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Strictly thinking, Space Shuttle Columbia colliding with foam was worse[0] than this. It is amazing how Mir courted disaster[1] but ended its mission without f

• Piskvorrr 10y ago
  "Shit happens." Both scenarios could have played out with opposite endings (e.g. there have been other debris strikes in previous Shuttle missions, without fatal consequences), with very small changes in inputs. There's plenty of things to be learned from each, but I don't see anything those incidents would have in common, except "IN SPAAAACE!".
  • aleyan 10y ago
    What they have in common is one is BBC's candidate for "Worst collision in the history of space flight" and the other one is mine. Agree with your comment on opposite endings for small changes in inputs.
  • mikeash 10y ago
    The debris collision happened about 20km up, and the orbiter began to break up at an altitude of around 70km (on the way back down, of course), so teeechnically speaking neither event happened in space. Man, my inner nitpicker really came out on that one.
    • amelius 10y ago
      There is no clear boundary of the atmosphere, so technically speaking no event ever happens in space.
      • NegativeLatency 10y ago
        Actually we've defined a boundary at 100km https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line
        • mikeash 10y ago
          Yep, just because there's no clear physical boundary doesn't mean there isn't a clear line separating "in space" from "not in space."
          • amelius 10y ago
            It is a surface, not a line :) And it isn't very clear either, since the sea level isn't very well defined as it changes all the time :)
            • mikeash 10y ago
              Heh, you're doing it again! The actual water level is constantly changing, but "sea level" is typically defined to some fixed level. Although there is more than one definition to pick from.
              • amelius 10y ago
                Yes, and I can continue until you run out of definitions to cling to :) Sea level is (presumably) defined in terms of the center-of-mass of the Earth. This center of mass is constantly changing (even as a side-effect of the rocket moving).
                • mikeash 10y ago
                  Changes smaller than your ability to measure them don't really matter. Especially when we're talking about being ~30km below the definition's altitude.
• deleted 10y ago
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• drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  >It is amazing how Mir courted disaster[1] but ended its mission without fatalities or serious injuries. Mir is a space station with a crew size of two. Its not a vehicle that regularly does re-entry. Comparing it to the STS makes no sense and reveals a certain amount of bias on your part. Often when something foreign is criticized on HN, there's always some poster making a half-assed "but, but the US is worse" argument for whatever reason. Its standard Whataboutism. A propaganda technique from the Soviets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism Not everything has to have this cold war us vs them mentality. Space station docking systems is an interesting topic, its a shame you had to drag mindless whataboutism into it. No, its not amazing no one died on it. Space stations are historically very safe with zero deaths in all of humanity's space history. This collsion with the Progress supply ship is interesting from a historical perspective and may answer questions on why the US never got into unmanned remote control solutions like the Soviets did. > in a test intended to establish whether Russia could reduce the cost of Progress missions by eliminating the Kurs automated docking system. At 09:18 UTC, whilst under the control of Vasily Tsibliyev, the Progress spacecraft collided with the space station's Spektr module, damaging both the module itself, and a solar panel. Source: wikipedia.