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> whats wild is this problem never happened to the Soviet Union Tell that to Vladimir Komarov who launched on Soyuz 1 despite knowing it was a death sentence b

> whats wild is this problem never happened to the Soviet Union Tell that to Vladimir Komarov who launched on Soyuz 1 despite knowing it was a death sentence because if he refused then his close friend (Yuri Gagarin) would have to fly in his stead. The rocket had several hundred structural problems and they knew it would fail but they launched anyways. So he died screaming while he burned to death on reentry and he broadcasted it in the clear so that everyone could listen. And they insisted that his remains be shown in an open casket so that leadership would have to look at what they did. https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/cosmonaut-crashed-into-earth-crying-in-rage https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/c... Or the three backup crew members who flew Soyuz 11 and died of asphyxiation despite the fact that it was a known issue that the cabin pressure valves that led to their deaths did not reliably close automatically. Manually closing them was not part of their reentry flight plan and the only thing they got was a warning from an original crew member to do so because it wasn't safe and they wouldn't add it to the flight plan.

bparsons 2y ago
Two space shuttles burned up...
- CuriousCosmic 2y ago
  Challenger is 100% on NASA but the Columbia disaster was a perfect storm of small mistakes that could be individually safely mitigated (but not all together) more than a blatant failure on any one person or group in the org's part. Additionally space shuttles had experienced conditions extremely similar to Columbia's time and again without any major damage or risk to crew. It still was a failure but it was a much more complex and subtle form of failure than the Challenger disaster. But neither of those remotely compares to Soyuz 1 or Soyuz 11. The failure in Soyuz 11 had been seen time and again during trainings and testing but was waived away and the only reason it didn't occur earlier was because of pilots unofficially taking steps to mitigate the issue outside of the flight plan that then weren't performed on Soyuz 11. And the failure in Soyuz 1 was expected from before launch. It wasn't a statistical probability that the team made a risky gamble on (like Challenger) but was a definite death sentence. Soyuz 1 is equivalent to if you had the Challenger failure but on several hundred different parts of the rocket instead of on just one. Either way the point of my original comment was to dissuade the notion that the USSR didn't have embarrassing crewed failures in space flight, not to try and pick sides on who was worse.
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    Read The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error by Sidney Dekker. In manufacturing, it’s always a perfect storm because of the variation of Murphy’s Law that’s usually in effect: Everything that can go wrong, usually goes right.
    - CuriousCosmic 2y ago
      Oh 100%. Columbia was an organizational failure but it wasn't any one person/org's negligence like Challenger was nor was it a gross disregard/disrespect of the lives of the astronauts/cosmonauts like Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 were. My comment was mainly to address the suggestion that those disasters were equivalent to the gross disregard for life that the USSR put their cosmonauts through.
  - EvanAnderson 2y ago
    Reading analysis[0] of the damage caused by a foam strike on STS-119 makes the loss of Columbia feel more "on NASA" to me than not. NASA knew a foam strike could be catastrophic and that the odds of a bad strike weren't astronomically remote. It had already happened on STS-119 and only luck prevented loss of the vehicle. I didn't have that take initially, but the Causality podcast did an episode[1] on it a few years ago that got me into reading more about it. [0] https://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts119/090327sts27/ https://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts119/090327sts27/ [1] https://engineered.network/causality/episode-24-columbia/ https://engineered.network/causality/episode-24-columbia/
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  As did an early Apollo capsule. This stuff is still risky even today. It's not like hopping on a flight to Chicago.
SoftTalker 2y ago
I saw an old documentary (cannot recall where) about the Soviet space program. They could not afford a lot of testing or simulations on the ground but there was immense pressure to make progress, so they would just launch stuff and try to learn from the results, good or bad.
nimbius 2y ago
this is, frankly, some pretty generous editorializing. Komarov was selected to command the Soyuz 1, in 1967, with Yuri Gagarin as his backup cosmonaut. refusing to fly has the same consequence for every space program: the backup flies. as for the "died screaming" claim, thats some malarkey. 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... What we've learned: American historian Asif Siddiqi has a transcript of Komarov's final moments in the Soyuz. He got it from the Russian State Archive. It goes like this: Komarov: Activated, activated, don't worry, everything is in order. Ground: Understood, we're also not worried. How do you feel, how's everything? Zarya, over. Komarov: I feel excellent, everything's in order. Ground: Understood, our comrades here recommend that you take a deep breath. We're waiting for the landing. This is Zarya, over. Komarov: Thank you for transmitting all of that. [Separation] occurred. [garbled] Ground: Rubin, this is Zarya. Understood, separation occurred. Let's work during the break [pause]. Rubin, this is Zarya, how do you hear me? Over. Rubin, this is Zarya, how do you hear me? Over. This is Zarya, how do you hear me? Over ...
- capitainenemo 2y ago
  From that article... '"I asked Siddiqi if he thought his transcript had been doctored. He said, "I'm 100 percent confident the transcripts are genuine," though there may be other recordings from other tracking locations.When I showed it to Bizony, he said, "An official Soviet transcript of anything, from the death of a cosmonaut to the birth of a healthy baby boy, isn't worth the paper it's written on. ... Given that we at least broadly trust Russayev's recollection of events, we are entitled to believe that Komarov, for all his discipline as a cosmonaut, would have been entitled to some spitting madness and frustration."' Certainly that was my first thought when I read "Russian State Archive"
- buildsjets 2y ago
  Oh, that's what the OFFICIAL Soviet state archives say! Well, I am certain that they were trustworthy narrators, and I'm sure they would have been careful to make an accurate record of anything embarrassing to the Party.

bparsons 2y ago

Two space shuttles burned up...

