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Russian Cosmonauts Say That the Hole in the Soyuz Was Drilled from the Inside
- jimnotgym 8y agoDo you ever find yourself in the position whereyou are holding a brand new drill (for instance) in your hand, and you are just desperate to try it on something. I am the same with a new knife, something is going to get cut. Maybe this happened? "I wonder how well this drills aluminium, OMG it went right through"...pretend nothing happened. It is a bit like developers with a new js framework I suppose.
- rjplatte 8y agoHonestly, I could see how this could happen.
- AYBABTME 8y agoSeems more likely to me that some situation like "stacked panels, top panel is drilled thru and fabricator didn't notice" followed by someone else assembling it and thinking "this hole might be here for a reason".
- gesman 8y ago1. Scratch marks around the hole means that panel was likely not obstructed by anything [but possibly soft material]. Stacked panels is unlikely. 2. Drill was hand-held - again due to the marks where drill bit was trying to find it's way around. 3. No any markings from pen/pencil or anything that would show that any kind of measurements were done beforehand. Which means that the hole was not part of any specific fixture/attachment or construction element. Which strengthens hypothesis that the purpose of the hole was the hole itself. Location and/or precision of the hole was not important as much as the hole itself. At this point precise inspection is needed to find the tool used as well as determine which person's suit/clothing/outfit/personal belongings (astronaut's or technician) contain the traces of the metal that fall off as a result of the hole drilling effort.
- mveety 8y agoI disagree. I would bet they have tooling and jigs to build a Soyuz, and this hole could be the outcome of a poorly clamped and placed jig. Having a jig would explain why they’re using a handheld drill and why there’s no evidence of measurement.
- userbinator 8y agoWhich means that the hole was not part of any specific fixture/attachment or construction element. I wouldn't be so sure about that --- "we need to mount an X, it needs to be roughly in this area", while possibly questionable in space, is not uncommon in other construction. It could be a similar scenario, except whoever was responsible identified the wrong area. as well as determine which person's suit/clothing/outfit/personal belongings (astronaut's or technician) contain the traces of the metal that fall off as a result of the hole drilling effort If it was done on the ground during construction, where many holes are drilled, I don't think that would work.
- rbanffy 8y agoNot sure if the hull has other through holes for mounting stuff, but this one could easily be just that. Someone drilled a hole they thought made sense, it didn't, they sealed it with the wrong material and didn't say anything about it. I bet every spacecraft has a couple non conformances like that.
- jnellis 8y agoConclusion that the hole was intended is not likely. The hole has its own drift mark, you can still get a drift mark after punching through your piece. There are 3 drift marks, 3 other bit taps, 2 or 3 more bit taps further back where the panel jig-jogs (this was what they were shooting for in the first place, this dead space where the bit could punch through safely.) Most people that drill a lot of holes in metal have the finesse and dexterity to know when you've punched through a piece. Whoever did this drilling does not have those skills. When you hand hold a piece like this you rely on gravity and can put your weight down firmly against it so it doesn't move, even after punching through. Much tougher to do in space with no gravity, you need to use the frame itself to push against. If this was done on the ground it would have to be by a complete incompetent or drunk individual to make 8-11 damaging marks on the frame. Secondly in the second photo you see a padding that would partially cover this, it looks undamaged, meaning they lifted this padding for the explicit purpose of using that jig jog dead space in the frame as their 'punch through area.' Lastly, since I've been in this situation many times, whatever they were drilling through would not fit on the frame in the orientation they needed for some of the holes they were planning on drilling, and thus this is likely why they missed their dead space safety area. The debris from this would now be floating where ever so impossible to use that to determine guilt from clothing. The only thing they can use is either preflight photos (the padding covered most the damage perhaps) or send every drill bit on the station back to earth for analysis; drifting your bit even on aluminum alloy will leave a signature. Correlate that with use records for component replacement times. You're also looking for components with holes in them that don't match the blueprints. When you're on a 'boat' though, sometimes these types of repairs are assumed and undocumented though (especially when you screw up.) 50/50 chance this was an astronaut or a very drunk contractor on ground. The most disturbing evidence here is the drift mark before the hole among the other bit tap marks. It implies the person drilling it did not have mental focus.
