International Space Station Crews Mark Three Years Aboard

"Every endeavour that continuously pushes the boundaries of human achievment
can have times of both great triumph and great tragedy. The space agencies
and nations around the world that are our partners in the Station understand
that and they have experienced it," B.G.

I'm sick to death of hearing this self-justificatory blather, as if the
self-inflicted disasters
are some natural, unavoidable part of spaceflight, something that actually
consecrates the activity as somehow more worthy BECAUSE of the cost.

...Rather than something the people involved should have been clever enough
to avoid.

NOT a good sign of a renovated 'NASA Culture', in my view.

JimO
www.jamesoberg.com




"Jacques van Oene" wrote in message
...
International Space Station Crews Mark Three Years Aboard


In a period that has exemplified the benefits of international cooperation
in space, the International Space Station will complete a third year of
permanent human presence aboard on Sunday, Nov. 2.

The third year of humans living aboard the station has been marked by the
perseverance of the orbiting laboratory and international partnership
through the tragedy of the Columbia accident.

"Every endeavour that continuously pushes the boundaries of human
achievment
can have times of both great triumph and great tragedy. The space agencies
and nations around the world that are our partners in the Station
understand
that and they have experienced it," ISS Program Manager Bill Gerstenmaier
said. "The perseverance of crewed operations aboard the Station this year
has brought the partnership closer together, and it will strengthen the
Station through both the improvements in safety that we plan and the
lessons
we learn together."


The eighth resident crew -- Commander and NASA ISS Science Officer Mike
Foale and Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri -- began a six-month stay
aboard
the complex Oct. 20.

The station remains the largest, most sophisticated and most powerful
spacecraft ever built. Until the Space Shuttle fleet returns to flight,
the
transport of supplies and crews to the Station will be conducted by
Russian
spacecraft. The majority of power, cooling, volume and research capacity
on
the station are supplied by U.S. components. The station has a mass of
almost 400,000 pounds and an interior volume roughly equal to that of a
three-bedroom house. The U.S. Destiny Laboratory now houses seven
different
research facilities. The International Space Station partnership includes
NASA; Rosaviakosmos, the Russian Space Agency; the Canadian Space Agency;
the European Space Agency; and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.

At the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., 168,000 pounds of additional Station
components are being prepared for launch when the Space Shuttle returns to
flight. Those components will triple the number of science facilities
aboard
the orbiting laboratory, increase the total power available for research
by
over 80 percent and triple the surface area of the Station's solar arrays.
Among components at KSC is the second Station laboratory, the Japanese
Experiment Module named Kibo.



--
-------------------

Jacques :-)

Editor: www.spacepatches.info

"James Oberg" wrote in message . ..
"Every endeavour that continuously pushes the boundaries of human achievment
can have times of both great triumph and great tragedy. The space agencies
and nations around the world that are our partners in the Station understand
that and they have experienced it," B.G.

I'm sick to death of hearing this self-justificatory blather, as if the
self-inflicted disasters
are some natural, unavoidable part of spaceflight, something that actually
consecrates the activity as somehow more worthy BECAUSE of the cost.

I'm sick to death of the zero-defect mentality that has infected our
society, largely due to media pressures, in the past 30 years. This
mindset considers any failure that is retroactively preventable, no
matter how tenuous the chain of events to prevent it, to be a
"self-inflicted disaster." The term 'disaster' to describe the failure
of an experimental vehicle is itself a misnomer.

Webster's defines 'disaster' as 'a sudden calamitous event bringing
great damage, loss, or destruction; broadly : a sudden or great
misfortune or failure'

In other words, 9/11 should qualify. An experimental vehicle failure
resulting in the deaths of seven people should not. Nevertheless, a
ratings-driven media has defined down disaster to mean more closely
'any failure of a public nature,' or to more closely mean, "any
failure of a highly public nature, resulting in death or not." As a
result, ANY failure of a public system is defined as a 'disaster.' And
yet we demand

As we have grown increasingly risk-averse, the bar for
'preventability' has also been ratcheted up, so that even an unforseen
failure mode is deemed as 'preventable," as long as some outside
chance of preventing the failure existed at the time of the failure,
if the failure had been realized. This is madness. We don't do
business this way in any other aspect of our lives.

The same 'forseeability' that is seen as necessary for safety is
forbidden to be applied to actual failure rates, although they are
calcuable and real. Indeed, although we rationally know that a certain
percentage of shuttle flights are going to result in 'self-inflicted
disaster,' we are not allowed to say this, as any admission of the
possibility of failure is bad.

When a motorcyclist who is aware of the dangers involved gets killed
in an auto accident that is 'preventable' (because he could have been
driving a safer car), it is not considered 'a self-inflicted
disaster.' We haven't outlawed motorcycles. Not yet, anyway. Yet we
damand a far higher standard in regards to spaceflight. If it gets any
worse, odds are we will remain forever planet-bound, doomed to
stagnation and regression. Farewell to courage: Preventability has
entered the building.

But perhaps the blame does not lie with the media. Perhaps the blame
rightly belongs on officials who do not have the balls to admit
publicly to Congress that 'based on the current configuration and
flight rates, I expect at least two shuttles to be lost during space
station construction, with probable death for the crew resulting each
time.'

Tom Merkle

On 3 Nov 2003 21:38:23 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(Tom Merkle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

I'm sick to death of the zero-defect mentality that has infected our
society, largely due to media pressures, in the past 30 years. This
mindset considers any failure that is retroactively preventable, no
matter how tenuous the chain of events to prevent it, to be a
"self-inflicted disaster." The term 'disaster' to describe the failure
of an experimental vehicle is itself a misnomer.

