Russian launch pad incident raises concerns about future of space station

"We are going to learn just how important the ISS is to leadership."

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[KChat]

Having never owned a vehicle with an automatic transmission, I can confidently say that I have not. Now, neutral... Yeah, that almost got bad.

Back when I drove a manual, I had left my old 4Runner in gear while parked, because the parking brake cable snapped the day prior. Well, I forgot about it being in gear when I went out to warm up the car one vicious Montana winter night before I clocked out at the bar. Whatever sensor is supposed to make sure you have a foot on the brake had long since failed.

I reached in & turned the key, while pressing the clutch with my right foot & still standing outside the vehicle. When I released the clutch, it jumped the concrete stop & slammed into the wall behind the bar before stalling. My coworker said he thought there was an earthquake, because all the bottles shook. No damage to the wall, or my vehicle, but it startled the shit outta me & I was pretty embarrassed when I fessed up what had really happened...

 

[SubWoofer2]

THAT the damage happened in the first place screams a desire to end their participation in ISS.

What better way than to deliberately "forget" to move a platform that shouldn't have been where it was into launch position to avoid damaging it? Make it seem like an "oops, sorry, but now we can't do shit for the ISS. TTYL!" thing.

I don't discount the possibility of incompetence, either, but you know "move the platform out of the fucking way before launch" was a bullet point on the pre-launch checklist that no one should have missed.

I read the sequence as being "Big platform withdrawn into protective chamber. Locking pins not installed. Checks on locking pins not done. Sign-off on locks was/was not done. (We await investigation on these points). Rocket ignited. Flame backwash enters cavern as expected, it's hell in there, nudges the barrier wall out a little, it acts like a sail and the whole structure gains momentum is pushed and falls into the pit."

Agreed that it's an egregious error of a crucial part that has too much riding on it to not have multiple cross-checks or fail-safes already in place.

So I agree with your conspiracy theory of "how can we exit this costly program in a way which looks like an accident".

(I edited your quote (with respect) to talk to the event sequence)

 

[stefan_lec]

If they are unable to launch, that means abandoning the ISS sooner than planned.

Eh. We've learned a lot from the ISS, but it's a multi-decade project with only four years (optimistically) left on the clock, and it requires working with someone who's currently invading Europe at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives.

Given how fast Russia's civilian space program seems to be decaying, if we truly can't support ISS without the Russians, I seriously doubt it's gonna make it all the way to 2030 anyway, at least not with an acceptable level of astronaut safety.

As far as I can tell, Russia's only agreed to extend operations to 2028 anyway (source), so we're only talking two years less of normal ops at this point.

Plus, the ISS is (arguably) already a bit too unsafe to keep using, given the decrepit EVA suits that have helmets filling with water, mysterious pressure leaks, and terrifying unplanned spins of the entire station due to malfunctioning Russian garbage.

 

[nimelennar]

I wish they would just push it into a significantly higher orbit, like an even 300 miles or even 500km so they don't have to worry about it so much.

Then there are the problems you introduce by flying so much higher, for starters the ISS was never designed to operate in that radiation environment and for the most part is very lightly shielded, at least compared to what you would want for long term habitation in that high an orbit, plus none of the launch vehicles currently servicing the ISS were designed for trips that far either.

Also, the debris risk gets worse as you go higher.

From the NASA ISS Deorbit Analysis Summary:

I recommend that anyone who is suggesting that NASA move the ISS higher read that document, to find out why they're not.

 

[lukarak]

... that couldn't be spent on directly solving problems on earth. Anyway you slice it, you can't turn a cost into a benefit. When you take resources from the economy to spend them on space, you are losing the things those resources would have produced in the economy. ...

Every single cent 'spent' on space remains on earth to be spent again on anything you desire.

It's not a zero sum game.

 

[xoid]

Well if it can survive a reboost (and the trampoline flips the other year) it can survive being boosted all the way out to an L-point, slowly.

I am far from an aerospace engineer, but I'm not sure of that logic. It seems to me, just because something can handle the stresses of, say, a 45 second boost, doesn't mean it can survive the same stresses for minutes or hours needed to move that far at that speed.

