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Space station leak caused by drill, not meteorite
- ricardobeat 8y agoAlthough the consequences could have been disastrous, I hope the person responsible doesn’t get the Gulag treatment.
- ATsch 8y agoI think your understanding of russia is out by about 50 years.
- ainar-g 8y agoYou made me curious, so I looked something up. According to the Russian Criminal Code, * Negligence resulting in a large economic damage: up to two years in prison. * Negligence resulting in more than two deaths or serious injuries: up to seven years in prison. Source (in Russian): https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_10699/33ed8a9caec9cd5b4c329b9a17409a19c583d4d4/ https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_10699/33ed8a....
- dang 8y agoPlease don't post nationalistic flamebait here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- self_awareness 8y agoA rock hitting a space station is a meteorite or meteor?
- dotancohen 8y agoIt should actually be "micrometeorite", not meteorite. Anything that leaves a slow leak must be tiny, as at orbital+ speeds even specks of dust have tremendous momentum and carry significant energy.
- Angostura 8y agoSince it hasn't entered the atmosphere to any meaningful degree, asteroid?
- perlgeek 8y agoIt's a meteorite. A meteor is really the optical phenomena of a meteorite burning up in the atmosphere.
- bigiain 8y agoAs explained by the noted space nomenclature expert, Johanna Newsome: You taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledger Though all I knew of the rote universe were those pleiades loosed in December I promised you I'd set them to verse so I'd always remember That the meteorite is a source of the light And the meteor's just what we see And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee -- from Emily - by Johanna Newsome
- ThomasBHickey 8y agoJoanna Newsom
- alxlaz 8y agoThe word you're looking for is meteoroid. (Not meteorite. It's not a meteorite until it has fallen on solid ground or water :-) ). They're objects whose size is smaller than that of an asteroid, but larger than that of a micrometeoroid or space dust particle. Basically anything larger than a grain of sand, but not big enough to be an asteroid, is a meteoroid.
- stcredzero 8y agoAnd the meteorite's just what causes the light And the meteor's how it's perceived And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGoNCvoZuYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGoNCvoZuYA
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- SomewhatLikely 8y agoDo these modules undergo pressure tests before launching? I would hope there's some quality control to catch this type of flaw.
- rebolek 8y agoThey do, but the hole was filled with glue. Once in space, the glue dried up and depressurizing started. So it was not possible to catch it on ground.
- londons_explore 8y agoI would expect "glue in a hole" to fail as the sun hits the module every 90 mins, and the surface probably heats to 100C and cools to -25C. That kind of heat cycling causes expansion and contraction, causing the boundary between the metal and the glue to weaken then fail. One can test for that in the lab, but it involves heat cycling for a long time to reproduce the same number of cycles the space station could undergo in its multi-decade lifespan.
- pocketstar 8y agoonly the exterior blankets would have such extreme temperature cycles, the inner aluminum hull would have a much more stable temperature. The diurnal would be much more benign. Still enough for CTE and fatigue to cause a failure.
- INTPenis 8y agoWhere do you get this glue info? I don't see it in the article. So someone accidentally drilled through an expensive space station module on earth and filled the hole with glue. Wow..
- unwind 8y agoThird paragraph, with a quote directly after it: An unnamed source told RIA Novosti the person responsible for drilling the hole filled it with glue instead of reporting the mistake. "The glue dried and was squeezed out, opening the hole," the source told the media outlet. It's fun that the astronauts did the proper/final fix with epoxy, which to most people is of course also a glue. So perhaps the worker used (or mis-used) the wrong glue to fix this, rather than tried to cover up the mistake? Of course it sounds reasonable that it should have been reported, which didn't happen, so so the working environment seems improvable.
- yummybear 8y agoI wonder what work environment exists, that would cause a worker to hide their mistakes and endanger the crew, instead of reporting it. And how many more mistakes go unreported? I hope russia addresses the root issue, and not just fires the person responsible.
- alex_hitchins 8y agoI remember when the Mir had a fire on board. They didn't tell the US crew on board until it was obvious I seem to recall (a while back now). Also, the ground crew reported all was fine, it was only when the astronauts communicated back that it was uncovered. This sort of thing has happened before and will happen again, sadly.
- pravj 8y agoRelated to that, currently reading the book "DRAGONFLY: NASA AND THE CRISIS ABOVE MIR", there was a fire event at the station and Russian space personals circulated in the media that it was just a 10-second fire.
