NASA postpones space station spacewalk due to crew member’s “medical concern”
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If one is sick, they all have to leave?
There is only one Crew Dragon docked at a time so if they only send down the sick member the other three wouldn't have a lifeboat if the need arose.
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Best wishes for the astronaut, I hope they're able to get the treatment they need.
Frankly, this is why the spaceflight agencies do all the contingency planning that they do. As spaceflight and the population of humans living and working in space grows these sort of "routine exceptions" are going to become more common. Airlines divert hundreds of flights a week due to medical emergencies. For the near future we're not going to have full fledged hospitals in space and so we're going to have to keep returning sick astronauts to Earth.
Frankly, this is why the spaceflight agencies do all the contingency planning that they do. As spaceflight and the population of humans living and working in space grows these sort of "routine exceptions" are going to become more common. Airlines divert hundreds of flights a week due to medical emergencies. For the near future we're not going to have full fledged hospitals in space and so we're going to have to keep returning sick astronauts to Earth.
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I guess ambulance ride costs are inversely related to density of substance they traverse?
Ground < air < vacuum
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"Show me some HUSTLE, you whales! Move like you've got a porpoise!"
.... That works too well.
None of which are available for use now, or on short notice. And even if they were, none of them are compatible with Starliner, and likely can't move Starliner's mass in any sort of timely fashion.
Regardless, the real issue is that seeing up Starliner and an Atlas would require months, minimum. Certifying Falcon 9 to carry Starliner would take even longer.
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Yes, it is moving towards you. If it was moving away it would be a red whale.
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IIRC, there is space below the four astronaut seats in Dragon.
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Well, you wouldn't want to send them back alone. You would want at least one crew member, preferably two to travel with them - one pilot to focus on the craft and interactions with NASA, and one to focus on the patient. Given they were returning in a month anyway, and it is a four person crew it's not worth the extra logistics to return separately.If one is sick, they all have to leave?
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You've got 7-8 minutes of multiple g's of acceleration during entry while strapped into your seat. Sure, you can take care of the patient up until entry interface, but the for the stressful/difficult part of the profile, there's really nothing one passenger can do for the other.
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A pilot is a largely vestigial task. You certainly can take local control of a Dragon capsule, but it's a fully autonomous vehicle, capable of carrying out a mission on its own, or under command from the ground. You still probably want someone to tend to the patient.
The real reason the whole crew would return is the alternative is to leave the rest of the crew stranded.
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Bill Swallow
Ars Centurion
You joke, but on reflection, I think there's probably some truth to that, albeit indirectly, based on energy cost / technology required for the medium / how common and mass-produced the vehicles are.
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I might be ignorant on this, but I assume the effort required is because the movement of joints in the suit is compressing the joint to a smaller volume, thus meaning the user is pushing against the suit pressure. Could we not design "zero volume change" joints that don't require pushing against the suit's pressure, thus making movement a lot easier? Or am I totally off base on why it's so hard to move in the suit?
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Precisely.
The author leaves this as an exercise for the reader...
That's the "obvious" solution. It's less obvious how to actually achieve that. Even just the padding on non-pressurized gloves becomes a problem for extended usage. The actual solution is likely to be some sort of powered assist, or a remote effector, at which point you start to question the value of even having the astronaut in the suit
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I wonder to what extent (if at all) it's possible to accelerate the launch of Crew-12.
The Ax-4 capsule (Grace) landed in mid-July, and the Crew-9 capsule (Freedom) has been on the ground since March. It's certainly theoretically possible that one or both of them could have been fully refurbished by now.
But then there's stuff like the pre-launch quarantine. I assume they haven't been quarantined already, which means they probably wouldn't be able to launch until they do and that two week period is up.
Not to mention any training etc. they still have left to do.
They obviously couldn't launch tomorrow, but I wonder if the Crew-12 launch could be brought forward to the end of the month, if necessary.
The Ax-4 capsule (Grace) landed in mid-July, and the Crew-9 capsule (Freedom) has been on the ground since March. It's certainly theoretically possible that one or both of them could have been fully refurbished by now.
