NASA's Mission in Chile is About to Pay Off

To Design Miners’ Escape Pod, NASA Thought Small, AOL
“Clinton Cragg is a NASA engineer on a troubleshooting safety team set up in the wake of the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. He had spent much of his professional life in the Navy, where he served as a submarine captain, accustomed to living in confined space. So when the Chilean rescue authorities settled on a plan for reaching the 33 miners trapped 2,400 feet below a desolate desert, but needed a contraption to bring them to the surface, Cragg would become the perfect man to pitch in. It had to be the smallest possible vehicle for the job, a capsule that would fit into a hole the size of a bicycle tire, with no wasted space for luxury, no elbow room for comfort.”
Trapped Chile Miners Eat NASA Diet, Aspirin to Prepare for Coming Rescue, Bloomberg
“The 33 miners in Chile will spend the next few days in tunnels almost half a mile underground eating a special diet recommended by NASA and doing exercises designed to aid their rescue by midweek.”