Soyuz air leak story -- coverup?

In email discussions over the air-leak
on the Soyuz landing, this thought
occurred to me that I felt worth
sharing more widely:

"Well, seems to me that the piercing odor
of coverup is also telling us something.
This may the most suppressed space
station story in five years (unless there's
been another one or two that were 100%
successfully covered up! grin)."

Jim Oberg wrote:
"Well, seems to me that the piercing odor
of coverup is also telling us something.
This may the most suppressed space
station story in five years (unless there's
been another one or two that were 100%
successfully covered up! grin)."


On the other hand, it may also be one of the more exagerated
sensationalistic stories on the station. You used the word
"depressurisation emergency" for instance. Was it an emergency ? Seems
to me that the crew were fully aware of the leak and once they were
ready de to-orbit, the separation of the orbital module would get the
leak to begin again.

And I would assume that between undocking from station and undocking of
orbital module, they may have spend some time inspecting the hatch
between re-entry and orbital module.

In a previous post, you revealed that cabin pressure dropped from
780mhHg to 680mmHg.

From what i read, 760mmHg is sea level pressure.

From what I read, in a modern airliner, cabin pressure is generally 567
to 692
mm Hg, similar to the pressure at altitudes of approximately 914 m to
2.4 km.
http://www.rtmagazine.com/Articles.A...cleid=R0408F02

So, in the lowest pressure of Soyuz, they were at the higher end of
cabin pressure when at cruise altitude on a commercial aircraft.
Hundreds of thousands of people spend HOURS at that pressure every day.
Flight attendants and pilots work at that pressure every day.

How much time between separation of orbital module and reaching
altitude of roughly 10,000 feet ? 45 minutes ? One hour ? two hours ?


If they knew the air leak rate, if they knew that they had X amount of
reserve cabin gases, they could have calculated whether once they
separated from orbital module, they would have sufficient cabin pressure
to survive.

Since sea level is 760, and they started at 780, it is likely they took
a decision to increase cabin pressure prior to undocking from orbital
module so that it would then take longer for the leak to drop cabin
pressure below safe levels.

And if they wore the Sokhol suits with visors closed, it would have been
an additional security measure. Or it could have just been a way to
shield their ears from a very annoying whistling sound from the leak. We
don't know.

Yes, this is definitely cause for *concern* for that flight. I don't
pretend to know what happened in the cabin.

Was the leak very big, and the only reason the cabin pressure didn't
drop lower is that they released all of the spare O2 and N2 they had,
but had re-entry taken longer, things would have gotten much worse ? I
don't know. Maybe the leak was really tiny, perhaps annoying because of
the noise and they didn't even bother releasing any spare gases into the cabin.


Maybe it truly was a no brainer, and the media don't wish to believe
this and are blowing things out of proportion.

Are the russian media speculating as much as Mr Oberg on this ? Or are
they satisfied that this was a no brainer annoying problem ? Does Mr
Oberg have direct contacts at the russian space agency, or does he
expect to be fed all the info by NASA ?

Seems to me the russians are the ones who should be asked to provide
real details on what really happened. NASA knows exactly how serious
this was, they had one of their employees on that flight.

If he fainted for some reason, perhaps NASA wants to avoid the reasons
for him fainting because they don't want to admit that perghaps it was
unrelated to the pressure problem ?

Since there were no stories about the Soyuz landing way off course, one
can assume that re-entry profile was nromal and that the crew didn't
endure abnormal G forces. (which would explain fainting).

John, if you made fewer assumptions
and fewer excuses, you might help
get to the bottom of this...


"John Doe" wrote in message ...
Jim Oberg wrote:
"Well, seems to me that the piercing odor
of coverup is also telling us something.
This may the most suppressed space
station story in five years (unless there's
been another one or two that were 100%
successfully covered up! grin)."


On the other hand, it may also be one of the more exagerated
sensationalistic stories on the station. You used the word
"depressurisation emergency" for instance. Was it an emergency ? Seems
to me that the crew were fully aware of the leak and once they were
ready de to-orbit, the separation of the orbital module would get the
leak to begin again.

And I would assume that between undocking from station and undocking of
orbital module, they may have spend some time inspecting the hatch
between re-entry and orbital module.

In a previous post, you revealed that cabin pressure dropped from
780mhHg to 680mmHg.

From what i read, 760mmHg is sea level pressure.

From what I read, in a modern airliner, cabin pressure is generally 567
to 692
mm Hg, similar to the pressure at altitudes of approximately 914 m to
2.4 km.
http://www.rtmagazine.com/Articles.A...cleid=R0408F02

So, in the lowest pressure of Soyuz, they were at the higher end of
cabin pressure when at cruise altitude on a commercial aircraft.
Hundreds of thousands of people spend HOURS at that pressure every day.
Flight attendants and pilots work at that pressure every day.

How much time between separation of orbital module and reaching
altitude of roughly 10,000 feet ? 45 minutes ? One hour ? two hours ?


If they knew the air leak rate, if they knew that they had X amount of
reserve cabin gases, they could have calculated whether once they
separated from orbital module, they would have sufficient cabin pressure
to survive.

Since sea level is 760, and they started at 780, it is likely they took
a decision to increase cabin pressure prior to undocking from orbital
module so that it would then take longer for the leak to drop cabin
pressure below safe levels.

And if they wore the Sokhol suits with visors closed, it would have been
an additional security measure. Or it could have just been a way to
shield their ears from a very annoying whistling sound from the leak. We
don't know.

Yes, this is definitely cause for *concern* for that flight. I don't
pretend to know what happened in the cabin.

Was the leak very big, and the only reason the cabin pressure didn't
drop lower is that they released all of the spare O2 and N2 they had,
but had re-entry taken longer, things would have gotten much worse ? I
don't know. Maybe the leak was really tiny, perhaps annoying because of
the noise and they didn't even bother releasing any spare gases into the
cabin.


Maybe it truly was a no brainer, and the media don't wish to believe
this and are blowing things out of proportion.

Are the russian media speculating as much as Mr Oberg on this ? Or are
they satisfied that this was a no brainer annoying problem ? Does Mr
Oberg have direct contacts at the russian space agency, or does he
expect to be fed all the info by NASA ?

Seems to me the russians are the ones who should be asked to provide
real details on what really happened. NASA knows exactly how serious
this was, they had one of their employees on that flight.

If he fainted for some reason, perhaps NASA wants to avoid the reasons
for him fainting because they don't want to admit that perghaps it was
unrelated to the pressure problem ?

Since there were no stories about the Soyuz landing way off course, one
can assume that re-entry profile was nromal and that the crew didn't
endure abnormal G forces. (which would explain fainting).