I have more thoughts on the apparently infinite value of an astronaut’s life, over at PJMedia.
18 thoughts on “Time To Get Serious About Space”
Comments are closed.
I have more thoughts on the apparently infinite value of an astronaut’s life, over at PJMedia.
Comments are closed.
NASA has launched all166 of its manned space missions without activating a launch abort system. The Soviets, Russians, and Chinese have launched 125 manned space missions and used a launch abort system twice.
To be fair, there was at least twice that I’m sure NASA wished they had a working abort system.. Rand’s point is that NASA’s mission is not really important enough to launch with or without an abort system.
Just to take the persnicketyness one step further, what Columbia needed was not a launch-abort system but a re-entry-abort system.
Just to clarify, the persnicketyness that I refer to is not Trent Waddington’s but mine, presented in my reply directly to George Turner’s post.
NASA skipped the opportunity to use Apollo 12’s, but they came very close to giving it a go.
I know I’m being persnickety here, but I believe only Soyuz T-10 made use of the launch-abort system as such. The Soyuz 18A abort was performed with spacecraft engines, as it took place after jettison of the escape tower.
Hrm… I thought 18A was a launch abort because they pulled extremely high-G’s on seperation, permanently ending the career of one of the cosmonauts, but I might be mistaken.
The Shuttle is problematic because early in the design phase NASA decided that the SRB’s were the launch abort system, since once lit they’re going to keep on burning. They couldn’t really think of a way to make an abort system for the configuration, so they just declared one to sort of exist.
Mercury, Apollo, and Soyuz all had an escape rocket that worked from the ground through the end of the first stage. After that, the dynamic pressure was zero, and they could use the spacecraft propulsion system (or retro, in Mercury’s case) to get away from the launch vehicle. Soyuz 18a aborted during the third stage. The high G’s were due to the high flight-path angle at that time.
Well Done Rand
For a moment I thought you were going adrift with the Russian weapon proliferation, but you neatly tied it all together.
George
Good point, but don’t get bogged down into the weeds of risk factors.
Trent
I think you misstate Rand’s point. I understood him to say that pressuring the Russians and saving the ISS is indeed worth risking the lives of Astronauts, even when the risk is higher because of the lack of a launch abort system.
Great article Rand, and as an ex-sailor I liked the ship and battle group examples. You’re dead on there. We were taught to fight fires and casualties to the death. They can enlist and train more sailors, even officer grade sailors, but SHIPS are hard to come by.
But I think one sentence is a little ‘off’.
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But preserving the ISS, in which the nation has invested more than the cost of dozens of carrier battle groups, isn’t worth the risk of people…
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They’ve gotten SO risk averse they don’t want to risk a PERSON. I know most launches are more than one astronaut or cosmonaut. But sometimes the U.S. may only be sending a single person to the ISS on some launches.
So, it seems that the loss of even one astronaut has them scared to death.
I’ve never talked to an astronaut, but I’m betting they do NOT sit and dwell on the possibility of dying on a flight. Is there a ‘survey’ anywhere that anyone has done, of some group or writer just asking the astronaut corps how concerned they are about dying?
As I was writing that last line, it occurs to me that nobody ever asked ME if I was concerned about dying on a ship! Not only did no one ask, we were taught that the U.S. military as a whole, back when I was in 77 – 82, we averaged about one training death per day, 365 days a year, day in and day out across the entire military.
And I understand the astronauts get much more intense and expensive training than I got, or many sailors get. But does a astronaut get more training or more expensive training than 365 trained military people?
(I do think even the military and our leaders are too tied up in this syndrome too
in Iraq, instead of 165K + 20K during the surge, would we have done better to start with 225K or 275K?
yes it exposes more people to risk, but so does dragging out a military expedition that size ….after all, it’s the military, when you stick your hand in the air and take that oath, it’s an agreement to go get killed and not bitch about it ….and , what if FDR and Churchill had been hand wringers…. how’s your goosestep? )
“in Iraq, instead of 165K + 20K during the surge, would we have done better to start with 225K or 275K? ”
One had to deal the reality of Dems in Congress.
And was the Iraq war pretty good in terms overall success. Low US causalities, fairly low cost, and though there was hopeful idea that we could simply turn over to Iraqi in fairly short time period, that was most optimistic plan, whereas there also expectations that it be more difficult.
So, in terms medium expectation, Iraq war went according to “plan”.
Though there were unexpected events. One being we got Baghdad faster that a medium expectation would assumed, and perhaps faster than anyone really hoped.
Compared almost any other war, Iraq was clear win. And I think a part of the success was due to using smaller military force. In real sense, and we got the impossible, a surprise attack even though there was military build up and declaration we were going to invade Iraq- with a press covering it live. They also thought we would need a larger force.
I certainly agree with the gist of the article, but I think post-Apollo NASA has on occasion demonstrated a risk appetite exceeding that demonstrated at the time of Apollo 8. I’m thinking of STS-1. Surely this was more dangerous, as it was the very first flight of an entirely new and novel vehicle. The escape system — ejection seats — was very iffy*. Driven by bureaucratic imperatives, NASA dysfunctionallized (a clumsy non-word, but the clearer alternatives I can think of are too graphic) itself into believing the risks were acceptable. With Apollo 8, NASA took risk by putting its balls on the line. With STS-1, it took risk by shoving its collective head up its collective butt.
* Recall that the use of ejection seats on Gemini was made possible by the launch vehicle’s use of hypergolic propellants, which would burn on contact rather than explode. Use of ejection seats on MOL required the installation of SRM thrust-termination ports, which Shuttle’s SRBs lacked.
“dysfunctionallized (a clumsy non-word, but the clearer alternatives I can think of are too graphic)”
I think the word you’re looking for is “cornered”. Taking risk by shoving one’s head up one’s butt implies the same sort of thought process as painting oneself into a corner – in fact, it was that sort of risk-taking, with management overriding the concerns of engineers, that led to the destruction of Challenger.
It does seem kind of odd that NASA astronauts flew over 130 Shuttle missions without a launch escape system but wouldn’t dream of flying in a capsule without one. They seemed to accept the risks then so what has changed? Is it the fact that there was no practical way to put an escape system on the Shuttle but there is with a capsule, so that capsule must be fitted with one?
If not for the need for an escape system, astronauts could ride to orbit right now on a SpaceX Dragon. It’s about putting unnecessary roadblocks in the way of private companies, roadblocks that are waived for NASA programs. Can’t have private business invading the fiefdom, you know.
It’s comforting that should we need SpaceX to deliver astronauts they could right now. That their LAS has other more important purposes is as well.
Public employees have almost zero risk to themselves for failures, even when lives are lost. A private company risks the existence of their company.
This shouldn’t be a discussion of what risks government should take. This should be a discussion of getting government out of the business (other than national defense.)
The government should pay for services; not provide those services. And that should be limited as much as possible as well.
Why do we make ourselves hostage to a foreign and hostile power for access to [the ISS]?
Excellent question.
NASA needs to get itself out of the launch business entirely and go exclusively into a “research and support” role, contracting third parties to put its stuff out there for them, and doing whatever it can to aid private development.