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Following the analogy... you're on an island. A ferry has showed up at the island every six months or so for the last 40 years. The last ferry that showed up br

Following the analogy... you're on an island. A ferry has showed up at the island every six months or so for the last 40 years. The last ferry that showed up broke before it could leave the harbor. No need to worry, though. Another ferry's coming in six months and there are plenty of supplies on the island. Is it rescue? Maybe in the sense that you can't leave when you wanted to and now you have to wait. But not in the sense that you were ever in any real danger. (Admittedly, maybe there is a bit more danger for these astronauts because a malfunctioning spacecraft is inherently a bit of a safety hazard. And the SpaceX operation is certainly not as routine as a ferry showing up at a dock, though it's still safe.) It seems that it is both a bit subjective whether one calls it "rescue," and also a bit sensationalized to put in a headline too.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> not in the sense that you were ever in any real danger The analogy breaks down because an island isn’t space. Your default state on an island tends towards remaining alive. Your default state in space is dead. A closer analogy is a plane in flight. It takes energy and effort to keep everyone alive. Externally-assisted recovery from peril, in that situation, is a rescue. Even if it’s convenient.
- panick21_ 2y ago
  No astronaut has died on ISS in 30 years. Claiming they are in significant danger simply isn't accurate. Saying 'the default state in space is dead' when historically basically nobody has died in space.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > No astronaut has died on ISS in 30 years. Claiming they are in significant danger simply isn't accurate Nobody claimed as much. A jet liner is safer than the ISS. The analogy is conservative. > Saying 'the default state in space is dead' when historically basically nobody has died in space Our default state at cruising altitude is dead. Note: I’m not suggesting anyone would have died. Just that they were in a perilous place where things were going wrong. Being relieved from that position is a rescue.
    - oaththrowaway 2y ago
      > A jet liner is safer than the ISS. Maybe not if the jet is a Boeing though?
      - dotancohen 2y ago
        To be fair, I'd rather be in a 737 Max at 30,000 ft than without the 737 Max at 30,000 ft. And I'd rather be with the Starliner at 400 km up than without the Starliner at 400 km up. But neither seem to be of comparable safety to the other options available.
  - elif 2y ago
    No speeder has ever died on the highway either. It's only the crashing drivers who died. It is likewise as foolish to try decoupling the peril of space and the peril of orbit and deorbit.
- closewith 2y ago
  > Your default state on an island tends towards remaining alive. I'm guessing you spend most of your life indoors? On Earth, outside of the carefully regulated homes we've built as a society, the default state is dead and it takes tremendous work and constant vigilence to avoid that fate, only ever temporarily.
  - anon4564851658 2y ago
    [dead]
  - dotancohen 2y ago
    And that is why if somebody finds a child wandering in the park alone, we say that the man rescued the child. Exactly as SpaceX is doing in this situation.
    - throwaway290 2y ago
      Yes and we also say you rescued me if I am bang out of cash and you lend me a fiver at checkout... If you see a news headline "man rescues child" you expect a direct threat like something like from a burning house. > if somebody finds a child wandering in the park alone, we say that the man rescued the child. Exactly as SpaceX is doing in this situation. Plus, saying astronauts, professionals who signed up for the job knowing what it entails and went through years of training are like children wandering in the park, to paint SpaceX as their savior, is... wow.
      - dotancohen 2y ago
        Humans in space are less than children in the park. We've barely ventured out of our own atmosphere. Less than a 1000 people have been to orbit, and only 24 have gone to the moon. Out of those, only a dozen have landed on the moon. And the moon is still the Earth system - we've never really left our own yard.
        throwaway290 2y ago
Dylan16807 2y ago
If you took a different boat separate from the normal ferry, intending to leave right away but now stuck unable to use it, I would say the next ferry is rescuing you.
- karlgkk 2y ago
  No? Because if you’re not in danger, you’re not being rescued. You’re just being transported. If I miss the last train across the bay, my uber isn’t rescuing me. I can always stay up to 5am by making a shady deal at the endup. But yeah, this is a black eye on boeing and definitely something that nobody wants to have to deal with.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > if you’re not in danger, you’re not being rescued. You’re just being transported The ISS isn’t Treasure Island. There is always an elevated degree of peril. Particularly in an emergency condition.
    - YeahThisIsMe 2y ago
      But there's no emergency situation at the moment.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > there’s no emergency situation at the moment It’s space. The ground state is emergency. I am training to be a pilot. Anything going off flight plan is an emergency. If ground control gives me corrective instructions, in the course of a mistake, I hope I will have the humility to not refuse its designation as a rescue. Like, if you want an Exhibit A for why Boeing doesn’t deserve forward trust, it’s this response.
        throwaway290 2y ago
