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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?

#171

Post by ioblomov »

aaron695 wrote: post #16

In the 90's at a party I heard the story of the scientist who cried because their experiment didn't work while in space. It was told around the idea civilians shouldn't go to space, only trained professionals. The story never quite added up just because of crying. This I assume was the incident. Good to finally get it 30 years later. The story I thought was related to Richard P. Feynman and maybe his Challenger repor…

Thought you were ad-libbing Wang here—till I followed the link! Surprised the journalist omitted this. Gallows humor or not, it leaves little doubt as to his state of mind. But it also makes clear how the commander and crew went out of their way to help. That’s as much part of the human story as the meltdown itself.

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

#172

Post by EricE »

skjoldr wrote: post #141

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 cap…

Yes, the resistance to something as simple as padlocking a hatch baffles me - it's like their integrity is being impugned by taking a simple and common sense precaution?

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

#173

Post by tialaramex »

schiffern wrote: post #29
tialaramex wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An airliner's external doors are designed such that they're held closed by internal pressure. Thus opening a door on the ground is pretty easy, which is convenient because that's the only place you should open them. But opening at cruise is extremely difficult. Now - a strong person can do it when the plane is far enough up that it's very scary, after all some normal passenger airports are a few thousand feet above s…

> after all some normal passenger airports are a few thousand feet above sea level and we want the doors to work there That doesn't make sense. Regardless of airport altitude, when the pilot shuts off the cabin pressurization and opens the cabin vent[s] there will be zero pressure across the door. The cabin doesn't "remember" the pressure at the last airport, because it's not a sealed volume. The air is constantly be…

That's fair, maybe I could have explained it better.

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

#174

Post by hutzlibu »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #164
Cheer2171 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It is highly relevant to the story. I was asking myself "So why was he even on this space mission?" You may not have had this question, but the main reason Wang gives for his state of mind around the incident is directly linked to his biography. He immigrat…

None of that is relevant to what I want to get out of an article titled "What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he’s not coming back?" If I wanted a bunch of random facts or life stories I'd use the random option on Wikipedia.

Random people are not flying with the Space Shuttle. And when people who do fly go nuts - then everything about this person is helpful to understand the "why" and how to prevent such a situation in the future. Of course NASA did that professionally already long ago - but now it is debated in the open. So some people deeply interested with the field, will want to play hobby psychoanalyst with the given facts. The more the better. You clearly don't want to and that is also OK, but maybe accept that some people like it like this. And just as a suggestion, you can nowdays get a AI to give you a short summary ...

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

#175

Post by EricE »

prewett wrote: post #26

The article was interesting, but wow, reading that page used up 20% of my battery and required a reboot stop whatever it was causing excessive lag throughout the OS. I’ve noticed news sites are basically unusable on mobile. Sure I’m using an iPhone 7, but it’s fine for every other use except news site. If even Ars is this user hostile, I think I have to consider news sites as fundamentally user-antogonistic, and not…

1blocker is a lifesaver for me - and saving battery life and my data cap is something it contributes to aside from blocking ads.

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

#176

Post by bityard »

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…

I'm actually a little surprised that there wasn't some kind of lock on the hatch already. Not necessarily to deter the rare suicidal/homicidal astronaut, but more because it seems like there would eventually be a non-zero chance of an accidental opening. Imagine the air quality goes to shit and one of the astronauts losing their state of mind and heading for the door while thinking, "man, I really need to step outside to get some air." Or a strap getting caught in the handle in just the right highly-improbable way.

NASA never forgot their lesson about spacecraft doors from the Apollo 1 fire, and I don't blame them one bit. But as an armchair observer, the fact that the hatch didn't have _some_ kind of rudimentary protection system to keep it from being opened to the vacuum of space until that point, is highly interesting.

I mean, if the account of Wang is true, I have to imagine that he was only asking about the door with the same kind of idle fascination that I most definitely would. I could be wrong but as far as I know, I don't believe Chinese culture promotes the idea of killing your crewmates in front of the whole world as a less shameful act than a physics experiment that didn't work out as intended.

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

#177

Post by hutzlibu »

bityard wrote: post #176
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…

I'm actually a little surprised that there wasn't some kind of lock on the hatch already. Not necessarily to deter the rare suicidal/homicidal astronaut, but more because it seems like there would eventually be a non-zero chance of an accidental opening. Imagine the air quality goes to shit and one of the astronauts losing their state of mind and heading for the door while thinking, "man, I really need to step outsid…

"I don't believe Chinese culture promotes the idea of killing your crewmates in front of the whole world as a less shameful act than a physics experiment that didn't work out as intended."

Rational chinese people for sure not. But he was not rational anymore, but out of his mind. Thinking how his family and the whole chinese people would despise him now because he failed as the first chinese in space. Nothing is sure here, but the way he asked, deeply disturbed the others. When you are desperate and cannot handle the pressure anymore - any way to end it, becomes a possibility you consider. A way out. Quite literally in this situation.

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

#178

Post by lioeters »

mzs wrote: post #124

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taylor_Wang&oldid...

The relevant paragraph that summarizes the incident:

> Wang was the principal designer of an experiment called the Drop Dynamics Module, which aimed to uncover the fundamental physical behavior of liquid drops in microgravity.

> Despite his extensive preparation, the experiment malfunctioned upon activation. Wang, feeling immense pressure and aware of the high expectations from the Chinese community, became deeply despondent. When Wang's experiment failed, he desperately negotiated with NASA flight controllers for a chance to repair it, even threatening not to return if not allowed to fix the instrument, telling NASA flight controllers "Hey, if you guys don't give me a chance to repair my instrument, I'm not going back."

> Wang received permission to attempt a fix and was successful in repairing the experiment, though his remark caused concern for the safety of the crew and the mission.

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

#179

Post by larrik »

> The commander locking a hatch essentially sends a message to the others: "I don't trust you to not kill us all in flight."

I mean, the article makes opening the hatch sound pretty damn easy. I think even if I were alone on the shuttle I'd lock it just to add that little bit of sense of security.

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

#180

Post by anigbrowl »

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…

You missed the lede, which was that NASA designed the space station with a hatch that opened outward directly into space as an emergency exit. The story about the despondent scientist is just a wrapper for this.

I also hate this format.

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