CuriousCosmic 2y ago
Challenger is 100% on NASA but the Columbia disaster was a perfect storm of small mistakes that could be individually safely mitigated (but not all together) more than a blatant failure on any one person or group in the org's part. Additionally space shuttles had experienced conditions extremely similar to Columbia's time and again without any major damage or risk to crew. It still was a failure but it was a much more complex and subtle form of failure than the Challenger disaster. But neither of those remotely compares to Soyuz 1 or Soyuz 11. The failure in Soyuz 11 had been seen time and again during trainings and testing but was waived away and the only reason it didn't occur earlier was because of pilots unofficially taking steps to mitigate the issue outside of the flight plan that then weren't performed on Soyuz 11. And the failure in Soyuz 1 was expected from before launch. It wasn't a statistical probability that the team made a risky gamble on (like Challenger) but was a definite death sentence. Soyuz 1 is equivalent to if you had the Challenger failure but on several hundred different parts of the rocket instead of on just one. Either way the point of my original comment was to dissuade the notion that the USSR didn't have embarrassing crewed failures in space flight, not to try and pick sides on who was worse.
- renewiltord 2y ago
  Read The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error by Sidney Dekker. In manufacturing, it’s always a perfect storm because of the variation of Murphy’s Law that’s usually in effect: Everything that can go wrong, usually goes right.
  - CuriousCosmic 2y ago
    Oh 100%. Columbia was an organizational failure but it wasn't any one person/org's negligence like Challenger was nor was it a gross disregard/disrespect of the lives of the astronauts/cosmonauts like Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 were. My comment was mainly to address the suggestion that those disasters were equivalent to the gross disregard for life that the USSR put their cosmonauts through.
- EvanAnderson 2y ago
  Reading analysis[0] of the damage caused by a foam strike on STS-119 makes the loss of Columbia feel more "on NASA" to me than not. NASA knew a foam strike could be catastrophic and that the odds of a bad strike weren't astronomically remote. It had already happened on STS-119 and only luck prevented loss of the vehicle. I didn't have that take initially, but the Causality podcast did an episode[1] on it a few years ago that got me into reading more about it. [0] https://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts119/090327sts27/ https://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts119/090327sts27/ [1] https://engineered.network/causality/episode-24-columbia/ https://engineered.network/causality/episode-24-columbia/
SoftTalker 2y ago
As did an early Apollo capsule. This stuff is still risky even today. It's not like hopping on a flight to Chicago.

SoftTalker 2y ago

I saw an old documentary (cannot recall where) about the Soviet space program. They could not afford a lot of testing or simulations on the ground but there was immense pressure to make progress, so they would just launch stuff and try to learn from the results, good or bad.

nimbius 2y ago

this is, frankly, some pretty generous editorializing. Komarov was selected to command the Soyuz 1, in 1967, with Yuri Gagarin as his backup cosmonaut. refusing to fly has the same consequence for every space program: the backup flies. as for the "died screaming" claim, thats some malarkey. 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... What we've learned: American historian Asif Siddiqi has a transcript of Komarov's final moments in the Soyuz. He got it from the Russian State Archive. It goes like this: Komarov: Activated, activated, don't worry, everything is in order. Ground: Understood, we're also not worried. How do you feel, how's everything? Zarya, over. Komarov: I feel excellent, everything's in order. Ground: Understood, our comrades here recommend that you take a deep breath. We're waiting for the landing. This is Zarya, over. Komarov: Thank you for transmitting all of that. [Separation] occurred. [garbled] Ground: Rubin, this is Zarya. Understood, separation occurred. Let's work during the break [pause]. Rubin, this is Zarya, how do you hear me? Over. Rubin, this is Zarya, how do you hear me? Over. This is Zarya, how do you hear me? Over ...

capitainenemo 2y ago
From that article... '"I asked Siddiqi if he thought his transcript had been doctored. He said, "I'm 100 percent confident the transcripts are genuine," though there may be other recordings from other tracking locations.When I showed it to Bizony, he said, "An official Soviet transcript of anything, from the death of a cosmonaut to the birth of a healthy baby boy, isn't worth the paper it's written on. ... Given that we at least broadly trust Russayev's recollection of events, we are entitled to believe that Komarov, for all his discipline as a cosmonaut, would have been entitled to some spitting madness and frustration."' Certainly that was my first thought when I read "Russian State Archive"
buildsjets 2y ago
Oh, that's what the OFFICIAL Soviet state archives say! Well, I am certain that they were trustworthy narrators, and I'm sure they would have been careful to make an accurate record of anything embarrassing to the Party.