        When the ground state is emergency the definition of emergency changes because emergency cannot be the same as ground state... If we go by technical definition of "emergency" then anything not by the plan is an emergency, but it's not used that way normally and it's not a technical publication. If you are stuck in space with no lifeboat back then I agree it is an emergency, but they apparently have Starliner and it works. If they or Nasa are more comfortable with another option maybe that makes it an emergency or maybe not. If it turns out Starliner doesn't work, that's an emergency. If there is radiation event coming then it's an emergency, but it is always an emergency in space regardless.
colordrops 2y ago
It sounds like everyone in this thread is in complete agreement about the complex parameters and details and yet we are arguing on the scope of the label.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > yet we are arguing on the scope of the label It’s Saturday, can’t we have a semantic punt?
  - adamsb6 2y ago
    I’m on the other side of the international date line, you insensitive clod.
- 14 2y ago
  That is what is great about HN. We discuss a broad range of topics which sometimes brings us discussing off subject matter but that are still relevant to the heart of HN. Media reporting and how they influence people is definitely a topic appropriate for HN so I can see how it was brought up.
- msravi 2y ago
  The real problem is that the company doing the rescue is SpaceX, and that's owned by Elon. And HN does not like Elon.
  - transcriptase 2y ago
    reddit and tv says mars man BAD ergo mars man BAD
  - sunshinerag 2y ago
    Yes, the comments are a reflection of that. What a level of moral twisting
    - bofadeez 2y ago
wh-uws 2y ago
Your analogy might (and even that's a stretch ) work for 6 hours not for 6 months!
bnralt 2y ago
Maybe this is better: Cruise line A and cruise line B drop their passengers off at a remote island for 5 days, and then come to pick them up and take them home. After cruise line B drops theirs off, the cruise ships breaks down, and the passengers can't be picked up after 5 days, so they're stuck on the island with no immediate way to get off. Cruise line A says "OK, the next cruise ship we send will be at half capacity, so we can get the passengers from cruise line B off the island and get them home." Is cruise line A rescuing the passengers from cruise line B? I'd say yes.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > Is cruise line A rescuing the passengers from cruise line B? I'd say yes. IMO that's only true in line A's PR campaign, assuming they're adversarial enough to run with it. In your analogy, the passengers are always "stuck on the island with no immediate way to get off" for at least 5 days, as they have no alternative way to get back during their planned stay. If B's cruise ship breaks down - and AFAIK in this case, "breaks down" doesn't mean the ship can't move, just that the risk of catastrophic failure during the trip crossed a preset threshold - that's more of an operational disruption. The stranded passengers are still safe and sound, they just need to wait for the next scheduled cruise to take them home. The schedule bit matters IMO. It would be a rescue if the next scheduled ride would be way too late to help them and thus it had to be moved up to save their lives.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  Cruise passengers stuck on an island without other transport would be rescued because personally for them it is completely out of ordinary. Workers who signed up to get paid to be on the island and do some work? Knowing that there is only one line of transport and it can be irregular? Going through months or years of training beforehand? Maybe "rescue" is a sensationalization when used in a news headline.
- mc32 2y ago
  The main reason people don’t want to call it a rescue is because they dislike Musk. If there were no politics involved people wouldn’t be handwringing themselves so much over the word rescue. If the spaceship that took you somewhere wasn’t able to get you back as planned and cannot get you back as planned and someone else has to go get those people, that’s a rescue.
starfezzy 2y ago
You’re not just “on an island.” You’re LITERALLY STUCK on the island FAR past when you were supposed to leave. So the boat coming to get you off the island is literally rescuing you. I know you hate Elon musk—I don’t care for him much nor do I harbor animosity towards him—but a rescue is a rescue lmao. You guys would never be this ridiculous if the situation wasn’t politically charged, or if the circumstances favored your political leaning (almost certainly progressive left).
- paul7986 2y ago
  Yeah not a fan of his cause all his big promises / lies like a used car salesman but him buying X and trying to put the brakes on the radical lefts real out there stuff I personally think did just that. He's in the middle / an independent with both conservative & liberal leanings.
Gud 2y ago
Your analogy is flawed. Starliner has not been in service for 40 years, as in your example. It’s a fairly new vehicle, newer than the Dragon capsule.
elif 2y ago
On an island you can call for a boat or a helicopter. You can relax and eat all your food knowing those options exist. On a space station your options are considerably more limited.
- wongarsu 2y ago
  With SpaceX's launch cadence they could easily shift some flights. Of course you'd need a Crew Dragon that has completed refurbishment, and need to integrate it with a rocket. A month sounds like a reasonable timeline to get an unexpected rescue mission to the ISS. Which isn't great if you need a medevac, but that's why they have enough space craft docked
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >On an island you can call for a boat or a helicopter. Boat, yes; helicopter, no, unless the island is pretty close to civilization. Helicopters have very limited range. No helicopter is going to rescue you from some remote island in the south Pacific, unless it was launched from a rescue ship (in which case it was really the ship that rescued you; the helicopter was merely more convenient for transportation between the ship and the island than a tender boat).