- malux85 8y agoThis is why you're not on the ISS ... ... and exactly why I'm not either ;)
- skookumchuck 8y ago> pretend nothing happened Sure, but in the hull of the spacecraft that's leaking my air away, I'd still put a wad a chewing gum in the hole to patch it.
- Tade0 8y agoAs someone who fought and lost a war with holes in an inflated mattress I have to say that even one atmosphere is a surprisingly powerful amount of pressure when applied over a long period.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- larkeith 8y agoOn the other hand, it's probably easier when the air's moving the other direction.
- skookumchuck 8y agoTrue that, the air pressure would push the gum against the hole, rather than away from it.
- Tade0 8y agoOne of the ideas was to put a piece of insulating tape inside so that it could push from there. It would have worked if it weren't for a rubber column inside just next to the hole which required my tape to be curved at a right angle - screwing up any proper insulation.
- ygra 8y agoWell, the first temporary seal was Alexander Gerst's finger :)
- cm2187 8y agoIt's a good thing that with Blue Origin, Amazon can deliver new drills everywhere.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- adamnemecek 8y agoJulian Assange is stepping his game up, not just leaking documents but also air from ISS.
- dang 8y agoDon't do this here.
- adamnemecek 8y agoSorry.
- bbeonx 8y agoDo what?
- dang 8y agoPost extraneous flamebait to threads. It lowers the signal/noise ratio and leads to worse.
- ape4 8y agoCan they figure out if it was drilled in space or Earth
- huhtenberg 8y agoThere are drill bit skid marks, so, in theory, it might be possible to build some sort of a model (of a drill held by a human hand) and then see under which conditions these skids marks _are_ possible. But that's without considering that the simplest explanation is usually the right one and the at-orbit sabotage is just not that.
- theoh 8y agoPresumably there's a "breakout" burr on the outside surface of the metal which indicates that the drill bit emerged through that surface.
- blackflame7000 8y agoI wonder if the presence of gravity effects the way holes are drilled on the microscopic level
- EForEndeavour 8y agoThe smaller the length scale, the less important gravity becomes (think water glass versus water drop versus fog particle), so my gut feeling is that the answer is no.
- CapitalistCartr 8y agoSo I was teaching a new guy on building some of the interior work on sailboats. I showed him how to drill a couple of holes through the fiberglass flange to mount something-or-other. Several hours later my boss asks me why there's two small holes in the hull. Well, I didn't specifically tell him not to drill through the flange, the cm of space, and through the whole hull.
- Waterluvian 8y agoI'm a smart person but when learning stuff I often feel really dumb because I ask what should be really obvious questions. It's some weird mix of ignorance and fear of doing it wrong in front of the boss. "So fasten x to y with a screw." "Do I drill through and into the workbench too?" "Why would you do that?!" (In my mind) well I saw someone else fastening a work piece to the bench temporarily like that and why would the screw be this long then? Oh wait yeah that makes zero sense. My logic centre isn't working fast at all.
- sandworm101 8y agoThere are lots of times that you drill/saw past the piece you are cutting and into the support material, the bench, below. This generally makes for cleaner edges. Normally you put a sacrifice piece underneath, but sometimes the workbench takes the hit.
- strken 8y agoMy dad made me buy him some hole filling putty with my pocket money after I did this to his workbench at an age where I really should have known better. Apparently you're meant to clamp an offcut between the piece you're drilling into and the bench.
- Waterluvian 8y agoIn retrospect do you think your dad's approach was an effective teaching method? I'm slowly trying to figure out what kind of disciplinarian I'm going to be with my boys.
- trhway 8y agoeverybody in Russia knows that the hole is a result of trying to hang a Putin portrait on that wall, unfortunately the curvature of the wall didn't allow to actually the portrait, and the wooden plug ( "chopik", ie. a piece of wood hammered into the hole so that an actual screw would be screwed into that wooden plug) probably just fell out sometimes later as result of the space end of it being affected by the space cold (the space grade wood wasnt used because the allocated money went the usual way of corruption).
