A Space & astronomy forum. SpaceBanter.com

Go Back   Home » SpaceBanter.com forum » Space Science » Space Station
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

There is very little probability of another ballistic landing



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old October 27th 03, 08:40 PM
Nicholas Fitzpatrick
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default There is very little probability of another ballistic landing

Hmm, I must confess, I haven't been paying much attention to this, but
in a CNN article (and perhaps I shouldn't take CNN seriously),
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/1....ap/index.html

It notes that:
"Russian aerospace engineers said there was only a slim chance that this
crew would suffer from the same computer malfunction that sent the
station's previous inhabitants on such a steep trajectory home that
their tongues rolled back in their mouths." and that "There is very
little probability of another ballistic landing," said Gen. Vladimir
Popov, who heads the team responsible for Russia's space search and
rescue operations."

and perhaps most disturbingly:
"This Soyuz is still technically susceptible to the same type of problem
but the Russians believe they understand it well enough and they've
trained the crew ... so they can possibly do something manually to
override the computer," (the NASA spokesman) said.

Does this meet the safety standards for NASA? All these qualified
statements sound very fishy? Should they have sent up TMA-3 with
a single astronaut, and done an evacuation? (presuming the problem
is fixed with TMA-3), and then placed the new crew with TMA-4?

Nick


  #3  
Old October 27th 03, 11:56 PM
Explorer8939
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default There is very little probability of another ballistic landing

Well, I certainly don't see these Russian pronouncements as anything
other than Famous Last Words. However, the good news is that ballistic
re-entries, while uncomfortable, are fairly safe. In fact, every
single Mercury re-entry was ballistic. I don't remember anyone
complaining about that at the time.



(Nicholas Fitzpatrick) wrote in message ...
Hmm, I must confess, I haven't been paying much attention to this, but
in a CNN article (and perhaps I shouldn't take CNN seriously),
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/1....ap/index.html

It notes that:
"Russian aerospace engineers said there was only a slim chance that this
crew would suffer from the same computer malfunction that sent the
station's previous inhabitants on such a steep trajectory home that
their tongues rolled back in their mouths." and that "There is very
little probability of another ballistic landing," said Gen. Vladimir
Popov, who heads the team responsible for Russia's space search and
rescue operations."

and perhaps most disturbingly:
"This Soyuz is still technically susceptible to the same type of problem
but the Russians believe they understand it well enough and they've
trained the crew ... so they can possibly do something manually to
override the computer," (the NASA spokesman) said.

Does this meet the safety standards for NASA? All these qualified
statements sound very fishy? Should they have sent up TMA-3 with
a single astronaut, and done an evacuation? (presuming the problem
is fixed with TMA-3), and then placed the new crew with TMA-4?

Nick

  #4  
Old October 28th 03, 12:25 AM
Nicholas Fitzpatrick
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default There is very little probability of another ballistic landing

In article , Manfred Bartz wrote:
(Nicholas Fitzpatrick) writes:

and perhaps most disturbingly:
"This Soyuz is still technically susceptible to the same type of problem
but the Russians believe they understand it well enough and they've
trained the crew ... so they can possibly do something manually to
override the computer," (the NASA spokesman) said.

Does this meet the safety standards for NASA? All these qualified
statements sound very fishy? Should they have sent up TMA-3 with
a single astronaut, and done an evacuation? (presuming the problem
is fixed with TMA-3), and then placed the new crew with TMA-4?


No, that is a ridiculous suggestion.


I think the mentality of calling questions ridiculous is the reason
that two of the Space Shuttles sit in Florida, in pieces! No
question in itself is ridiculous. My first question is, does this
meet NASA safety standards. Your answer then, would be yes.
The rest of the questions are then moot.

The technical issue of returning on TMA-2 is not as serious as some
people would like to make it. Ballistic re-entry is a safe
contingency flight mode, the astronauts are trained for it and it
poses no additional risk -- it is just less comfortable.


Well, if that is the worst-case scenario ... then not too bad. I got
the impression from the press coverage (again, not a reliable source),
that TMA-1 was lucky that it didn't come down even harder.

The serious issues I see are that
1. Russian QA did not discover the problem before the first flight.
2. Russian mission control failed to properly track TMA-1 and had
(at least for a while) no idea where the vehicle was.


Yes, #1, always raises the question of what else did they miss ...

Nick
  #5  
Old October 28th 03, 08:31 AM
Manfred Bartz
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default There is very little probability of another ballistic landing

(Nicholas Fitzpatrick) writes:

In article , Manfred Bartz wrote:
(Nicholas Fitzpatrick) writes:


... Should they have sent up TMA-3 with a single astronaut, and
done an evacuation? (presuming the problem is fixed with TMA-3),
and then placed the new crew with TMA-4?


No, that is a ridiculous suggestion.


I think the mentality of calling questions ridiculous is the reason
that two of the Space Shuttles sit in Florida, in pieces! No
question in itself is ridiculous.


My apologies. You are right, no question is ever rediculous.
What I should have said is that such action (evacuation) would
be completely unjustified.

My first question is, does this meet NASA safety standards. Your
answer then, would be yes.


Actually, I don't know what NASA's position is on this. Since the
Soyuz is entirely under Russian control the question probably does
not arise.