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> not in the sense that you were ever in any real danger The analogy breaks down because an island isn’t space. Your default state on an island tends towards remaining alive. Your default state in space is dead. A closer analogy is a plane in flight. It takes energy and effort to keep everyone alive. Externally-assisted recovery from peril, in that situation, is a rescue. Even if it’s convenient.

panick21_ 2y ago
No astronaut has died on ISS in 30 years. Claiming they are in significant danger simply isn't accurate. Saying 'the default state in space is dead' when historically basically nobody has died in space.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > No astronaut has died on ISS in 30 years. Claiming they are in significant danger simply isn't accurate Nobody claimed as much. A jet liner is safer than the ISS. The analogy is conservative. > Saying 'the default state in space is dead' when historically basically nobody has died in space Our default state at cruising altitude is dead. Note: I’m not suggesting anyone would have died. Just that they were in a perilous place where things were going wrong. Being relieved from that position is a rescue.
  - oaththrowaway 2y ago
    > A jet liner is safer than the ISS. Maybe not if the jet is a Boeing though?
    - dotancohen 2y ago
      To be fair, I'd rather be in a 737 Max at 30,000 ft than without the 737 Max at 30,000 ft. And I'd rather be with the Starliner at 400 km up than without the Starliner at 400 km up. But neither seem to be of comparable safety to the other options available.
- elif 2y ago
  No speeder has ever died on the highway either. It's only the crashing drivers who died. It is likewise as foolish to try decoupling the peril of space and the peril of orbit and deorbit.
closewith 2y ago
> Your default state on an island tends towards remaining alive. I'm guessing you spend most of your life indoors? On Earth, outside of the carefully regulated homes we've built as a society, the default state is dead and it takes tremendous work and constant vigilence to avoid that fate, only ever temporarily.
- anon4564851658 2y ago
  [dead]
- dotancohen 2y ago
  And that is why if somebody finds a child wandering in the park alone, we say that the man rescued the child. Exactly as SpaceX is doing in this situation.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    Yes and we also say you rescued me if I am bang out of cash and you lend me a fiver at checkout... If you see a news headline "man rescues child" you expect a direct threat like something like from a burning house. > if somebody finds a child wandering in the park alone, we say that the man rescued the child. Exactly as SpaceX is doing in this situation. Plus, saying astronauts, professionals who signed up for the job knowing what it entails and went through years of training are like children wandering in the park, to paint SpaceX as their savior, is... wow.
    - dotancohen 2y ago
      Humans in space are less than children in the park. We've barely ventured out of our own atmosphere. Less than a 1000 people have been to orbit, and only 24 have gone to the moon. Out of those, only a dozen have landed on the moon. And the moon is still the Earth system - we've never really left our own yard.
      - throwaway290 2y ago

Dylan16807 2y ago

If you took a different boat separate from the normal ferry, intending to leave right away but now stuck unable to use it, I would say the next ferry is rescuing you.

