Re: Krikalev Sets Time-in-Space Record - NOT

[Jim Oberg]

Krikalev BROKE the old record.

He does not SET a new record until
he exceeds the old one by 10%.

Them's the RULES.

[Ed Kyle]

Jim Oberg wrote:
> Krikalev BROKE the old record.
>
> He does not SET a new record until
> he exceeds the old one by 10%.
>
> Them's the RULES.

Interesting. Why do they have this "hysteresis"?
If he returned before passing the record by 10%,
what would happen? An asterisk somewhere?

Are these the rules of the same body that would
not, strictly speaking, have been able to
acknowledge Gagarin as the first man to orbit
the earth (because of his parachute descent
outside his capsule)? If so, it would seem that
the media and the general public don't pay such
"by the book" rulings much attention.

- Ed Kyle

[testo888@aol.com]

> Ed Kyle wrote:
> > Jim Oberg wrote:
> >> Krikalev BROKE the old record.
> >>
> >> He does not SET a new record until
> >> he exceeds the old one by 10%.
> >>
> >> Them's the RULES.
> >
> > Interesting.

/delurk. Hallo.

And interesting how the Russians were often careful about doing just
enough (by only a few days) to set a new record on their long-duration
flights. See following info amended (to update Krikalev) from
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/aststics.htm

# Krikalyov - 748+ days - 6 flights
# Avdeyev - 747.6 days - 3 flights
# Polyakov - 678.7 days - 2 flights
# Solovyov - 651.0 days - 5 flights
# Kaleri - 609.9 days - 4 flights
# Afanasyev - 555.8 days - 4 flights
# Usachyov - 552.9 days - 4 flights
# Manarov - 541.0 days - 2 flights
# Viktorenko - 489.1 days - 4 flights
# Budarin - 444.1 days - 3 flights

Only Afanasyev, Usachyov and Solovyov (and, so far, Krikalev) don't fit
the +10% pattern. Avdeyev did 10% plus just 1 day more than Polyakov,
for instance, so if Adeyev had been brought down 2 days earlier, after
745 days, then Krikalev would now have set the record, as he has done
10% more than Polyakov.

By the time he lands on Oct 7th, Krikalev will have done a further 51
days in space - nearly two weeks longer than John Young's entire career
- and his total of 799 days will still be short of "setting" a new
record, by the rules, by more than three weeks!

This 10%+ rule applies in aviation and land speed records (but not, for
instance, in athletics and cricket) and also for "The Internet2 Land
Speed Record (I2-LSR) competition for the highest-bandwidth, end-to-end
networks [, which] is an open and ongoing contest" where "# A winning
entry must exceed the previous winning entry by at least 10%."
http://lsr.internet2.edu/

You can see how this rule arose in the early days of measuring flights
and road vehicle speeds, where jiggery-pokery (or simple inaccuracy)
might be suspected if people were allowed to "set" a new record just 1
mph above the previous one, or an altitude record just 10 feet higher,
&c. But it now seems rather bizarre that someone has to spend a further
10 weeks in space - longer than all 24 flights of the Mercury, Gemini,
Vostok and Voskhod projects put together - to set a new record, and
that the man who has been in space the longest - by 50 days - will not
actually hold the record for it.

> Peter Stickney wrote:
> Of course, if you're going to claim credit for 1 orbit, you've also
> got to complete that orbit - Vostok I didn't.
> (It's not that it couldn't have - but they didn't.)

Yes, Gherman Titov - whom I met in his flat 1998 while researching a
project - was the first person to make a complete orbit (and, at 25,
is/was still the youngest ever in space) in the pross of spending a day
in space. Gagarin went _into_ orbit and could have stayed there much
longer but then decelerated out of it (and landed) before crossing his
start line.

--
Nicholas Waller
lurking again.