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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

#311

Post by BurningFrog »

heraldgeezer wrote: post #290
blowsand wrote: post #169

I’ve nothing substantive to add, but I note that the logic gymnastics on display in comments from all perspectives is somehow telling. Of something. Not sure what.

HN is leftie programmer sock space but loves tech and there is no denying the SpaceX and Starlink tech is good, but Elon is a trumpie so there is a dissonance where certain people cannot admit this or their whole world-view crashes so it is easier to say "Elon bad!!" or downplay that this is an emergency rescue mission as seen.

Also, many people will always hate the richest man in the world.

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

#312

Post by unethical_ban »

lupusreal wrote: post #241
unethical_ban wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my car breaks down while I'm at my fully-loaded villa on day 2 of my 30 day vacation, my friend coming to pick me up isn't a rescue mission. You shift from talking about danger or distress, to "not regular or expected". Which is it? I think danger and urgency are marks of "rescue". If they had supplies and were in no immediate danger, I don't see how the term or the alarmism qualifies.

> If my car breaks down while I'm at my fully-loaded villa on day 2 of my 30 day vacation, my friend coming to pick me up isn't a rescue mission. If you chose to say it was, nobody would be doing the "Well ACKSHULLY..." routine with you because that is in fact totally in line with common use of the word rescue and not worth making a stink about even if you think it sounds a little melodramatic. The ISS situation is m…

>but you're pulling the ackshully bullshit because you don't like the company that has done it.

I wonder if you, like me, have taken a vacation to travel half-way across the United States to watch a SpaceX launch, or had discussions with former heads of NASA as far back as 2011 about what the company meant/means for manned spaceflight. I wonder if you grew up around astronauts or knew people who died on Columbia.

This isn't an appeal to authority, it's a statement of experience. I'm in a pedantic HN subthread and threw in my subjective opinion regarding the use of the term "rescue" - please don't jump to assuming I'm some evil troll.

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

#313

Post by iknowstuff »

LightBug1 wrote: post #208
rig666 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Personally, that's a part of it. I might it find more tasteful if Shotwell and her team (the actual heroes) were ones getting the credit here, but Musk will get the headlines. But it's not a political knee jerk reaction. It's an actual jerk reaction to him being such an actual jerk. The guy, and his current cohot, are distateful wankers. Excuse my English.

what gives you the idea that Shotwell is more responsible for SpaceX’s success than Musk?

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

#314

Post by mensetmanusman »

SoftTalker wrote: post #298
heraldgeezer wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is leftie programmer sock space but loves tech and there is no denying the SpaceX and Starlink tech is good, but Elon is a trumpie so there is a dissonance where certain people cannot admit this or their whole world-view crashes so it is easier to say "Elon bad!!" or downplay that this is an emergency rescue mission as seen.

And Elon and his companies were lauded here before his politics became well known. Brandon Eich is another example of the phenomenon.

Elon's politics changed after he snapped when confronted with some life changing stuff.

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

#315

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ethbr1 wrote: post #132
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's a regular crew rotation mission with modifications Standard but modified is an oxymoron. This is an irregular mission. NASA plans with tonnes of redundancy. That’s paying off here. Being prepared doesn’t poof away a fuck-up, it just means you can take it in stride. Starliner stranded two astronauts in space. Dragon is fixing that. Being saved from being stranded sure as hell sounds like being rescued, even if…

> Starliner stranded two astronauts in space. It didn't, because it wasn't simply broken -- it had unexpected behavior. It ended up landing fine. I'm uncomfortable heaping pejoratives on what we should expect NASA to do: make engineering decisions to minimize risk and maximize chance of mission success. Increasing the reputational or financial penalties to suppliers incentivizes exactly the sort of decisions that ble…

> it had unexpected behavior. It ended up landing fine

By this measure the door blowing off the Alaska Airlines flight wasn’t an emergency.

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

#317

Post by perihelions »

api wrote: post #295
rvnx wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the second stage safely landed in the ocean, but outside of the targeted area. We will resume launching after we better understand root cause" reality: "It crashed somewhere in the ocean, we don't know why but we pretend it was safe, though we just got lucky"

All rockets before Falcon always crashed in the ocean.

There's a nuance here: non-SpaceX rocket *first*-stages typically fall into the ocean, but they do that within controlled exclusion zones, which are notified and restricted for air- and marine- traffic. *Upper*-stages are a different beast. Most (see my sibling comment) deorbit uncontrollably and impact somewhere at random.

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

#318

Post by JumpCrisscross »

throwaway290 wrote: post #252
mc32 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like similar things in the past were called rescues: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/science/russia-launches-res...

Good point. If this situation is equivalent then why not I guess. But note the PBS one says "urgent need for the capsule". Unclear why. Is it urgent in this case? In case of Russians there was a coolant leak If you are working in Antarctica and need to wait for another transport home it sounds okay. If you urgently need treatment and must perform a surgery on yourself then that's an emergency

> In case of Russians there was a coolant leak

Starliner’s manoeuvring thrusters weren’t working!

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

#319

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mgfist wrote: post #257
bnralt wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is better: Cruise line A and cruise line B drop their passengers off at a remote island for 5 days, and then come to pick them up and take them home. After cruise line B drops theirs off, the cruise ships breaks down, and the passengers can't be picked up after 5 days, so they're stuck on the island with no immediate way to get off. Cruise line A says "OK, the next cruise ship we send will be at half capac…

It's slightly more nuanced than that, in that starliner didn't actually break down. It had some issues which presented increased risk for the astronauts, but it was still operational. If there was a true emergency on ISS, they would've gone on starliner. But because there was no danger of them staying longer till the next ride, they opted out of using starliner given the increased risk.

> It had some issues which presented increased risk for the astronauts, but it was still operational

We didn’t know that!

> because there was no danger of them staying longer till the next ride

I suppose it’s a step forward that we’ve normalised the baseline dangers (and costs, personal and financial) of being in space.

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

#320

Post by foxyv »

perihelions wrote: post #232

There was an anomaly in the second stage deorbit burn (which did not impact the payload). Falcon is apparently grounded. https://www.space.com/spacex-pause-launches-crew-9-falcon-9-... ( "SpaceX pausing launches to study Falcon 9 issue on Crew-9 astronaut mission" ) - "After today’s successful launch of Crew-9, Falcon 9's second stage was disposed in the ocean as planned, but experienced an off-nominal deorbit burn.…

For those not familiar with the launch profile of the Falcon 9, the second stage de-orbit burn occurs after the crew/service module separates from the second stage.
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