 

[aleph_nought]

Let this be a lesson in engineering risk management. There's no point having multiple pathways when they all converge on one choke point, the ground support equipment at the sole available spaceport in this case.

 

[Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer]

At the risk of being branded a war criminal, I would put a few dollars on Thursday's launch to the ISS being the last one that the Russians perform.

 

[YetAnotherBoris]

Every single cent 'spent' on space remains on earth to be spent again on anything you desire.

It's not a zero sum game.

In a sense, yes, but in many ways, not really. Opportunity cost is the operative concept. Instead of $400 Billion spent on the ISS and the Shuttle program, we could've had an additional 40 flagship $10 Billion space missions on the order of James Webb or Europa Clipper (and, indeed, Mars sample return) by now. The sheer volume of science that could've been obtained via such an alternative investment approach, would've utterly dwarfed what we've obtained from our multidecadal mucking about and busy-work in LEO.

 

[Hydrargyrum]

Every single cent 'spent' on space remains on earth to be spent again on anything you desire.

It's not a zero sum game.

I’m a fan of space exploration and development, but this argument isn’t airtight, because the cyclical nature of money also applies to Earth-based infrastructure projects which provide a long-term compounding benefit. There is still an opportunity cost attached to doing a space project vs a different terrestrial investment.

That said, plenty of space projects do deliver very substantial value (communications, Earth monitoring, and national security being the killer apps so far), and I think human space capabilities will be important in the long run for our species. And a project being on Earth doesn’t guarantee a positive ROI either.

 

[Asbestos Muffins]

In a sense, yes, but in many ways, not really. Opportunity cost is the operative concept. Instead of $400 Billion spent on the ISS and the Shuttle program, we could've had an additional 40 flagship $10 Billion space missions on the order of James Webb or Europa Clipper (and, indeed, Mars sample return) by now. The sheer volume of science that could've been obtained via such an alternative investment approach, would've utterly dwarfed what we've obtained from our multidecadal mucking about and busy-work in LEO.

sure but its not like we don't learn anything on the ISS. its been the only microgravity laboratory in the world for the last 20 years and there's tons of raw scientific discoveries that have come out of ISS whereas flagship missions are going to be more focused on either single experiments or observing other planets.

 

[YetAnotherBoris]

sure but its not like we don't learn anything on the ISS. its been the only microgravity laboratory in the world for the last 20 years and there's tons of raw scientific discoveries that have come out of ISS whereas flagship missions are going to be more focused on either single experiments or observing other planets.

Thing is, most of those microgravity experiments could've just as easily - and far more cheaply - been accomplished by launching as payloads on dedicated satellites. Just about the only experiments not so easily replaceable, were ones involving astronaut health studies during long-duration missions.

 

[Waco]

Back when I drove a manual, I had left my old 4Runner in gear while parked, because the parking brake cable snapped the day prior. Well, I forgot about it being in gear when I went out to warm up the car one vicious Montana winter night before I clocked out at the bar. Whatever sensor is supposed to make sure you have a foot on the brake had long since failed.

I reached in & turned the key, while pressing the clutch with my right foot & still standing outside the vehicle. When I released the clutch, it jumped the concrete stop & slammed into the wall behind the bar before stalling. My coworker said he thought there was an earthquake, because all the bottles shook. No damage to the wall, or my vehicle, but it startled the shit outta me & I was pretty embarrassed when I fessed up what had really happened...

I'm unaware of any older vehicle with a starter interlock for both the clutch and the brake. It's usually just the clutch. I have it disabled on my 3rd gen and Miatas because it massively reduces wear on the thrust bearing with a stronger clutch. The wife's old Tacoma has a button to disable it so you don't need to push the clutch, from factory.

 

[bp_968]

I wonder whether it'd be possible to kludge something together that allows a Progress to launch on a different rocket (Falcon 9, or Ariane 6, or some such).

Even the idea of putting a russian spacecraft on a US rocket because russia couldn't launch it would likely get someone "suiciding" out a high window in russia. He would be way more likely to stand on a tank shirtless and proclaim that the great russia no longer needs the ISS because its "stupid western nonsense" and useless to the amazing super humans that inhabit russia.