Consider that NASA have their own safety issues as their shuttle
passes through a whole bunch of unrecoverable flight phases everytime
they fly it -- so NASA has no choice but to get those flight phases
100% right (or as close as possible).

I think that any capsule-based space transport system can be (and is)
inherently safer than the existing shuttle could ever be. Past
examples of this were Mercury, Gemini, Apollo. Currently we have
Soyuz and possibly Shenzhou. In the future we may have a capsule
based OSP (that name needs changing!).

--
Manfred Bartz
  #7  
Old November 3rd 03, 05:30 PM
Marc
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default There is very little probability of another ballistic landing

On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 13:43:34 GMT, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

Had they had to leave the station due to a medical emergency (say ruptured
appendix) the additional time spent locating the crew may have been enough
to be fatal.


Most medical emergencies would be a problem no matter how you came
down, due to the simple problem of how long it would take to re-enter.
I would personally not be pleased with the need to put a patient
through the process of re-entry at any point, regardless of method.

Yes, the additional delay would make matters even worse, but I suspect
that a little more care would be taken by all agencies in that
scenario.

Generally speaking, in a medical emergency you need active treatment
within the first hour for a good prognosis. The "magic hour" is vital,
and realistically it's your fellow crewmembers that'd be the people
attending you in that time. It's a gruesome thought that if a medical
emergency is serious enough to warrant an evac, often they're too far
from help for it to be much good.

As a side note,I know when Australian crew go to Antartica, we remove
everyone's appendix before sending them down even further Down Under.
Does NASA do the same with their astronauts before space flight?

cheers,
Tony (leaning over Marc's shoulder)

  #8  
Old November 4th 03, 05:34 AM
Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default There is very little probability of another ballistic landing


"Marc" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 13:43:34 GMT, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

Had they had to leave the station due to a medical emergency (say

ruptured
appendix) the additional time spent locating the crew may have been

enough
to be fatal.


Most medical emergencies would be a problem no matter how you came
down, due to the simple problem of how long it would take to re-enter.
I would personally not be pleased with the need to put a patient
through the process of re-entry at any point, regardless of method.


I believe setup to re-entry to landing can be accomplished in under 90
minutes if required.

The TMA-2 landing I think added 3 hours to the recovery time. So that's a
big difference.


Yes, the additional delay would make matters even worse, but I suspect
that a little more care would be taken by all agencies in that
scenario.


What more care would be taken? The software bug was there. It went
undetected until activated, Russia lost track of the capsule. In an
emergency it's possible they'll have even less tracking available.


Generally speaking, in a medical emergency you need active treatment
within the first hour for a good prognosis.


In a trauma such as a vehicular collision, etc, yes. The so called Golden
Hour. In other cases, such as the onset of most infectious diseases you
have more time. The first course of action of course would be to try to
treat the patient on-board with antibiotics and appropriate antivirals if
available.

Otherwise you do have the issue of trauma, etc. You probably can't make it
to a class 1 trauma center within an hour, but 2-3 hours sure beats 5-6
hours. Especially if part of the 2-3 is spent in supervised medical care,
not sitting in the middle of a field somplace trying to call up for help.

The "magic hour" is vital,
and realistically it's your fellow crewmembers that'd be the people
attending you in that time. It's a gruesome thought that if a medical
emergency is serious enough to warrant an evac, often they're too far
from help for it to be much good.

As a side note,I know when Australian crew go to Antartica, we remove
everyone's appendix before sending them down even further Down Under.


Do you have a cite for that? Other than over-winter, that seems like a
really bad medical decision. Especially considering that most bases have
access to trained medical personal year-round. I can perhaps seeing it done
for overwinter, but even then seems a bit too much.

Does NASA do the same with their astronauts before space flight?


No.



cheers,
Tony (leaning over Marc's shoulder)



  #9  
Old November 4th 03, 05:50 AM
Derek Lyons
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default There is very little probability of another ballistic landing

"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" wrote:

"Manfred Bartz" wrote :

The technical issue of returning on TMA-2 is not as serious as some
people would like to make it. Ballistic re-entry is a safe
contingency flight mode, the astronauts are trained for it and it
poses no additional risk -- it is just less comfortable.


That's not entirely true. Remember Soyuz is also the lifeboat/ambulance.

Had they had to leave the station due to a medical emergency (say ruptured
appendix) the additional time spent locating the crew may have been enough
to be fatal.

So there was an additional risk. Small, but there.


The additional G-forces of a ballistic re-entry may also prove a
problem.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.
  #10  
Old November 5th 03, 02:18 AM
Hallerb
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default There is very little probability of another ballistic landing

There is very little probability of another ballistic landing

Whats the minimum time to deorbit a shuttle?

If say it were at station and had to return everyone in a emergency.
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Lockheed Martin scores success with landing technology tests for a future astronaut crew Jacques van Oene Space Shuttle 4 July 21st 04 03:44 AM
Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide Steven S. Pietrobon Space Shuttle 0 April 2nd 04 12:01 AM
Mode VII orbiter emergency egress landing exercise Feb. 18 Jacques van Oene Space Shuttle 0 February 13th 04 03:58 PM
Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide Steven S. Pietrobon Space Shuttle 0 February 2nd 04 04:33 AM
Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide Steven S. Pietrobon Space Shuttle 0 September 12th 03 01:37 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 11:59 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 SpaceBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.