movie, President Marshall (Harrison Ford) was taken by Secret Service to an escape pod inside ''Air Force One'', but he launches it only as a decoy and remains hidden inside the plane. The pod in ''Air Force One'' is based on the Command Module of the Apollo spacecraft.
::Despite at least two movies featuring ''Air Force One'' with an escape pod, the aircraft does not officially carry an escape capsule. However, this cannot be refuted since the exact specifications of the aircraft are classified.
★ ''Allegiance''
::Person that is piloting a ship ejects in an escape pod upon destruction.
★ ''Alien'' film series:
::At the end of the first film, Ellen Ripley attempts to kill the Alien by blowing up the ''Nostromo'' and escaping in the ship's lifeboat ''Narcissus''. The pod, with Ripley and Jones the cat aboard, is recovered some 57 years later, at the start of ''Aliens''.
::At the beginning of ''Alien³'', the hibernating bodies of Ripley, Hicks, Newt, and Bishop, are automatically ejected to safety in an emergency escape vehicle, when aliens loose aboard the ship cause a fire. The vehicle crash lands on a nearby prison planet, killing Hicks and Newt.
★ ''Escape from New York'' film:
::The President of the United States escapes ''Air Force One'' in an escape pod and lands inside the New York City prison.
★ ''EVE Online'' online game:
::All ships in EVE Online carry one-man capsules that essentially are the ship's cockpit for the hard-wired pilots. These capsules are automatically ejected upon hull breach, functioning as escape pods complete with built-in life support and faster-than-light propulsion.
★ '' video game:
::At the beginning of the game, the protagonist, "Master Chief", abandons the ''Pillar of Autumn'' warship and lands on the ''Halo'' in an escape pod, which are referred to as Lifeboats and Lifepods.
★ ''Perfect Dark'' video game:
::As one of the mission objectives in the level "Air Force One: Anti-Terrorism", Joanna Dark has to escort the President of the United States to an escape pod. In the next mission, after the plane has crash landed, Joanna has to find the pod and activate a distress beacon, before rescuing the President from his captors.
★ ''Planetfall'' interactive fiction game:
::Not long after the beginning of the game, the Feinstein explodes and the player has to enter an escape pod before it does. When the Feinstein explodes, the escape pod lands on a nearby planet, and the player has to rest in the safety webbing so that he/she can survive the landing.
★ ''Serenity'' film:
::During the Alliance-Reaver space battle, the Alliance Operative abandons his crumbling warship in a bridge escape pod.
★ ''The Simpsons'' TV show:
::Mr Burns uses an escape pod to flee his nuclear power plant, which is undergoing a meltdown thanks to the incompetence of Homer Simpson. His assistant Waylon Smithers makes a vain attempt to gain access, protesting that, "For the love of God sir there are two seats!", to which Burns replies, "I like to put my feet up."
★ ''Spaceballs'' film:
::''Spaceball One's'' secret weapon is its ability to transform into ''Mega Maid'', a colossal cleaning lady holding a gigantic vacuum cleaner, with a head like that of the Statue of Liberty, and escape pods in the spikes of the crown. Mel Brooks' character, the President, runs for one pod, but a circus bear beat him to it, and wasn't going to give it up.
★ ''Star Trek'' science fiction series:
::In the pilot of '', a flashback to the Battle of Wolf 359 depicts Commander Benjamin Sisko and Jake Sisko escaping the doomed USS ''Saratoga''.
::In '', Captain Picard decides to defeat the Borg that have assimilated the USS ''Enterprise'' in orbit of Earth, by self-destructing the ship: the crew escape beforehand by numerous small escape pods.
::In the '' episode "The Changing Face of Evil," during the Second Battle of Chin'toka, the crew of the USS ''Defiant'' used them to evacuate when their ship was completely disabled by a Breen power draining weapon.
::They were also used (but rarely seen) in a few episodes of '' when shipboard crises forced the crew to flee the title vessel, though they were eventually able to return to the ship once the danger had passed.
★ ''Star Wars'' film series:
::In '', General Grievous abandons his Trade Federation cruiser above Coruscant using an escape pod, and jettisons the other escape pods as to prevent the escape of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi from the stricken vessel.
::Near the beginning of '', the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO escape the Rebel Blockade Runner when it is captured by a Star Destroyer; Princess Leia directs them to deliver vital strategic information to Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine, where the pod crashes, and the droids are first captured by Jawas and later bought by Luke Skywalker's uncle.
★ ''Star Wars Galaxies'' online game:
::All multiplayer ships have an escape pod which can be used by passengers and the pilot to escape from the ship. The player lands on the last planet they set foot upon.
★ ''Stargate SG-1'' science fiction series:
::Goa'uld ships are equipped with sarcophagus like escape pods designed for a single occupant. Anubis' mothership also possessed an escape pod capable of hyperspace travel.
★ ''Starship Troopers'' film:
::As the ship ''Rodger Young'' is destroyed above Planet P, Carmen and Zander evacuate in one of the ship's escape pods; however, their pod lands deep underground, inside a bug cave.
★ In ''Solaris (1972)'' by Andrei Tarkovsky the astronaut Kris Kelvin tries to get rid of the ghostlike incarnation of his former wife by locking her in a space pod and firing her out into space.
★ ''System Shock'' computer game series:
::In ''System Shock'' the player can attempt to depart Citadel station in an escape pod after setting the self destruct sequence but SHODAN prevents the launch.
::In ''System Shock 2'' the player launches himself into the body of The Many using one of the UNN ''Rickenbacker''s escape pods. At the end of the game, SHODAN is seen possessing the body of one of the survivors that managed to get into a ''Von Braun'' escape pod.
See also
★ Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine
★ Lifeboats
★ ''Lifepod'' movie
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