- stupidcar 8y agoEven in the most safety-conscious and blame-free work environment, I'm not sure you can entirely remove the desire for skilled professionals to cover up expensive errors. It's just a natural human instinct to want to avoid being embarrassed in front of your peers, no matter how understanding they'll be about it.
- nradov 8y agoOne approach that sometimes works well is to allow for anonymous error reporting.
- orbital-decay 8y agoAccording to Rockets and People by Chertok, they've solved that issue in late 70s by properly organizing the process and setting the right balance between personal responsibility and root cause analysis. However, in the last decade or so the industry deteriorated significantly, lost much of its institutional memory, and the problem reappeared due to low wages and clueless management.
- aaron695 8y agoThis should not be a surprise to anyone. (The fact its human, the cover-up is interesting) Leaks from human error/wear should be orders of magnitude more likely. I'll admit I was blown away when it was not a crack but a neat hole which more confirmed the earlier meteorite/space junk theory which I found highly unlikely. The fact the info coming out of NASA would be so incorrect does make me question other statements. I still don't believe Oumuamua is from another solar system, that serviette math doesn't add up, but no one in the entire field seems to be willing to make the call. Equivocally I've yet to see the maths saying it's possible, if it is, where is this info? Science is still very fundamentally broken. And if the rocket scientists can't get it right how much chance do the pseudo-scientists in psychology have?
- de_watcher 8y agoLiving up to the standards of the Russian space station in the Armageddon movie.
- coldtea 8y agoAs opposed to that other great American space station?
- chopin 8y ago"Welcome to the craft where all parts are made by the lowest bidder" is the one citation I remember. The Russians were greeted this way.
- henrikeh 8y agoWhich is a quote based upon a quote by Alan Shepard[0]. [0]: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alan_Shepard https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alan_Shepard
- mmjaa 8y agoIs this kind of derision really necessary? Americans are just as capable of making stupid mistakes, and have - many times over - during the course of their space program. This story should be about how American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts have demonstrated time and again that they are more than capable of working together to do amazing things, in spite of the nationalistic jingoism currently ripping the American political sphere apart in its efforts to create a new bad guy to hate. But, no: its a two-minutes hate session for Westerners to pile on Russia. Again.
- tim333 8y agoAh yes "This is how we fix problems" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEkOT3IngMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEkOT3IngMQ
- kinj28 8y agoThis has happened before and that was catastrophic. On June 30, 1971, the crew of Soyuz 11, Soviet cosmonauts Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev were killed after the cabin vent valve accidentally opened before atmospheric re-entry. There had been no indication of trouble until the recovery team opened the capsule and found the dead crew.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- aaron_m04 8y agoThese are also the only people known to have died in space so far (as opposed to in the atmosphere on the way to or from space).
- eps 8y agoAs tragic as the Soyuz 11 incident was, it's hardly similar in any of its aspects: "The fault was traced to a breathing ventilation valve, located between the orbital module and the descent module, that had been jolted open as the descent module separated from the service module, 12 minutes and 3 seconds after retrofire. The two were held together by explosive bolts designed to fire sequentially; in fact, they had fired simultaneously. The explosive force of the simultaneous bolt firing caused the internal mechanism of the pressure equalization valve to loosen a seal that was usually discarded later and which normally allowed for automatic adjustment of the cabin pressure. The valve opened at an altitude of 168 kilometres, and the resultant loss of pressure was fatal within seconds."
- walrus01 8y agoThis is why they do things like x-ray every cm of the welds on the new Astute class submarines. Trust, but verify.
- djcapelis 8y agoFor what it’s worth, that’s how a lot of critical welds are verified. X-raying welds is fairly standard practice in the field if the strength of the weld is important enough. And it’s not as much about trust as how much it is fairly easy to make a mistake while welding and not know it. A good welder paying close attention can tell whether a weld is good with fairly high accuracy. But that’s not always enough certainty and when skilled honest people make mistakes here, they won’t nevessarily know it. So, you X-ray.
