Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NASA announces unprecedented return of sick ISS astronaut and crew

livescience.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 151 posts

Re: NASA announces unprecedented return of sick ISS astronaut and crew

#111

Post by themafia »

almost_usual wrote: post #54
wmf wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could you keep calm so far away By going through a ten-year process that selects for calm people.

I can’t imagine any other group who would be as calm as NASA astronauts. Maybe SEALs or other special forces. It looks like there are a few astronauts that were SEALs, one returned December 9th from the ISS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonny_Kim

The point of training someone to their breaking point is not to make them immune to breaking. It's to give them experience with a realistic battlefield situation and their own physiological responses during it so they stand a basic chance when it does occur.

Re: NASA announces unprecedented return of sick ISS astronaut and crew

#112

Post by mvkel »

nubg wrote: post #5

Why be so secretive? This is not a military mission. These missions cost a lot of taxpayer money (money well spend you may argue), but we deserve full transparency. You don't get to go to space on other people's money and expect privacy. We might want to learn from what went wrong here.

Demanding every intimate personal detail of a human whose paycheck you happen to underwrite feels a little ... inhumane.

Re: NASA announces unprecedented return of sick ISS astronaut and crew

#113

Post by Kreutzer »

nubg wrote: post #5

Why be so secretive? This is not a military mission. These missions cost a lot of taxpayer money (money well spend you may argue), but we deserve full transparency. You don't get to go to space on other people's money and expect privacy. We might want to learn from what went wrong here.

You know that golden ballroom Trump has been constructing with your tax dollars isn’t going to be for the public either…

Re: NASA announces unprecedented return of sick ISS astronaut and crew

#114

Post by PhageGenerator »

lwansbrough wrote: post #109
dredmorbius wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? The operating depth of most submarines is ~300 -- 500m (980 -- 1640 ft), roughly one-third to one-half the depth you cite. The two USN nuclear submarines lost due to pressure-hull failures, the Thresher (1963) and Scorpion (1968) both failed at depths of 1,200 to 2,000 ft. Threser 's test depth was 1,300 ft (400m), and she was operating at about this depth when communications were lost. Scorpion likely failed…

I like to imagine GP just accidentally leaked classified info.

That would hold more weight if this was the War Thunder forum

Re: NASA announces unprecedented return of sick ISS astronaut and crew

#115

Post by panick21_ »

gpm wrote: post #110
SJC_Hacker wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Astronauts are of a breed apart. They're strapped onto a literally bomb which launches them into a vacuum, and windows where there is no chance of a mission abort. They've pretty much accepted a risk of death that most would simply not tolerate. Ex-military is common for astronauts for a reason.

Not that it really changes the point but modern spacecraft do have an option to abort (begin returning to earth) at just about any time. There's still contingencies where that won't save you of course.

And that abort envolves another bomb being fired under or over you.

Re: NASA announces unprecedented return of sick ISS astronaut and crew

#116

Post by Supermancho »

pockybum522 wrote: post #12
okdood64 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree; this is completely taxpayer funded and we deserve to know every detail relevant to mission status. In this scenario knowing what illness and why it's grounds for a return is very relevant. That said, I can see NASA delaying information release to figure out a good strategy for it while still respecting any wishes of the sick astronaut with regards to disclosure.

What a strange take. Does this also apply to every soldier in the armed forces? Seems your criteria is equally applicable there. The relevant people that can do the research and write future policies based on the data obviously will have the information. Not sure what good you think that you personally having it can do.

> What a strange take. Does this also apply to every soldier in the armed forces? Seems your criteria is equally applicable there.

Why? There are different rules for different endeavors, specializations, and roles. NASA is ostensibly for exploration, in an expansive sense. Hiding information of any kind, seems antithetical to the over-arching mission.

> The relevant people that can do the research and write future policies based on the data obviously will have the information.

Given recent events, this assumption of fidelity is not something I can subscribe to, for the rest of my days.

Re: NASA announces unprecedented return of sick ISS astronaut and crew

#117

Post by NetMageSCW »

AIorNot wrote: post #95
heyflyguy wrote: post #51

It's great we can bring them down. What a terrifying experience to have a medical issue on the space station. Kidney stone? Ruptured appendix? intestinal blockage? How could you keep calm so far away!

I used to work in ISS mission control, this is not an emergency return but an early return Also coming down on the Soyuz is pretty routine and only takes a few hours- I’d say it was overall a far less risky situation than being in Antarctic on a deep ocean vessel with appendicitis etc We have dozens and (hundreds behind them) of men and women monitoring those folks from a global network of control centers 24 hrs a da…

Then why did you mention Soyuz when Dragon is coming down early?

Re: NASA announces unprecedented return of sick ISS astronaut and crew

#118

Post by jjk166 »

nubg wrote: post #5

Why be so secretive? This is not a military mission. These missions cost a lot of taxpayer money (money well spend you may argue), but we deserve full transparency. You don't get to go to space on other people's money and expect privacy. We might want to learn from what went wrong here.

What possible use is it to the taxpayer to know who was affected by what health condition? NASA knows who the person is, if there is any lesson to be learned this policy isn't stopping them. What lesson do you, random citizen, expect to learn? What would you do differently if you had access to this information?

If it is policy to overshare medical details, that might lead astronauts to delay or refuse to give medical information that does matter to the mission. Before we talk at all of medical ethics, on purely pragmatic grounds this information ought to be confidential.

Re: NASA announces unprecedented return of sick ISS astronaut and crew

#119

Post by jjk166 »

rtp4me wrote: post #39
mcny wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I say I want full transparency, I usually am talking about how much pay they received and in the case of elected representatives, their net worth at least once a year. I wouldn't ask for a full health report to be made public by law. Maybe a summary for elected officials.

Why do you need to know how much they are paid and their net worth? What difference does it make to you? Public official pay is already available online. A quick google search will tell you how much congress people get paid, and the DoD pay scale is available online as well.

> Public official pay is already available online. A quick google search will tell you how much congress people get paid, and the DoD pay scale is available online as well.

That is the transparency in action.

Re: NASA announces unprecedented return of sick ISS astronaut and crew

#120

Post by CheeseFromLidl »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #60
heyflyguy wrote: post #51

It's great we can bring them down. What a terrifying experience to have a medical issue on the space station. Kidney stone? Ruptured appendix? intestinal blockage? How could you keep calm so far away!

Astronauts are of a breed apart. They're strapped onto a literally bomb which launches them into a vacuum, and windows where there is no chance of a mission abort. They've pretty much accepted a risk of death that most would simply not tolerate. Ex-military is common for astronauts for a reason.

This is the reason I cringe every time I hear or read statements like “we went to the moon”, “we’ve split the atom”, “we developed antibiotics”, …

No, we didn’t. A few who are not like us did.

Post reply on HN