I saw trust being mentioned, but I don't really get it. Space is one of the most unnatural environments people can go to. Of course brains that had evolved for life on Earth can malfunction in such completely artificial spaces. Same for airplanes, or submarines, or modern warfare. There was a tense moment in Das Boot where the engineer suffered a mental breakdown while the sub was stuck on the ocean floor and the captain even felt the need to go get a pistol. It's not an issue of trust, it's basic psychology. Nobody wants to be "that guy" who puts everyone in danger, but I don't think there will ever be a reliable way to completely prevent such occurrences, nor do I think there is anyone to blame for them, and nor do I think having safeguards should be interpreted as a silent accusation towards those on board.
What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?
141–150 of 230 posts
Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?
#142Earlier 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 this article is actually a pretty good example of long-form journalism; the jump it makes to reveal the context is fairly small, and relevant from the first few words. In many other articles, however, the context switch is almost nonsensical, making the reader wonder if the writer will ever actually get to the point. While I agree that in the past few decades our attention spans have gotten very short, I also…
>2-3 minutes get turned into a 10 minute video
This is just the advertisement affect. Short videos don't get monetized so longer videos are necessary to make a living.
Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
An ironic comment for someone called "Robotbeat" :-) Robots have been traveling to Mars for over 60 years. Humans? Maybe another 60. And most of the mass sent won't even be the humans, but all the support crap they need. And Pluto, or the heliopause? What human is going to hang out for half a century to go there?
I mean, NASA’s Artemis program is basically demonstrating all the major logistical hardware needed for a Mars mission. If it goes well, we could be looking at a lunar landing in 3 to 5 years with a vehicle about 50 times larger than the Apollo LM (and for a cost of less than a NASA Mars robotic mission—like sample return—for the lander) and possibly a Mars landing 5 years after that. Optimistic, but not absurd odds.
It’s not a foregone conclusion that we won’t be on Mars in the next 60 years.
Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?
#144Earlier 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.
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). How…
So it has a name...
I'm sick and tired of flashback overuse in recent series, mostly to explain the feeeeelings of the characters and so justify their stupid behaviour.
But this must be the ultimate abuse: most of the story is a flashback. Ouch!
Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Just saying something is "long form" because you counted the words is silly. This is Ars Technica. They aren't long because some fifth grade teacher gave them a minimum amount of pages. If the article has some length, it's because it takes the subject seriously and doesn't compromise on nuance and context just for clicks.
> If the article has some length, it's because it takes the subject seriously and doesn't compromise on nuance and context just for clicks.
And yet it feels fluffy. The incident could be described in a single paragraph. The response could be an other. The organisation of the crew training and how it effected the incident could be third, while future instances when the lock was used could be a fourth. So about 800 words, compared to the 3000 words it is.
Multiple of us on this comment thread feels it is fluffy, you are asserting it is not. But you are not providing any reason other than that the author is a professional and we should trust them? That is not quite convincing when at the same time I am reading their fluffy article.
Why do i feel it is fluf? Because the article is going on and on while not answering any of the basic questions I have: what did factually happen in the cabin? Did he just say what he said and then went sulking? Did he move closer to the hatch? Was he trained on how to operate the hatch? How long did the fix take? What were the consequences on the schedule? What were the consequences on the experiment itself? (Did it perform as intended after the fix or did it only hobble?) Why did they had highly trained payload specialist if they were not given latitude to perform fixes? You don’t need a physicist to push buttons on a schedule. Did NASA let any further payload specialist who had this deep connection with one of the experiments on? Were fixes performed by the payload specialist a normal thing ever?
Did anyone from Nasa follow up with him? Was this a misunderstanding? Are we sure he didn’t just say he is not going to return to space one more time just to try his experiment again?
Where the expectations about the experiment shared between the experimenter and mission control? Have they discussed contingencies in the planning steps? Did they in future spaceflights?
But they could say: “oh, the actual incident is just a jumping off point, the article is about the human factors and how we should design machinery to account for (and prevent) emotionally disturbed people harming themselves and others with them” in which case I have an other set of questions: space is not unique in the sense that people have access to simple means to end themselves. People who drive are often a simple twitch away from dying as surely as you do if you open a hatch in space. What are the statistics about that? Same about airplane piloting, same about weapons. In which ways is space different from the above, and in which ways is it the same? Are there other things to worry about, or is it only the hatch? Did anything similar ever happen on a submarine, or an artic station?
And instead of answering any of these important and interesting questions the author is going on in length what feels like the same 2 and half facts again and again.
Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
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). How…
So it has a name... I'm sick and tired of flashback overuse in recent series, mostly to explain the feeeeelings of the characters and so justify their stupid behaviour. But this must be the ultimate abuse: most of the story is a flashback. Ouch!
[flagged]
Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
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)
Do you think important information was withhold here? Which information was not important? It was a investigative article, about an incident that happened long ago, with most participants already dead by today. If something is worth a long article - then this is.
The personal biography of Wang, for starters. I do not give a shit when he was born or where he went to school. I'm only mildly interested in what he worked on.
The issue is the headline. It posits a question, then jerks you around until you've spent long enough on the page to satisfy some engagement metric.
It's writing for television, where any yes/no question always happens to take exactly 30 minutes (and multiple commercial breaks) to answer, starting with the history of philosophy and reason itself.
It's scummy behavior, like timeshare sales or giving people free samples of spicy beef jerky and making them wait in line for water.
The title "The First Man to Refuse to Return from Space" would be more appropriate for an investigative article. Then you'd know what to expect. But they went the clickbait route, hence the irritation.
Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>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. See also the woman that (allegedly) tried to drill holes in the ISS so she could return to earth early.
Speculation at best. Russian propaganda at worst. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9897471/NASA... Also what is "the kind of person" who develops a blood clot in orbit"?
There are various versions of the story and I've no idea which (if any) are true.
However, in terms of the "kind of person", the key fact isn't whether they developed a blood clot in orbit, but what the correct response would be to that situation. I'd suggest that drilling holes in your spaceship isn't the recommended approach (if that is indeed what happened).
Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?
#149Earlier 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.
The tiktokification of our minds.
This is the same literary technique that Homer uses to open The Iliad, Virgil uses to open The Aneid, and that Vyasa uses to open The Mahabharata.
Re: What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he's not coming back?
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> the author explains that while we broadly know what happens, there is no precise-written record about it
The author implies that, but doesn’t say it outright. I for one can’t believe NASA doesn’t have reports and communications and debriefs saved in triplicate. Did they even try to FOIA for infomation, or just phoned around failed to get callbacks and shrugged?