- Loic 8y ago10% of the pieces in a Ferrari are inspected using x-rays. This ensures the motor has no defects, the bad pieces are melted again[0]. X-raying does not cost a lot nowadays and definitely helps the quality. [0]: https://www.evo.co.uk/ferrari/10140/making-of-a-ferrari https://www.evo.co.uk/ferrari/10140/making-of-a-ferrari
- dmurray 8y agoThis fault looks like it was not on a weld, but elsewhere on the surface. Though probably close enough to some kind of join, if the worker slipped with a drill.
- todd8 8y agoThey x-ray (or even gamma-ray) every cm of welds on the natural gas pipelines that crisscross the country. These pipelines can be over a meter in diameter and perhaps (from my recollection) a couple of cm thickness. Consequently, the x-ray machines are not machines one wants to be near when operating, they are quite powerful. I learned this during a summer job in college at the research labs for a large gas pipeline company in the early 70's. At the time a "pig" was used to provide the x-rays for checking the welds of under-sea gas pipelines while they were being constructed. This pig was a remotely controlled wheeled device that moved from weld to weld and x-ray film would be put on the outside of the steel pipe for exposure. The pipe segments were welded together on a barge that floated in perhaps the Gulf of Mexico. Because the welding took several separate passes around the pipe it was done in a continuous operation with the pig x-ray as the final stage before the pipe slid off the back of the barge into the sea. Normally, the pig motored toward the open, working end, of the pipe as new sections where being assembled on the barge. Once, the pig malfunctioned and took off in the wrong direction; it rolled down to the sea-floor. A guy from the pig company had to be flown to the gulf. He was rolled down the pipe lying on something like a skateboard (attached to a rope) to retrieve the pig!!!
- informatimago 8y agoErr, nothing says the identified responsible was a Russian. The glue had time to dry off, so the drilling may have occurred a long time ago. Let's not jump to conclusions, But the suspense is insufferable!
- comboy 8y agoWhat does it matter if it was a Russian or not? Obviously that person should have reported it, but I'm surprised that there wasn't more QC. I imagined at least a few people inspect everything after it's "ready to go".
- mmjaa 8y agoThe only reason it matters if it was a Russian engineer or not, is so that Americans' currently engaged in two-minutes hate can use this story as yet more confirmation of their bias against Russia. There's simply no other reason to point it out and make an issue out of it.
- Tor3 8y agoSo where did it say that a Russian did it? The only reference is to a 'specialist'. You're putting up a straw man so that you can push it down. You sound like you're from that well-known trolling group btw.
- mmjaa 8y agoYour reading comprehension not so good? Blinded by hate? Look at the person whose message I responded to - it was them who mentioned it was a Russian. >well-known trolling group Yeah, thanks for proving my point that America is in the grips of two-minutes hate right now ..
- Tor3 8y agoI've read all the comments. The main theme is a discussion about how a working environment can be set up to avoid such potentially disastrous things to happen - i.e. hiding technical problems and errors instead of doing it properly (report, fix, verify). It's not like it's only happened in Russia. Everybody knows about the Challenger disaster, which came about due to (in that case) management ignoring issues, so it's different, but still similar. Or do you really prefer that things like this shouldn't be discussed or revealed, but be hidden under a carpet instead? (and a lot of people here, including myself, are not American. Wouldn't go there if I were paid for it. So that's not what this is about. At all.)
- rbanffy 8y agoI imagine incidents like this will become a lot more common as space travel becomes commonplace and spacecraft are built in assembly lines. Also, the fix should be simple - either the epoxi or a small metal plate glued or welded on top of the hole (I'd suggest glue, because of the lower thermal stresses). The guy used the wrong glue. It's just one atmosphere. Taking turns and putting a finger on top of the hole is a reasonable emergency fix.
- hrnnnnnn 8y agoThe Expanse sci-fi novel series goes into this subject quite a lot. The people who live on and around the outer planets ("belters") are all said to have an extreme fixation on ship maintenance, those who didn't having been "weeded out" of the gene pool by their negligence.
- rbanffy 8y agoThe ones who don't carry duct tape will certainly be weeded out rather quickly.
- stcredzero 8y agoThere's some kind of aircraft repair tape like duct tape, which is made with much stronger fibers and uses a much stronger adhesive. It's not called "aircraft tape," however. That's something else. A friend was telling me that there was a small hole in a submarine once found patched by the stuff. I try to carry 4 strips of medical tape stuck to the back of my emergency credit card. I think I have to check it and restock.
