I am opening this question on suggestion by called2voyage here.
There currently exists an emergency tag, but no contingency tag. Emergencies and Contingencies are quite different.
From what I understand:
Emergencies
- Are not intended to be part of the main mission
- Can be solved, and the mission may be able to then proceed normally.
Contingencies
- Are not intended to be part of the main mission
- Are emergencies
- Will result in different mission results, and allow for partial failure of the mission (eg. allowing people to return alive, but without experiment results) rather than a complete loss (eg. everybody dies)
Examples of contingency planning in space exploration:
- All Space Shuttle missions after Columbia had rescue flights planned. See the STS-3xx and STS-400 (The last shuttle mission, STS-135 would have used Soyuz capsules rather than another shuttle for the contingency)
- Astronauts currently on the ISS can ditch the station and return in their capsules if need be.
- Probably every detail in every space mission had extensive contingency planning (especially for human spaceflight)
Would the tag be contingency-plan, contingency or contingencies?
One issue that would arrise with a contingency tag, is that every contingency question will likely also be tagged emergency.
This new question would be adequate for contingency-plan/contingency but not emergency
