NASA TO TEST `LIFEBOAT' : PLAN WOULD OFFER SPACE STATION ESCAPE.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

NASA Dryden Flight Research Center engineers are gearing up to test a prototype of a stubby spacecraft ``lifeboat'' for use by international space station astronauts.

The first new manned spacecraft in two decades, the ``emergency crew return vehicle'' would fly back into the Earth's atmosphere like the space shuttle, but land using a steerable rectangular parachute.

``The crew has to have a way to get back,'' said James Hartfield, a spokesman at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. ``Just like you don't send a ship across the ocean without lifeboats, you don't send a crew to a space station without a way to get home.''

Only about 28.5 feet long, with tall tail fins but no wings, the crew return vehicle would be small enough to fit inside the space shuttle's cargo bay - which is one way it might be brought up to the space station and hooked on for the six-person crew to climb into in an emergency.

It would be flown by computer, although the crew could take over certain aspects of control if necessary.

At Edwards, NASA engineers and technicians are getting ready to test a pilotless fiberglass prototype, designated the X-38, that was fabricated in Mojave by Voyager designer Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites Inc. aircraft plant.

The same NASA B-52 bomber that carried the X-15 rocket planes in the 1960s will hoist aloft the X-38, then drop it for its computer-controlled flight back to Edwards. Like the final version, the X-38 would land using a steerable rectangular ``parafoil'' parachute.

The first test will be in February, when the B-52 will carry the X-38 aloft but not release it. The prototype's first free flight is scheduled for May.

NASA officials hope to build four operational spacecraft for $500 million, which would include the cost of three fiberglass prototypes and two aluminum prototypes that would be launched into space for tests in 1999.

To reduce the cost, NASA officials say the crew return vehicle will use available technology and off-the-shelf equipment: a commercially made flight computer that is already in use in aircraft, a special heat-protective coating that had already been developed by NASA, and navigation equipment used on Navy fighters.

``Cost is one the most revolutionary items about it,'' Hartsfield said of the program. ``One of the high priority goals is to do it at a lower cost, actually a revolutionary low cost for a human spaceflight vehicle.''

The original estimate to build a capsule-type crew return vehicle amount to more than $2 billion in total development costs, officials said.

NASA officials said the crew return vehicle design might also be modified for other uses, such as carrying astronauts to the space station aboarda French Ariane 5 booster. That version would need an ability to stay in space longer than the nine hours of the ``lifeboat'' version, and as well as more maneuverability under the control of a pilot.

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Photo: (color) The ``emergency crew return vehicle,'' the first new manned spacecraft in two decades, will land using a parachute.