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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 |
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There is very little probability of another ballistic landing
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#3
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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 |
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There is very little probability of another ballistic landing
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#5
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There is very little probability of another ballistic landing
"Manfred Bartz" wrote in message ... (Nicholas Fitzpatrick) writes: 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 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. -- Manfred Bartz |
#6
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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) |
#7
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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) |
#8
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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. |
#9
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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. |
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