6 ms·

So leave a switch to kill all crew available at all times till you think someone is unstable, then lock it. Genius

by m3kw9 3y ago

ethbr1 3y ago
It's a pro and con. What happens in the event the commander in incapacitated and the crews needs to open the hatch? They probably aren't ever going to do that in space, but I'm sure there are scenarios that might require it? Maybe fire? Centralizing control also centralizes a failure point. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not. I thought the discussion of undertrained / -bonded payload specialists was a good component of the article, as it spoke to that calculus. Do you trust this person under stress?
- pdonis 3y ago
  > I'm sure there are scenarios that might require it? Maybe fire? Not in orbit. In orbit there is no scenario where you want to open that hatch. And the lock was only installed in orbit.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Uncontrolled fire inside the shuttle? I'm not sure if there are enough suits / sealable spaces to make that a viable scenario.
    - pdonis 3y ago
      In such a case the crew would be dead whatever they did. Even if we assume there were enough suits for everyone to evacuate the Shuttle through the hatch (which AFAIK there weren't), and that people were able to evacuate before the fire caught them (which is unlikely), they would still be stuck in orbit with suits having only enough air for a few hours (the length of an ordinary EVA) and no way to get back to Earth.
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        Both of us are reasoning from a lack of access to shuttle schematics, but I'm always hesitant to say "never." I was thinking of a fire that incapacitated the commander, was spreading, and the best available option was immediately venting all oxygen in the shuttle (probably with some crew loss of life), in order to potentially save enough systems to return home. On the one hand, that's an extremely far-fetched scenario. On the other hand, NASA has experience with incinerating crews because they lack the means to save themselves.
        pdonis 3y ago
        > I was thinking of a fire that incapacitated the commander, was spreading, and the best available option was immediately venting all oxygen in the shuttle (probably with some crew loss of life), in order to potentially save enough systems to return home. I think any such fire would make the Shuttle unable to return home safely anyway. And since it is, as you say, a far-fetched scenario, I'm not sure it would be worth trying to mitigate. Note that no such fire, or even any event remotely close to one, happened during any of the Shuttle flights (or for that matter any NASA mission after Apollo 1), which indicates that the probability of such an event was much lower than the probability of multiple other events that did happen to one or more Shuttles, including not just the two that were total loss of vehicle and crew but multiple "close call" events that could have but didn't. More to the point for this discussion, since no such fire, or even any event remotely close to it, happened on any mission after Apollo 1, while there were incidents that gave cause for concern about the mental state of a crew member, it seems entirely reasonable to put more weight on mitigating the latter than on mitigating the former.
        ethbr1 3y ago
        All agreed. But I don't think that weighing of both sides trivializes down to >> So leave a switch to kill all crew available at all times till you think someone is unstable, then lock it. Genius Reality is more nuanced. Also, the related rabbit hole is "How do you assure that commanders are maximally reliable?" (or SSBNs, nuclear silo crew, etc.) Which seems an insane problem to even try to solve!
MBCook 3y ago
As the article mentioned after the Apollo one incident NASA was being very careful to make it possible for people to get out in case of emergency. Unfortunately that also means it’s very easy to get out in case of an emergency that’s only in your head.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  Unfortunately, many safety systems work like this: tradeoffs, not strict improvements. They locked the cabin doors to planes after 9/11 with a lock that can be sealed from the cockpit. Which is great until the pilot takes a restroom break and the co-pilot decides this is the day he's going out and taking everyone with him...
  - MBCook 3y ago
    Germanwings 9525. So sad.
StevePerkins 3y ago
The hatch makes total sense pre-takeoff and post-landing, but makes zero sense during flight. So having it, with a protocol of locking it down during flight, seems optimal.

So leave a switch to kill all crew available at all times till you think someone is unstable, then lock it. Genius

by m3kw9 3y ago

So leave a switch to kill all crew available at all times till you think someone is unstable, then lock it. Genius

It's a pro and con. What happens in the event the commander in incapacitated and the crews needs to open the hatch? They probably aren't ever going to do that in space, but I'm sure there are scenarios that might require it? Maybe fire? Centralizing control also centralizes a failure point. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not. I thought the discussion of undertrained / -bonded payload specialists was a good component of the article, as it spoke to that calculus. Do you trust this person under stress?

pdonis 3y ago
> I'm sure there are scenarios that might require it? Maybe fire? Not in orbit. In orbit there is no scenario where you want to open that hatch. And the lock was only installed in orbit.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Uncontrolled fire inside the shuttle? I'm not sure if there are enough suits / sealable spaces to make that a viable scenario.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    In such a case the crew would be dead whatever they did. Even if we assume there were enough suits for everyone to evacuate the Shuttle through the hatch (which AFAIK there weren't), and that people were able to evacuate before the fire caught them (which is unlikely), they would still be stuck in orbit with suits having only enough air for a few hours (the length of an ordinary EVA) and no way to get back to Earth.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      Both of us are reasoning from a lack of access to shuttle schematics, but I'm always hesitant to say "never." I was thinking of a fire that incapacitated the commander, was spreading, and the best available option was immediately venting all oxygen in the shuttle (probably with some crew loss of life), in order to potentially save enough systems to return home. On the one hand, that's an extremely far-fetched scenario. On the other hand, NASA has experience with incinerating crews because they lack the means to save themselves.
      - pdonis 3y ago
        > I was thinking of a fire that incapacitated the commander, was spreading, and the best available option was immediately venting all oxygen in the shuttle (probably with some crew loss of life), in order to potentially save enough systems to return home. I think any such fire would make the Shuttle unable to return home safely anyway. And since it is, as you say, a far-fetched scenario, I'm not sure it would be worth trying to mitigate. Note that no such fire, or even any event remotely close to one, happened during any of the Shuttle flights (or for that matter any NASA mission after Apollo 1), which indicates that the probability of such an event was much lower than the probability of multiple other events that did happen to one or more Shuttles, including not just the two that were total loss of vehicle and crew but multiple "close call" events that could have but didn't. More to the point for this discussion, since no such fire, or even any event remotely close to it, happened on any mission after Apollo 1, while there were incidents that gave cause for concern about the mental state of a crew member, it seems entirely reasonable to put more weight on mitigating the latter than on mitigating the former.
        ethbr1 3y ago
        All agreed. But I don't think that weighing of both sides trivializes down to >> So leave a switch to kill all crew available at all times till you think someone is unstable, then lock it. Genius Reality is more nuanced. Also, the related rabbit hole is "How do you assure that commanders are maximally reliable?" (or SSBNs, nuclear silo crew, etc.) Which seems an insane problem to even try to solve!

MBCook 3y ago

As the article mentioned after the Apollo one incident NASA was being very careful to make it possible for people to get out in case of emergency. Unfortunately that also means it’s very easy to get out in case of an emergency that’s only in your head.

shadowgovt 3y ago
Unfortunately, many safety systems work like this: tradeoffs, not strict improvements. They locked the cabin doors to planes after 9/11 with a lock that can be sealed from the cockpit. Which is great until the pilot takes a restroom break and the co-pilot decides this is the day he's going out and taking everyone with him...
- MBCook 3y ago
  Germanwings 9525. So sad.

StevePerkins 3y ago

The hatch makes total sense pre-takeoff and post-landing, but makes zero sense during flight. So having it, with a protocol of locking it down during flight, seems optimal.