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SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS

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Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS

#141

Post by Teever »

rig666 wrote: post #138
dotnet00 wrote: post #3

Man the reporting on this ordeal has been so awful and so representative of how media misleads the public into thinking things are worse than they actually are. It isn't a rescue mission, it's a regular crew rotation mission with modifications to account for the extra crew left on the station, and those crew are 'stuck' only in the sense that they're expected to stay there as part of their duties and it would be unne…

Let's be honest. The mental gymnastics to avoid calling it a rescue is just a political knee jerk reaction to Elon Musk's ownership in SpaceX. If you lose your ability to become objective based on your view no amount of philosophical discourse is going to be meaningful. It's comments like this why "cope & seeth" has flourished in the modern lexicon

The government would be doing the exact same thing to avoid bad PR if this didn't involve him.

Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS

#142

Post by natch »

Was the title edited after the fact by mods?

The original title has the word "rescue."

The top comment is questioning the use of this word.

It seems likely that when the story originally appeared on HN, it had the accurate title reflecting the title of the article. Thus the comment from dotnet00, which I'm neutral on. But then, it would appear, the title was altered, to dampen a controversy? Is this how things are done around here? Anyone know more?

Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS

#143

Post by s1artibartfast »

dools wrote: post #65
Seattle3503 wrote: post #12

> By the time they return, the pair will have logged more than eight months in space. They expected to be gone just a week when they signed up for Boeing’s first astronaut flight that launched in June. What kind of overtime do you think they are clocking?

And will that overtime take into account the effect of time dilation?!

They are probably salary, not hourly.

I wonder if they astronauts are like the military where they get extra on deployment.

Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS

#144

Post by ethbr1 »

nick3443 wrote: post #137
ethbr1 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "If we'd have had a crew on board the spacecraft, we would have followed the same back away sequence from the space station, the same deorbit burn and executed the same entry. And so it would have been a safe, successful landing with the crew on board," said Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program... https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/astronauts-would-h...

Russian roulette is safe! I played once and didn't die!

The point that half this comment section is missing is this is the sort of thing we want to encourage.

The US spent extra money funding two separate vendors.

One vendor exhibited a high level of risk in their first return.

The astronauts were able to be returned on the second, already proven vendor.

That's a great place to be in!

The alternative, having to return astronauts on a high risk vehicle because it's the only option, is not a place we ever want to be in.

Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS

#145

Post by oaththrowaway »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #110
panick21_ wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No astronaut has died on ISS in 30 years. Claiming they are in significant danger simply isn't accurate. Saying 'the default state in space is dead' when historically basically nobody has died in space.

> No astronaut has died on ISS in 30 years. Claiming they are in significant danger simply isn't accurate Nobody claimed as much. A jet liner is safer than the ISS. The analogy is conservative. > Saying 'the default state in space is dead' when historically basically nobody has died in space Our default state at cruising altitude is dead. Note: I’m not suggesting anyone would have died. Just that they were in a peril…

> A jet liner is safer than the ISS.

Maybe not if the jet is a Boeing though?

Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS

#146

Post by natch »

dotnet00 wrote: post #6
jiggawatts wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a matter of perspective. The mission is what you call it. Sure, it’s not a “rescue”, it’s just an “unplanned itinerary change to another vessel”. Also, they’re not “marooned”, they’re “getting an extended work opportunity”.

"Rescue" conveys a much more negative situation than "unplanned itinerary change where the astronauts are safe and which they are happy about because they get to spend more time in space".

Bone deterioration equating to decades in a matter of months, heart health impact, time away from family... it's negative.

Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS

#147

Post by dotnet00 »

skissane wrote: post #139
dotnet00 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

NASA still gives Roscosmos money, in exchange for Roscosmos doing ISS-related stuff for NASA. NASA has a contract with Roscosmos for "joint spaceflight activities" which does not expire until the end of this year. I don't know if it can be extended past this year or not, but since the contract dates to 1993, I suspect they will continue to extend it year-by-year until the ISS program is terminated. https://www.usaspe…

[flagged]

Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS

#148

Post by mlyle »

natch wrote: post #142

Was the title edited after the fact by mods? The original title has the word "rescue." The top comment is questioning the use of this word. It seems likely that when the story originally appeared on HN, it had the accurate title reflecting the title of the article. Thus the comment from dotnet00, which I'm neutral on. But then, it would appear, the title was altered, to dampen a controversy? Is this how things are do…

They regularly tamp down on sensationalist headlines.

Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS

#149

Post by anonylizard »

hindsightbias wrote: post #116
mannyv wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well hmm. NASA decided Starliner wasn't safe enough to use for the return journey, so the astronauts stayed on the ISS until the next ride became available. Originally the astronauts were supposed to go back on Starliner. Now they're taking another ride back. Is that considered a rescue? Well, it depends. If you get left behind on an island because your ride wasn't safe and another boat picks you up, is that a rescue…

What if NASAs decision was largely influenced by social media hysteria and not objective engineering? Of course NASA would never give into outside pressures - cough, Challenger, cough. And what I read on the internets is so massively factual.

Well, that was probably Boeing's line for the MAX disasters, until the second one occurred.

Boeing is clearly undergoing systemic collapse in engineering ability, so anything Boeing has to be treated with extreme suspicion. Its like hiring a 3-time-felon to babysit, like you can do it, but there will be 0 tolerance for any deviance.

Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS

#150

Post by philwelch »

LeroyRaz wrote: post #87

To everyone saying "oh, the astronauts like having to be up there. It is an opportunity." You get that they have no choice, right? And that for multiple reasons they are going to put the best spin on the event. For one, for their own sanity, they are going to be as positive and optimistic as possible. For two, there is likely a huge PR pressure to be as positive and optimistic as possible. Being in space is a pretty…

Millions of people have “become an astronaut” as their childhood dream. Less than one in a thousand people who apply to astronaut selection actually become astronauts. And then they have to wait years to actually go to space. I don’t know why anybody would go through all of that if they didn’t really want to go to space. And while everyone else is either getting full ISS rotations or planned to fly to the moon, Butch and Suni have been assigned to an eight day test flight that’s been repeatedly delayed for years. It’s arguably the worst assignment you can get these days other than no assignment at all (and to be fair, it’s also not the first assignment for either of them). I’m sure they would have preferred if their six month stay on the ISS was planned as such ahead of time, but spending six months on the ISS is the normal mission that everyone else gets anyway—and it’s not like a normal ISS flight is scheduled for the personal convenience of the astronauts assigned to it, either.

Yeah, they don’t have a choice now that they’re in space, but if you’re an astronaut you can also just retire and make a lot more money in the private sector if you don’t really want to go to space again, and I think that it’s a pretty slim chance that a veteran astronaut would stick around and devote years of their career to an eight day flight test but would be really unhappy about being “stuck” on ISS for an otherwise normal rotation period.

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