- dang 8y agoPlease don't do this here.
- sandworm101 8y agoAnyone who has ever held a drill can see in the pic that it was drilled from the inside. That means nothing in relation to when, where or who did said drilling.
- space_monk 8y agoHmmm, what if aliens drilled it from the outside, made it look like it's drilled from the inside and dispersed a super virus, that will kill us all.
- org3432 8y agoWell if it was drilled from the outside in, that would be spooky.
- ziont 8y agoUnacknowledged on Netflix
- mkl 8y agoNot really. It was most likely done on the ground.
- chiefalchemist 8y agoI suppose. But I would think cabin pressure and such are checked pre-launch.
- ygra 8y agoThe hole was sealed with glue initially. Temperature change in orbit eventually made it brittle and fall out, so the loss in pressure was only detected in orbit, but not prior to launch.
- chiefalchemist 8y agoAh. I see. Certainly these things are under constant video surveillance. Just review the tape?
- ufmace 8y agoThat makes too much sense...
- buboard 8y agoSo, they are already here ...
- mindcrime 8y agoIt would be even spookier if somebody (unexpected) knocked on the door...
- geuis 8y agoJust to be clear, the title is incorrect. The hole is in the Soyuz, not the ISS.
- jimhefferon 8y agoIn the museum on Nantuckut there is a display devoted to the USS Essex, a whaling ship (it is the ship that the whale rams, I think). One incindent that made an impression on me was a sailor, who was driven insane by boredom, and sabotaged the ship, just for something to happen. I understand space to be unbelivably boring.
- antongribok 8y agoMy boss's classmate from college went up to the ISS for the first time a couple of years ago. They graduated about 25 years ago and his classmate worked nonstop for 25 years to get to go to space. My understanding is once there, you work 16 hour days non-stop. I think most people would describe being on the ISS as anything else but "boring".
- BurningFrog 8y agoMost people, sure. But it only takes one who's different.
- Zigurd 8y agoThere was a mutiny on a Skylab mission due to overworking the crew
- evan_ 8y agoOverworking the crew and the absolutely horrendous quality of life on Skylab
- colordrops 8y agoISS crew have more tasks than time, and typically undersleep.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y agoDo you know this for a fact? Where can I learn more about how they occupy their time?
- Pica_soO 8y agoIts good that none of the suspects could leave the station, due to the hostile weather outside- assemble them all in the salon, if you would be so kind. Yes, include the maid, the butler and the gardener. By the simple powers of deduction, we shall corner the culprit. First, applying force to the station, by escaping air, should register as a slight change in vector to the instruments. So we can deduct the exact time the vector occurred first. Now at the time of the incident we had the following personal on station. Anne McClain Commander Oleg Kononenko David Saint-Jacques We shall find the culprit, my dear Watson, it is only a matter of time.
- CaliforniaKarl 8y ago> they wasted no time plugging the hole with epoxy and gauze. [from article] >Sealed with epoxy and resin [from photo caption] I'm kindof confused, was it resin-impregnated gauze? I'm also curious: If the hole was in a more-critical location, like one of the station's modules, would that be the repair process? Or would they be doing welding in space?
- userbinator 8y agoIt's a small hole that doesn't really compromise structural integrity, and it doesn't have to hold that much pressure --- remember that sea-level atmospheric pressure is <15psia, and in the vacuum of space it's effectively 0, so the difference is <15psi.
- overlordalex 8y agoThis brings to mind a great Futurama scene: > Fry: How many atmospheres can this ship withstand? > Farnsworth: Well it's a spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- chiefalchemist 8y agoIf it was deliberate then it sound like someone who doesn't know wtf they were / are doing. That rules out the astronauts, seems to point to someone on the ground, pre-launch, with nefarious intentions but a lack of knowledge on how best to execute that ill intent. Maybe?
