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Many years ago I was at Dugway Proving Ground when NASA was supposed to catch the Genesis Space Probe under parachute with "hollywood stunt pilots" flying A-Sta

Many years ago I was at Dugway Proving Ground when NASA was supposed to catch the Genesis Space Probe under parachute with "hollywood stunt pilots" flying A-Star helicopters with long probes mounted on the front, to hook the parachute in mid-air. It all would have worked out swimmingly if the parachute on the Genesis would have opened, but an installation error caused it not to and for the probe to smash into the ground, leaving some very confused and disappointed helicopter pilots, among others. Space is hard.

aasarava 4y ago
Hey, I was there, too! It was a long way to go to end up watching the catch attempt on monitors in a hangar. If I remember correctly, the problem was that the deceleration sensors were drawn upside down.
- wcoenen 4y ago
  The original phrasing of Murphy's law was: "every component than can be installed backward, eventually will be".
  - T-A 4y ago
    The Russian adaptation would have to be even broader: https://twitter.com/djsnm/status/1039553531001241601 https://twitter.com/djsnm/status/1039553531001241601
hackeraccount 4y ago
"hollywood stunt pilots" was clearly the best part of that entire story; like you could write a novel or a screenplay using that and adding "space probe" and "catching" to it.