But then there's stuff like the pre-launch quarantine. I assume they haven't been quarantined already, which means they probably wouldn't be able to launch until they do and that two week period is up.
Not to mention any training etc. they still have left to do.
They obviously couldn't launch tomorrow, but I wonder if the Crew-12 launch could be brought forward to the end of the month, if necessary.
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If I remember correctly, the direction didn't really matter it was all about maintaining the required magnitude; thus "Speed" is accurate.
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Some more details on the presser. Jared will be there.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/n...ith-international-space-station-update-today/
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If your bus is traveling 50mph sideways, you’re not gonna have a good time.
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Bill Swallow
Ars Centurion
If I'm not mistaken, the Ax-4 capsule had the nose docking adapter replaced by an 'airlock', no? Presumably that could be converted back for ISS operations, but would require time, effort, and testing.
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In this event, I hope they will be able to launch Crew 12 earlier than presently scheduled.
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It landed for a quick fuel in Midland, TX and is now back heading west.
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"Oh no, not again."
Edit: Whoops, wrong manifestation. I got it confused with a bowl of petunias. The whale of course said, "I wonder if it [the ground] will be friends with me?"
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So, when you can hit a couple of grand for a basic ambulance ride; what does an emergency crew dragon run you?
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Astronaut is stable. ISS doesn’t have the hardware required to do a proper diagnosis, so they are coming home so a full work up can be done.
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Doc doesn’t think there'll need to be any special consideration needed for the crew member on the trip home.
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Found an estimate that there has been about 130 years of cumulative astronaut time on ISS. Fortunately this is the first medical evac (unfortunate for statistics). That gives a very basic estimate of .77% chance of medical event per astronaut per year. A Mars mission ranges from about 650 to 900 days depending on conjunction vs opposition and opportunity. So with 4 crew that's a probability of 5-8% per mission.
Going to need more research into medical care to enable long deep space missions. Particularly considering that they couldn't full diagnose with how much medical equipment is onboard ISS vs how much we can practically take on something like a Mars mission.
Going to need more research into medical care to enable long deep space missions. Particularly considering that they couldn't full diagnose with how much medical equipment is onboard ISS vs how much we can practically take on something like a Mars mission.
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Watching the press conference and can't help but be very happy Jared got in as administrator.
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Of course not. Since it is not that serious, and we should safely assume that it is only a RAGE virus outbreak. Nothing to see here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Days_Later
Or perhaps is is only this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(2017_film)
/S (for NASA's lack of candor.)
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From the press conference, NASAs risk modelling has predicted a medical emergency every 3 years. They've collectively all been very lucky that this is the first.
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On a lighter note...
"A premature departure from the ISS would leave behind NASA astronaut Chris Williams and two Russian cosmonauts..." Brings to mind the old puzzle about the 3 missionaries and 3 cannibals needing to get across the river in a boat that can only handle 2 passengers at a time. (Or the wolf, goat and cabbage problem.)
"A premature departure from the ISS would leave behind NASA astronaut Chris Williams and two Russian cosmonauts..." Brings to mind the old puzzle about the 3 missionaries and 3 cannibals needing to get across the river in a boat that can only handle 2 passengers at a time. (Or the wolf, goat and cabbage problem.)
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The Ax-4 mission (debut of Crew Dragon Grace) went to ISS, so, no.
Maybe you're confusing it with Polaris Dawn?
That's Resilience, which has had its nose adapter swapped out a few times at this point. Cupola (Inspiration4), EVA hatch with handholds (Polaris Dawn), back to a cupola (Fram2)...
But yeah, there's a reason I didn't list Resilience as an option, despite last having been used in April.
For completeness, there's the Crew-11 Dragon (Endeavour) currently at the station, which can't be turned around for Crew-12 for obvious reasons, and then the fifth Crew Dragon is Endurance, and it last landed in August; I'm sure they could have turned it around in five months (they've done it before), but it's not as probable an option as either Grace or Freedom.
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Or, NASA just sucks at modeling low-risk events.
Because there’s only a 0.6% chance of seeing one event when one expects to see 7.
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