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What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?

arstechnica.com

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Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?

#81

Post by justrealist »

gumby wrote: post #71

> On the second day of the mission, Wang floated over to his experiment and sought to activate the Drop Dynamics Module. But it didn't work. He asked the NASA flight controllers on the ground if he could take some time to try to troubleshoot the problem and maybe fix the experiment. But on any Shuttle mission, time is precious. Every crew member has a detailed timeline, with a long list of tasks during waking hours.…

> Sounds like the whole approach to the misison profile was flawed

How many experiments got aborted so he could spend the time to get his pet project working?

Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?

#82

Post by Denvercoder9 »

gumby wrote: post #71

> On the second day of the mission, Wang floated over to his experiment and sought to activate the Drop Dynamics Module. But it didn't work. He asked the NASA flight controllers on the ground if he could take some time to try to troubleshoot the problem and maybe fix the experiment. But on any Shuttle mission, time is precious. Every crew member has a detailed timeline, with a long list of tasks during waking hours.…

> The only justification for human spaceflight at all is that humans can fix things that a robot can't yet.

This was pre-Challenger, back then we also flew with humans because (we believed) they were more versatile and cheaper than robots.

Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?

#83

Post by shadowgovt »

MBCook wrote: post #69
m3kw9 wrote: post #32

So leave a switch to kill all crew available at all times till you think someone is unstable, then lock it. Genius

As the article mentioned after the Apollo one incident NASA was being very careful to make it possible for people to get out in case of emergency. Unfortunately that also means it’s very easy to get out in case of an emergency that’s only in your head.

Unfortunately, many safety systems work like this: tradeoffs, not strict improvements.

They locked the cabin doors to planes after 9/11 with a lock that can be sealed from the cockpit.

Which is great until the pilot takes a restroom break and the co-pilot decides this is the day he's going out and taking everyone with him...

Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?

#84

Post by rob74 »

boxed wrote: post #61

The limited access to space probably contributed to his mental episode. If he could be fairly confident in the experiment being flown again, it wouldn't have caused him this amount of stress. So in a way more access to space might lower the percentage of such episodes.

I think the ISS, where astronauts can stay for weeks or months, already relaxed the time pressure for experiments considerably.

Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?

#85

Post by Robotbeat »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #82
gumby wrote: post #71

> On the second day of the mission, Wang floated over to his experiment and sought to activate the Drop Dynamics Module. But it didn't work. He asked the NASA flight controllers on the ground if he could take some time to try to troubleshoot the problem and maybe fix the experiment. But on any Shuttle mission, time is precious. Every crew member has a detailed timeline, with a long list of tasks during waking hours.…

> The only justification for human spaceflight at all is that humans can fix things that a robot can't yet. This was pre-Challenger, back then we also flew with humans because (we believed) they were more versatile and cheaper than robots.

They ultimately are, if we manage to get launch costs down. Starship is a second crack at trying to do what Shuttle failed to do with affordable space access (for both humans and payloads).

Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?

#86

Post by picadores »

NASA seems to have a long standing tradition of sweeping problems under the rug. No skylab mutiny, no depressed payload specialists, all fine here gentleman, nothing to see here.

I always wondered why this is written that way. To protect the organisation? But the human part of us all is part of that organization, to disacknowledge that is literally inhumane. Because they are funded by taxpayer dollars and should screen better? Companies get funded by tax-payer bailouts and government projects all the time, waste them on not carefully selected conmen all the time.

So why is it not okay to write about this? Is this a remnant of the "epic hero" with a rocket from the early scifi days?

Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?

#87

Post by hutzlibu »

The reason was this:

"When I turned on my own instrument, it didn't work," Wang said. "You can imagine my panic. I had spent five years preparing for this one experiment. Not only that, I was the first person of Chinese descent to fly on the Shuttle, and the Chinese community had taken a great deal of interest. You have to understand the Asian culture. You don't just represent yourself; you represent your family. The first thing you learn as a kid is to bring no shame to the family. So when I realized that my experiment had failed, I could imagine my father telling me, 'What's the matter with you? Can't you even do an experiment right?' I was really in a very desperate situation"

Which made him think out loud of opening the intentional easy to open hatch. (because of Apllo 1 with 3 burned and trapped astronauts who could not open their door)

So what happened was a lot of distress while on this flight and from now on there was a lock installed. Which means that in a real emergency, astronauts maybe could then not open the door in time. All because social pressure brought someone close to the point of violently breaking.

(and because NASA did not do proper testing for the specialists, like they did for the professional Astronauts)

Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?

#88

Post by taco_emoji »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #72
GeoAtreides wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you hate the format of these kinds of article You mean long-form articles? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-form_journalism I don't think the problem is with the format, but with your expectations. Somehow you were expecting a straight answer to the question in the title; instead, it's a detailed look into the incident and the context around it.

Journalism is intended to inform, which is why the inverted pyramid[1] is a thing. Withholding the important information is, IMHO, bad journalism. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)

[flagged]

Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?

#89

Post by MBCook »

shadowgovt wrote: post #83
MBCook wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article mentioned after the Apollo one incident NASA was being very careful to make it possible for people to get out in case of emergency. Unfortunately that also means it’s very easy to get out in case of an emergency that’s only in your head.

Unfortunately, many safety systems work like this: tradeoffs, not strict improvements. They locked the cabin doors to planes after 9/11 with a lock that can be sealed from the cockpit. Which is great until the pilot takes a restroom break and the co-pilot decides this is the day he's going out and taking everyone with him...

Germanwings 9525. So sad.

Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?

#90

Post by gwbas1c »

wantsanagent wrote: post #17

If you hate the format of these kinds of article let me summarize: Guy builds an experiment, flies it, it doesn't work, requests more time to get it working, is denied, threatens 'not to come back', goes into a depression, worries crew that he'll open the door to space, eventually granted more time to work on the experiment, gets it working. There are consequences for letting this kind of person fly and dealing with…

> There are consequences for letting this kind of person fly and dealing with mental health while on a mission, but that's the basic plot.

I got the impression this was a cultural issue and not a mental stability issue.

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