The russian ego is really something else. China seems to be benefiting from it currently though (I expect russia to become a sad little proxy power of China not long after putin kicks it).

 

[bp_968]

I'm unaware of any older vehicle with a starter interlock for both the clutch and the brake. It's usually just the clutch. I have it disabled on my 3rd gen and Miatas because it massively reduces wear on the thrust bearing with a stronger clutch. The wife's old Tacoma has a button to disable it so you don't need to push the clutch, from factory.

I suspect those days are quickly disappearing. Manual vehicles are a quickly dying breed. With thr various types of automatics getting better mpg and still holding pretty significant HP numbers, and EVs not using a transmission at all, I expect them to be gone outside commercial vehicles and a very very small number of extremely enthusiast focused sports cars (and those are quickly shifting towards manumatics and dual clutch setups in many models).

 

[SportivoA]

The ISS had a number of (now failing) political goals with it. And rational efficient tax expenditures the US sure isn't when it comes to space and the need for pork budgets. Or defense. Or agency funding...

 

[nimelennar]

kind of why I'm irritated yhay NASA is letting spaceX become sole supplier of crewed launch vehicles again. yes boeing fucked up with starliner but imagine a defect pops up on dragon and they can't fly it, we're back to the shuttle days of nobody going to space.

What other option would you suggest?

Letting a defective Starliner fly? I don't see how that's any better than a defective Dragon.

Launching Orion to the ISS? It costs $2 billion per Orion launch, and that's if you find something other than SLS to launch it (if on SLS, it's an additional $2 billion).

Funding a third crewed capsule? The third one would probably have been Dream Chaser, and they haven't been able to get a (much less complicated) cargo variant into orbit.

What other option did NASA have here that I'm not seeing, other than "letting spaceX become sole supplier of crewed launch vehicles?"

 

[Atterus]

What other option would you suggest?

Letting a defective Starliner fly? I don't see how that's any better than a defective Dragon.

Launching Orion to the ISS? It costs $2 billion per Orion launch, and that's if you find something other than SLS to launch it (if on SLS, it's an additional $2 billion).

Funding a third crewed capsule? The third one would probably have been Dream Chaser, and they haven't been able to get a (much less complicated) cargo variant into orbit.

What other option did NASA have here that I'm not seeing, other than "letting spaceX become sole supplier of crewed launch vehicles?"

You are forgetting the option of "continuing to fund obsolete and grossly overpriced pork projects designed to go on for 20 years until a private enterprise outs it as such". Sure, it does nothing for exploration on a grand scale, letting actual science be done with the crumbs, but sure does sound nice and is great for political football!

 

[Steve austin]

In a sense, yes, but in many ways, not really. Opportunity cost is the operative concept. Instead of $400 Billion spent on the ISS and the Shuttle program, we could've had an additional 40 flagship $10 Billion space missions on the order of James Webb or Europa Clipper (and, indeed, Mars sample return) by now. The sheer volume of science that could've been obtained via such an alternative investment approach, would've utterly dwarfed what we've obtained from our multidecadal mucking about and busy-work in LEO.

For better or worse, I see effectively zero chance that Congress (or the various successive administrations) would have agreed to spend $400 billion on pure science space missions. Crewed space missions have a more visceral appeal to them (for political, prestige, or other reasons), do a better job of spreading dollars to the usual suspects, and are more understandable to them and their constituents. While it is quite likely those 40 flagship missions would contribute more to overall science, I don’t think science per se is that important to the people who would have to approve the money.

Edit: typo

 

[Juvba Fnakix]

I'm just waiting for Roscosmos leadership to declare sabotage and that again it was Serena Auñón-Chancellor. Again their misogyny will probably lead them to claim she was dating someone at the facility and her "female emotions" caused her to lose it over a failed romantic relationship and sabotage the door.​

https://meincmagazine.com/science/202...am-just-threw-a-nasa-astronaut-under-the-bus/

Standard operating procedure to cover up the fact their looting has degraded Roscosmos maintenance and operations to the point where major accidents are an annual event.

There is a simple way to prevent major accidents becoming an annual event. Copy from SLS and launch every two three years.

 

[NetMage]

I reached in & turned the key

Something that should never, ever be done.