- rco8786 8y agoI’d guess incompetence over malice
- neuralzen 8y agoGood ol' Hanlon's Razor
- chiefalchemist 8y agoI'm suggesting both. That is, someone with bad intentions but too incompotent to exectute correctly.
- hkt 8y agoAt least it wasn't drilled from the outside..
- space_monk 8y agoIf it was, any cosmo/astronauts that have been there since, should be placed under quarantine for a very long time.
- stevage 8y agoAnyone have any good theories as to how this could have happened? Is it really plausible that it was "accidentally" drilled during manufacture, and not detected? I mean, surely there must be some kind of testing step where they test that the craft is completely airtight. And no one is going to be drilling anything after that point.
- ars 8y agoDon't forget it was sealed, and the seal failed. So it was initially air tight. To me that excludes sabotage, and instead points of error that someone tried to cover up. It also points to someone low-level/unskilled since they did a bad job of sealing it.
- stevage 8y agoOh, I missed that part. Yeah, makes total sense.
- jcims 8y agoDo they know for sure it was sealed or is that just the theory how it would have got into space without detecting air loss on the ground? Based on the tracks around the actual hole it looks accidental to me.
- greglindahl 8y agoPart of the point of looking outside was to see if they could see any remains of the seal. Something was preventing it from leaking air, until it did.
- pvaldes 8y agoThere is a limited number of possibilities 1. Done by a right handed person on space (crew) or on earth (builders/crew/other). 2. Done accidentally (a drill machine slips) or with a purpose. 3. The purpose can be seen as good or bad for the mission. The result here was neither good nor very bad, so can be neutral also. 4. A neutral purpose can still serve a role as a tool to alter the status of the cosmonauts either punishing them or improving their situation (like in: returning home faster or somebody drills a small hole to be able to fix it later as an hero). They should look for shaving cream in trash and check it.
- stevespang 8y agoMy bets are the holes were drilled and sealed in Russia, before launch.
- _gen_name 8y agoCant they determinate the point in time when the air of the hole started acting as a thrust vector?
- Symmetry 8y agoNo need, they can determine the point in time the air started escaping from looking at the internal pressure.
- ggm 8y agoWhat's the agregate pressure loss in the ISS which is just taken as "meh" and ignored? Is there one? I could imagine a leak being known from input/output maths but once you get to the error digits there are a number of sources of input and output (outgassing of materials? Incidental losses with inefficient vacuum pumps emptying Chambers) which would mean it wasn't clear there was a leak. I guess the Dynamics of a leak stand it pretty Stark: constant unremitting loss. Except of course if it's in a flexing part. Or a function of thermal change in orbit or a-periodic for some reason...
- vertline3 8y agoI do this mistake sometimes, I am off in my measuring, and have to drill a hole beside the one I drilled. I know it's likely not the cause, but if I built a shuttle, maybe it would have holes like this too. :/
- known 8y agoRussian Cosmonaut says that the Hole in the ISS was Drilled From the Inside
- known 8y agoReminds me of cloning error http://steeljawscribe.com/2007/04/30/red-bulls-of-replication-the-b-29-and-tu-4-bull http://steeljawscribe.com/2007/04/30/red-bulls-of-replicatio...
- narrator 8y agoJust adding the theory below for completeness. Search in the article for the part about the ISS: http://www.unz.com/ishamir/toilet-wars/ http://www.unz.com/ishamir/toilet-wars/
- JumpCrisscross 8y agoIf the seal had remained, would the capsule have survived re-entry?
- intins 8y agoThe hole was not in the part that reentered the atmosphere. Soyuz is made up of 3 modules: Orbital, Descent, and ISM. The hole was located on one of the modules that was jettisoned before deorbit.
- rurban 8y agoWe knew that already in September, due to the way the hole was plastered up. With the wrong material. The spacewalk just confirmed the coverup by the engineer who really should have told his boss. With the right material to cover it up it would have been no problem at all, so it had to be fixed in space.
- soyrunner 8y agoPerhaps that section stunk and someone drilled a hole to relieve the stink to space.