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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?

#91

Post by Saline9515 »

genman wrote: post #46
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.

I think hating something is kind of personal matter. But very often these "long-form" articles can be tiring. They just circle around something, never getting to the point, adding just unimportant details that should create some form of "connection". It very often feels that it is not long because the author has something to say but it is long because it is meant to appear that "long-form" article. It's like reading…

Journalism is a branch of literature. Some articles may be very short and straight-to-the-point, others longer to explain the context, with sometimes some subjectivity - see for instance "gonzo journalism".

Here, the author explains that while we broadly know what happens, there is no precise-written record about it. And the incident had long-lasting consequences. I enjoyed the article very much personally.

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

#92

Post by StevePerkins »

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

The hatch makes total sense pre-takeoff and post-landing, but makes zero sense during flight. So having it, with a protocol of locking it down during flight, seems optimal.

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

#93

Post by cybrox »

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.

I mean, they were. Back then, humans often outperformed machines in very rapidly evolving situations like these because there's only so much problem solving tech you can pack into 80kg.

I would actually argue that the only reason this is becoming less of a factor because just launching the experiment again is an increasingly cheap and viable option.

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

#94

Post by acheron »

wackget wrote: post #70
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.

Personally I hate articles which are split across multiple pages. It's unnecessary.

Think of all those extra ad impressions though!

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

#95

Post by chris-orgmenta »

picadores wrote: post #86

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 scre…

> NASA seems to have a long standing tradition of sweeping problems under the rug

I can't comment on whether the premise is correct, but I think "So why is it not okay to write about this?" would be mostly due a 'tug of rope phenomenon'.

If you see a tug of rope game on an issue and are a centrist, people feel they can't go and start tugging the middle of the rope in a different axis (or from the 'opposing side'). Instead, people feel the need to go to whichever end of the rope is 'unfairly losing' in their eyes, and pull it in an existing axis to bring the centre of the rope into a range that they agree with.

Thus, in the grand scheme of things people are hesitant to call out NASA, because they feel that there too much anti-NASA or funding sentiment already.

And it's a legitimate aspect of game theory to consider (in a pragmatic / real scenario) - But it's definitely succumbing a zero-sum game model, and is a tragedy of the commons.

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

#96

Post by pdonis »

hutzlibu wrote: post #87

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…

> Which means that in a real emergency, astronauts maybe could then not open the door in time.

The lock was only installed while in orbit--where the hatch is not an emergency escape anyway.

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

#97

Post by wiredfool »

_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)

The whole point of the inverted pyramid was that editors/layout people could chop off the article at any point to fit the space available and have it still make sense, back when newspapers were laid out in columns and on physical pages. It's not an idealized platonic form information transfer.

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

#98

Post by mattjaynes »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #28
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…

> 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.

No, this is not simply "long-form", this is "in medias res" where the story starts at a heightened moment of tension, then abruptly stops and rewinds to go back to fill in details of how they got to this exciting moment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_medias_res

Sometimes it's done to great effect, like in Fight Club (film starts with him at the climax with a gun in his mouth, then rewinds and tells the story).

However, it is often used as a clumsy device by novice writers. They use it to get the audience to stick around for their mostly boring story.

I see this a lot on Youtube. The Youtuber will start with a compelling question and story, like "There he was... tied to the wall as he watched the firing squad load their weapons with gun powder.... But before we continue our story, what is gun powder? Well, it's composed of potassium nitrate, blah, blah, blah...."

You can tell if "in medias res" is done well or poorly by how you react to it. If you are excited for the detour, then it's done well. If instead it feels like a long annoying interruption you want to skip, then it's done poorly.

For me, it's done poorly in this article. I read the first compelling section, then the writer slows everything down to a snail's pace to go into some very dry history of NASA without ever really giving a good payoff to the story he opened with.

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

#99

Post by Guvante »

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…

I feel like this long form article did a pretty good job. History bits were paragraphed so skipping ahead was trivial if a bit of history didn't interest you.

Also the answer happened relatively early when the flow lead to the answer rather than artificially rewriting the story to bury the lead.

And the continuation after made sense and didn't overstay its welcome.

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

#100

Post by Marthinwurer »

hutzlibu wrote: post #87

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…

There's very few emergencies that the lock would kill them in if used properly. Since it would only be locked once the shuttle got to space and once it would open to hard vacuum. It would be unlocked before reentry. The only other failure modes that I could think of would be if the lock was unable to be opened or the key was lost. Neither would be the end of the world, as they would have had tools available to cut or remove the lock.

Given that, I'd push for the lock to be part of standard procedure. It can't be a point of distress if it's standard procedure instead of a judgement call by the captain.

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