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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)." |
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Soyuz air leak story -- coverup?
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). |
#3
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Soyuz air leak story -- coverup?
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). |
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