- rbanffy 8y agoThe one used in aircraft is called speed tape. It's thick aluminum foil and a high-grade adhesive and resists well to heat, some fire, and lots of wind. There's also one called "Gorilla tape", IIRC, that's like duct tape but much stronger. A submarine is subject to much higher pressure differentials than aircraft or spacecraft (and also from the wrong directions for easy repairs from the inside) and I wouldn't recommend relying on it for long. I'm not sure how speed tape would work if applied in a vacuum, but I guess most repairs like this would be done from the inside, under some pressurization. Speed tape would be better, but, if you have external thermal blankets over the hull, duct tape should do just fine. It's only 1 atmosphere, after all (0.25 if you can do pure oxygen). Eventually, when you stop by a proper facility, you'll want to do something more permanent (and fix the thermal blankets/external hull, because, if it was a micrometeorite that reached the pressurized part, there must be a hole there too).
- baldfat 8y ago> According to Russia Today, the person responsible for the hole has been identified. That was pretty scary sentence for me. Short story, I know the guy who made the mistake on the mirror for the Hubble Telescope. https://www.nasa.gov/content/hubbles-mirror-flaw https://www.nasa.gov/content/hubbles-mirror-flaw He was a great guy and was the President for the Trouts Unlimited when I was a kid. That one thing defined him for so long. Was pretty sad story to me. He did one mistake but the quality control department were never troubled like he was even though they had it right in front of them for years.
- stareatgoats 8y agoYea, accidents and mistakes should obviously be seen as learning opportunities, and the ones making them should really be treated as heroes for demonstrating how things can go wrong. But when millions (billions?) of dollars and/or lives are put at risk you better have a good explanation, that's for sure. Putting glue in an accidental hole of a space vehicle or similar and hoping no-one discovers would probably not help your case further (if it were to be discovered ...). The guy who miscalibrated the machinery that made the Hubble telescope (1/50th of a hairs breadth error) may have had a good explanation for all I know- care to share the details?
- CWuestefeld 8y agoMy grandfather worked on the HST mirror. It's both what he was most proud of, and the most ashamed of, at the same time. He talked about this not really as a single person's fault (except in terms of a senior manager's failure), but as an organizational problem. He pointed out two things: 1. In particular, the organization was poorly designed, with QA being too close (in org chart terms) to production. If there's one finger to point, it's at the guy who was the common manager of both departments. And I think this is something that the engineering profession has taken to heart since then. 2. People at the time thought of things with somewhat different priorities because the context changed. At the time the mirror was being built, it was understood that the space shuttle would make it relatively simpler to fix serious problems (well, as "simpler" as any space missions could be). As it turned out, the space shuttle was less effective in that role than its initial requirements led HST management to believe. This probably led to a more relaxed attitude about the ultimate result of any problems.
- some_account 8y agoJust a few days ago people on HN were believing it was an asteroid. If anybody would have challenged that, they would not have been believed. My point is, people believe most things, specially from space agencies, without having any means of verifying it. And they believe it without any doubt. If I told you that these space agencies are lying to the public, would you believe it? There is so much evidence of nasa and ess fakery. It just annoys me that most people still believe anything coming from these sources.
- ss2003 8y agoDoes that mean you think it's flat?
- phyzome 8y agoMicrometeorite, not asteroid.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago> Just a few days ago people on HN were believing it was an asteroid. If anybody would have challenged that, they would not have been believed. Typically people do and should believe things based upon the strongest evidence. While you can't trust them to be totally right all the time, you can assume that, barring additional information and reasonable cause for doubt, that the most credible sources information is a good place to start. Do you have a source that's more credible than NASA in regards to events occurring in space with NASA astronauts?
- stcredzero 8y agoI bought a laser cutter from a company in Guandong for the makerspace I was involved in, and there were about a half dozen similar "bodges" I discovered in the manufacture. There were two acorn nuts which were attached to bolts that didn't go all the way through, so were effectively decorations. (The other 8 did, so I know that was a total bodge.) The bodges even included the way the bracket holding one of the mirrors was installed. I know for a fact that you can buy epoxy which matches the index of refraction of most kinds of glass. The guy who drilled the hole and filled it with glue must have been in a bit of a hurry. PSA from Matt Groening: If you drink, don't drill! http://home.earthlink.net/~foghornj/drinkand.html http://home.earthlink.net/~foghornj/drinkand.html