It's kind of disingenuous to redefine the Shuttle as "an experimental
vehicle" after the fact, when it was declared "operational" almost
twenty years ago (I remember, because I was there when President
Reagan did it).

If the Gehman commision wants to recommend that it be so reclassified
now, fine, but everyone wanted to pretend otherwise through the end of
January of this year.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

Your point has merit, but should not be a blank check for incompetence,
which is what
the circle-the-wagons culture at NASA has so so often resorted to.



"Tom Merkle" wrote in message
om...
I'm sick to death of the zero-defect mentality that has infected our
society, largely due to media pressures, in the past 30 years. This
mindset considers any failure that is retroactively preventable, no
matter how tenuous the chain of events to prevent it, to be a
"self-inflicted disaster." The term 'disaster' to describe the failure
of an experimental vehicle is itself a misnomer.

Webster's defines 'disaster' as 'a sudden calamitous event bringing
great damage, loss, or destruction; broadly : a sudden or great
misfortune or failure'

In other words, 9/11 should qualify. An experimental vehicle failure
resulting in the deaths of seven people should not. Nevertheless, a
ratings-driven media has defined down disaster to mean more closely
'any failure of a public nature,' or to more closely mean, "any
failure of a highly public nature, resulting in death or not." As a
result, ANY failure of a public system is defined as a 'disaster.' And
yet we demand

As we have grown increasingly risk-averse, the bar for
'preventability' has also been ratcheted up, so that even an unforseen
failure mode is deemed as 'preventable," as long as some outside
chance of preventing the failure existed at the time of the failure,
if the failure had been realized. This is madness. We don't do
business this way in any other aspect of our lives.

The same 'forseeability' that is seen as necessary for safety is
forbidden to be applied to actual failure rates, although they are
calcuable and real. Indeed, although we rationally know that a certain
percentage of shuttle flights are going to result in 'self-inflicted
disaster,' we are not allowed to say this, as any admission of the
possibility of failure is bad.

When a motorcyclist who is aware of the dangers involved gets killed
in an auto accident that is 'preventable' (because he could have been
driving a safer car), it is not considered 'a self-inflicted
disaster.' We haven't outlawed motorcycles. Not yet, anyway. Yet we
damand a far higher standard in regards to spaceflight. If it gets any
worse, odds are we will remain forever planet-bound, doomed to
stagnation and regression. Farewell to courage: Preventability has
entered the building.

But perhaps the blame does not lie with the media. Perhaps the blame
rightly belongs on officials who do not have the balls to admit
publicly to Congress that 'based on the current configuration and
flight rates, I expect at least two shuttles to be lost during space
station construction, with probable death for the crew resulting each
time.'

Tom Merkle

h (Rand Simberg) writes:

It's kind of disingenuous to redefine the Shuttle as "an experimental
vehicle" after the fact, when it was declared "operational" almost
twenty years ago (I remember, because I was there when President
Reagan did it).

If the Gehman commision wants to recommend that it be so reclassified
now, fine, but everyone wanted to pretend otherwise through the end of
January of this year.

It's also pointless to reclassify it if it still winds up being
used mainly as an operational vehicle.

--
Phil Fraering "Oh, so now Mike's the nut, Roger's the good
one, and I'm the bad guy?"

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message ...
On 3 Nov 2003 21:38:23 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(Tom Merkle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

I'm sick to death of the zero-defect mentality that has infected our
society, largely due to media pressures, in the past 30 years. This
mindset considers any failure that is retroactively preventable, no
matter how tenuous the chain of events to prevent it, to be a
"self-inflicted disaster." The term 'disaster' to describe the failure
of an experimental vehicle is itself a misnomer.

It's kind of disingenuous to redefine the Shuttle as "an experimental
vehicle" after the fact, when it was declared "operational" almost
twenty years ago (I remember, because I was there when President
Reagan did it).

If the Gehman commision wants to recommend that it be so reclassified
now, fine, but everyone wanted to pretend otherwise through the end of
January of this year.

Too true. Well, the shroud has been lifted now.

Tom Merkle

Phil Fraering pgf@AUTO wrote in message ...
h (Rand Simberg) writes:

It's kind of disingenuous to redefine the Shuttle as "an experimental
vehicle" after the fact, when it was declared "operational" almost
twenty years ago (I remember, because I was there when President
Reagan did it).

If the Gehman commision wants to recommend that it be so reclassified
now, fine, but everyone wanted to pretend otherwise through the end of
January of this year.

It's also pointless to reclassify it if it still winds up being
used mainly as an operational vehicle.

I think the new flight restrictions and the imperative to develop a
different method of launching people has reclassified it de facto to
an experiemental vehicle, regardless of what anyone says. Operational
vehicles are supposed to be used more than once a year.

Tom Merkle

"James Oberg" wrote in message .. .
Your point has merit, but should not be a blank check for incompetence,
which is what
the circle-the-wagons culture at NASA has so so often resorted to.

I think your definition of 'incompetence' is a wee bit stringent. It
takes an extreme amount of competence to get even halfway to a
successful orbital flight. If members of Congress were half as
competent at their job, government would be a half of the size it is
now and we'd still have a better space program.

Tom Merkle

On 5 Nov 2003 15:01:42 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(Tom Merkle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

"James Oberg" wrote in message .. .
Your point has merit, but should not be a blank check for incompetence,
which is what
the circle-the-wagons culture at NASA has so so often resorted to.

I think your definition of 'incompetence' is a wee bit stringent. It
takes an extreme amount of competence to get even halfway to a
successful orbital flight. If members of Congress were half as
competent at their job, government would be a half of the size it is
now and we'd still have a better space program.

That depends on what you think "their job" is. They obviously don't
believe that it's their job to shrink government, even if some of us
would like them to. Not even when they're supposedly the party of
small government.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers: