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Vladimir Komarov went on a space suicide mission to save his best friend, Yuri
- kzcqt 8y agoThe Pence remark was completely unnecessary and infuriating. I thought this was some educative chain of tweets and it ended in "orang man bad". Very anticlimactic.
- dagenix 8y agoIt's the _entire_ point of the piece. And it's not really all that much of a political statement. The message is pretty clear: don't send people to die in space for stupid-ass political reasons.
- xeeeeeeeeeeenu 8y agoWhat makes you think that Trump's administration is/will be "sending people to die in space"?
- abduhl 8y agoEveryone sent into space was for a political reason. Whether or not you think it's a stupid-ass reason is more of a reflection on yourself than the message.
- duxup 8y agoIn this case the craft was not ready, it seemed to be widely known that the person who took that spot would die. I think that is an important contrast compared to "everyone sent into space"
- abduhl 8y agoSure, in the case of Komarov. But that's not what we're talking about in this comment thread - we're talking about the inclusion of a random tweet about Mike Pence that could have been left out without changing the message at all.
- duxup 8y agoKinda seems off to ignore the actual example of the article ... but be concerned about the tweet.
- tomatotomato37 8y agoAs a counterpoint, sending people to space for stupid-ass political reasons resulted in one of humanity's greatest technological achievements that allowed us to put the plaque up there in the first place.
- Piskvorrr 8y agoNote the subtle difference between "sending people to space" and "sending people to die in space". (As explained in the thread, Soyuz-1 was hurried to launch for political reasons despite being unspaceworthy)
- nwienert 8y agoThat doesn't counter GP's point, it reinforces it. The successful moon missions were all launched for political reasons, too.
- x0054 8y agoHe is pointing out that there is a difference between sending people to space for political reasons and sending people to space for political reasons in known to be unsafe aircraft knowing that the possibility of death is significantly above average. One is risking someone’s life for achievement and glory. The other is killing someone because your fragile ego can’t take the hit of not being ready on time for some stupid political deadline.
- nwienert 8y agoYea, the point is why is there a random political shot at Pence? It makes no sense. It’s shoehorning a totally petty and not relevant potshot. Every space mission has been “political”, and of course everyone agrees you shouldn’t do a bad job at it.
- 05 8y agoThose who forget history are condemned to repeat it
- HillRat 8y agoGenerally I’ve found that those who forget history tend to condemn others to repeat it for them.
- duxup 8y agoIt's a warning to avoid making reckless decisions purely for political gain. I feel like that childish "orange man bad" quote comes up as a reaction to anything potentially perceived as negative as if nobody could ever make a valid a comment, observation, write a story, whatever.
- hitekker 8y agoYep, "orange man bad" is a thought terminating cliche [1]. Intended to position the speakers above his or her opponents, but without a hint of self-awareness necessary for efficacy outside of the echo-chamber. The label itself sounds so puerile that it ironically paints the speakers as mindless as the ones they're trying to paint as mindless. "This is an insult that stupid people think makes them sound smarter than other stupid people," as I've heard before. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...
- duxup 8y agoThank you, that's a good description of how it plays out. I hadn't heard that term for it before.
- ncmncm 8y agoThis is the most tragically inspiring story of the modern era.
- ignoramous 8y agorelated discussions: 2011: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2342677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2342677 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11072718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11072718 mirror: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1116939111368097792.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1116939111368097792.html
- m0zg 8y agoTop post on the 2016 version of this repost, links to an NPR article that debunks the whole thing: https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/03/135919389/a-cosmonauts-fiery-death-retold https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/03/135919389/a...
- neffy 8y agoWell... it doesn't exactly debunk it, does it Comrade? I'm with the authors, I wouldn't trust a Soviet era transcript of a space mission, anymore I would of a show trial.
- enoch_r 8y ago"Debunked" is a pretty strong word. The disputed elements of the story are mostly based on the account of one person (Venyamin Russayev, the KGB minder assigned to Yuri Gagarin) and they are contradicted by official transcripts and the memoirs of the people involved. But, this occurred in the USSR, so I don't think we really know what happened with any high level of certainty.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- newman8r 8y agoGood article. It sounds like the true story will never fully be known.
- fao_ 8y agoSo, as the article says, the majority of the facts about the story are true, and the things that make it memorable -- the 'embellishments' -- have dubious sources and rely on eyewitness accounts only. Pretty much like most other stories like this (Check out the inaccuracies in the Apollo 13 movie, for example). How exactly does that debunk the entire thing?
- gigatexal 8y agoDamnit I hate crying to stuff I see on twitter.
- MeltySmelty 8y agomy favorite part is how it turned into a libturd hissy fit
- FabHK 8y agoMore on this informative site by a Russian space geek now living in the US: http://russianspaceweb.com/soyuz1.html http://russianspaceweb.com/soyuz1.html
- mdisc0rd 8y agoI highly doubt this spin on the story. Although the structural problems with the Souz mission are well known in retrospect, none of these problems were seen as a huge threat to the mission or the safety of its pilots, more than any other mission. Every cosmonaut was an extreme asset that would never have been disregarded with the discrepancy that this story portrays. Source: Grandfather was one of members of the first cosmonaut squad. Kamarovs death was a huge tragedy caused by a miscalculation, as opposed to neglect.