 

[NetMage]

As far as I can tell, Russia's only agreed to extend operations to 2028 anyway (source), so we're only talking two years less of normal ops at this point.

That still leaves the issue of a large object entering orbit randomly versus the planned 2030 controlled dept it, which Russia also agreed to:

and we will work on the issue of de-orbiting it by 2030

 

[NetMage]

kind of why I'm irritated yhay NASA is letting spaceX become sole supplier of crewed launch vehicles again.

Please explain how “NASA is letting spacex become the sole supplier” exactly? What could they do differently?

 

[mauricewyn]

In a sense, yes, but in many ways, not really. Opportunity cost is the operative concept. Instead of $400 Billion spent on the ISS and the Shuttle program, we could've had an additional 40 flagship $10 Billion space missions on the order of James Webb or Europa Clipper (and, indeed, Mars sample return) by now. The sheer volume of science that could've been obtained via such an alternative investment approach, would've utterly dwarfed what we've obtained from our multidecadal mucking about and busy-work in LEO.

I don’t think economics cares what money is spent on like that.

 

[eyesoars]

Re: exhaust hitting the flame trench

Is that unusual?

More every year...

 

[stefan_lec]

That still leaves the issue of a large object entering orbit randomly versus the planned 2030 controlled dept it, which Russia also agreed to:

What is Russia contributing to the deorbit? Thought accomplishing that was basically all on SpaceX.

Or are you saying without Russia's support, NASA won't be able to keep the station flying long enough to do a safe deorbit?

I think NASA needs to plan on going without Russia's help regardless, even if that means they have to prepare to deorbit sooner than 2030. I doubt Russia's government really cares about cleanly deorbiting ISS - they aren't reliable, honest, or remotely concerned about killing civilians. We should not be relying on them in any way.

As soon as the ISS becomes more of a hassle than the prestige is worth, they'll drop out without a second's thought about dangerous consequences. And the closer the station gets to decomissioning, the less their participation is worth to them. They might already be past the point where they no longer care.

 

[Carewolf]

Blast from the past. We were screamed at almost daily in junior high computer lab to ‘park your hard drives or else’. The dude was seriously scary.

Just turn off the computer ? Or if need a laptop get a ThinkPad that would park itself when detecting flight or fast motion

 

[leonremi]

Hatred for its leaders is complete justified, but try to have some empathy for all the innocent people who are suffering as their country is destroyed under the misrule of an amoral sociopath.

As if Putin was the first madman to rule this hellhole.

 

[EllPeaTea]

What is Russia contributing to the deorbit? Thought accomplishing that was basically all on SpaceX.

Or are you saying without Russia's support, NASA won't be able to keep the station flying long enough to do a safe deorbit?

I think NASA needs to plan on going without Russia's help regardless, even if that means they have to prepare to deorbit sooner than 2030. I doubt Russia's government really cares about cleanly deorbiting ISS - they aren't reliable, honest, or remotely concerned about killing civilians. We should not be relying on them in any way.

As soon as the ISS becomes more of a hassle than the prestige is worth, they'll drop out without a second's thought about dangerous consequences. And the closer the station gets to decomissioning, the less their participation is worth to them. They might already be past the point where they no longer care.

I think the overall plan is for the SpaceX deorbit vehicle to provide the grunt, while Progress and Zarya provide the finesse with attitude control.

 

[Erbium68]

No, that's wrong. The letters 'е' and 'ё' are actually distinct: it's not just a 'e' with an umlaut or a stress accent; these two letters both appear, separately and independently, in the Russian alphabet. And 'ё' is always, always pronounced like the 'yo' in 'coyote': it is never pronounced like an 'o'; there's the actual letter 'o' to serve that purpose.

When Russian text uses 'e' where there should be 'ё', this is either a typo or laziness on the part of the typesetter. That kind of thing is not normal, even in non-beginner texts.

And форгёт would indeed be read by any Russian as sounding more like 'forgyot'.

Well, all I can say is that this is how our Russian teacher explained it to us, and he had done his advanced study at the Sorbonne, Moscow and Perm. He also remarked that contrary to many statements there is distinct variation in Russian pronunciations ("A lot of the people who wrote textbooks probably never got further than Moscow".)
The pronunciation of o and e mutate under stress, so the letter o varies according to whether it has the stress or not. This is in fact the audible difference in the pronunciations of замок, lock, and замок, castle. Only one o in a word is pronounced as o, and then only if it has the stress.

"When Russian text uses 'e' where there should be 'ё', this is either a typo or laziness on the part of the typesetter"

I suspected I may be looking at older texts than you are. But, not having thought about it before, I decided to check the pravda.ru website. Not only do they almost never use ё but if you use their search engine it treats ё and e as equivalent.

I'll stick with my former teacher, thanks.

 

[henryhbk]

Having never owned a vehicle with an automatic transmission, I can confidently say that I have not. Now, neutral... Yeah, that almost got bad.

Having owned an EV with no transmission on the few times we are driving something else (rental car, etc) my family always has to remind me "put it park, shut it off" once on vacation I got out of the rental still running and in gear. It is really pedestrian to have to do that, having a car that engages into "park" and goes to sleep when you open the driver door and walk away is so easy, I know people with ICE Cars might do that to keep climate control running, but that works even if the car is "off" since off isn't off (there is an off, but you probably don't want that!)

 

[fenris_uy]

Quoted when trying to edit.

 

[fenris_uy]

Will it be Kazakhstan or Russia that handles the repair? I imagine Kazakhstan owning the pad will want to prioritize its repair so they don't look bad to the regional despot running things over there, but they've also pulled the plug recently on Russian outfits due to lack of payment on electricity bills, so...

The Russian space company responsible for launching Soyuz is responsible for the pad. If SpaceX blows their pad, neither Texas, Florida or California is going to pay to repair it.

 

[fenris_uy]

Eh. We've learned a lot from the ISS, but it's a multi-decade project with only four years (optimistically) left on the clock, and it requires working with someone who's currently invading Europe at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives.

Given how fast Russia's civilian space program seems to be decaying, if we truly can't support ISS without the Russians, I seriously doubt it's gonna make it all the way to 2030 anyway, at least not with an acceptable level of astronaut safety.

As far as I can tell, Russia's only agreed to extend operations to 2028 anyway (source), so we're only talking two years less of normal ops at this point.

Plus, the ISS is (arguably) already a bit too unsafe to keep using, given the decrepit EVA suits that have helmets filling with water, mysterious pressure leaks, and terrifying unplanned spins of the entire station due to malfunctioning Russian garbage.

NASA needs to find a way to reboost the ISS until they build the vehicle able to do a controlled reentry of the ISS. If they have astronauts on board during that time, I'm sure that would be a plus.

 

[windnwar]

Soyuz still uses the wooden igniters to light the engines on take off as far as I know. I would imagine that platform was used for installing them in the engines among other things.

We shall see how quickly it flies again, or if in a month or two they suddenly decide to abandon the station..

 

[blackhawk887]

You are forgetting the option of "continuing to fund obsolete and grossly overpriced pork projects designed to go on for 20 years until a private enterprise outs it as such". Sure, it does nothing for exploration on a grand scale, letting actual science be done with the crumbs, but sure does sound nice and is great for political football!

That's not optional for NASA, as it is required by law to build SLS and Orion.

 

[J.King]

Just turn off the computer ? Or if need a laptop get a ThinkPad that would park itself when detecting flight or fast motion

Since (I think) the early 1990s parking of heads has been performed by drive firmware and it is safe to simply power off a drive, but drives older than that needed to be parked manually by sending a command before power-off. Rival Vector Plot doesn't provide a time frame, but it's at least possible that the zealous admonishment made sense.

 

[Markkf]

Before a Soyuz launch Thursday someone forget to secure a 20-ton service platform​

Forgot no?

I doubt damaging a launch platform would be strategic thinking.

 

[Markkf]

Dragon and Cygnus may be able to reboost and desaturate the gyroscopes, but they cannot refuel the station's thrusters. Only Progress can do that. What would be involved in allowing Progress to launch on Falcon 9?

Would never happen. Russian pride and NASA caution. Can you imagine the finger pointing with any error.