karlgkk 2y ago
No? Because if you’re not in danger, you’re not being rescued. You’re just being transported. If I miss the last train across the bay, my uber isn’t rescuing me. I can always stay up to 5am by making a shady deal at the endup. But yeah, this is a black eye on boeing and definitely something that nobody wants to have to deal with.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > if you’re not in danger, you’re not being rescued. You’re just being transported The ISS isn’t Treasure Island. There is always an elevated degree of peril. Particularly in an emergency condition.
  - YeahThisIsMe 2y ago
    But there's no emergency situation at the moment.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > there’s no emergency situation at the moment It’s space. The ground state is emergency. I am training to be a pilot. Anything going off flight plan is an emergency. If ground control gives me corrective instructions, in the course of a mistake, I hope I will have the humility to not refuse its designation as a rescue. Like, if you want an Exhibit A for why Boeing doesn’t deserve forward trust, it’s this response.
      - throwaway290 2y ago
        When the ground state is emergency the definition of emergency changes because emergency cannot be the same as ground state... If we go by technical definition of "emergency" then anything not by the plan is an emergency, but it's not used that way normally and it's not a technical publication. If you are stuck in space with no lifeboat back then I agree it is an emergency, but they apparently have Starliner and it works. If they or Nasa are more comfortable with another option maybe that makes it an emergency or maybe not. If it turns out Starliner doesn't work, that's an emergency. If there is radiation event coming then it's an emergency, but it is always an emergency in space regardless.

colordrops 2y ago

It sounds like everyone in this thread is in complete agreement about the complex parameters and details and yet we are arguing on the scope of the label.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> yet we are arguing on the scope of the label It’s Saturday, can’t we have a semantic punt?
- adamsb6 2y ago
  I’m on the other side of the international date line, you insensitive clod.
14 2y ago
That is what is great about HN. We discuss a broad range of topics which sometimes brings us discussing off subject matter but that are still relevant to the heart of HN. Media reporting and how they influence people is definitely a topic appropriate for HN so I can see how it was brought up.
msravi 2y ago
The real problem is that the company doing the rescue is SpaceX, and that's owned by Elon. And HN does not like Elon.
- transcriptase 2y ago
  reddit and tv says mars man BAD ergo mars man BAD
- sunshinerag 2y ago
  Yes, the comments are a reflection of that. What a level of moral twisting
  - bofadeez 2y ago

wh-uws 2y ago

Your analogy might (and even that's a stretch ) work for 6 hours not for 6 months!

bnralt 2y ago

Maybe this is better: Cruise line A and cruise line B drop their passengers off at a remote island for 5 days, and then come to pick them up and take them home. After cruise line B drops theirs off, the cruise ships breaks down, and the passengers can't be picked up after 5 days, so they're stuck on the island with no immediate way to get off. Cruise line A says "OK, the next cruise ship we send will be at half capacity, so we can get the passengers from cruise line B off the island and get them home." Is cruise line A rescuing the passengers from cruise line B? I'd say yes.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
> Is cruise line A rescuing the passengers from cruise line B? I'd say yes. IMO that's only true in line A's PR campaign, assuming they're adversarial enough to run with it. In your analogy, the passengers are always "stuck on the island with no immediate way to get off" for at least 5 days, as they have no alternative way to get back during their planned stay. If B's cruise ship breaks down - and AFAIK in this case, "breaks down" doesn't mean the ship can't move, just that the risk of catastrophic failure during the trip crossed a preset threshold - that's more of an operational disruption. The stranded passengers are still safe and sound, they just need to wait for the next scheduled cruise to take them home. The schedule bit matters IMO. It would be a rescue if the next scheduled ride would be way too late to help them and thus it had to be moved up to save their lives.
throwaway290 2y ago
Cruise passengers stuck on an island without other transport would be rescued because personally for them it is completely out of ordinary. Workers who signed up to get paid to be on the island and do some work? Knowing that there is only one line of transport and it can be irregular? Going through months or years of training beforehand? Maybe "rescue" is a sensationalization when used in a news headline.
mc32 2y ago
The main reason people don’t want to call it a rescue is because they dislike Musk. If there were no politics involved people wouldn’t be handwringing themselves so much over the word rescue. If the spaceship that took you somewhere wasn’t able to get you back as planned and cannot get you back as planned and someone else has to go get those people, that’s a rescue.

starfezzy 2y ago

You’re not just “on an island.” You’re LITERALLY STUCK on the island FAR past when you were supposed to leave. So the boat coming to get you off the island is literally rescuing you. I know you hate Elon musk—I don’t care for him much nor do I harbor animosity towards him—but a rescue is a rescue lmao. You guys would never be this ridiculous if the situation wasn’t politically charged, or if the circumstances favored your political leaning (almost certainly progressive left).

paul7986 2y ago
Yeah not a fan of his cause all his big promises / lies like a used car salesman but him buying X and trying to put the brakes on the radical lefts real out there stuff I personally think did just that. He's in the middle / an independent with both conservative & liberal leanings.

Gud 2y ago

Your analogy is flawed. Starliner has not been in service for 40 years, as in your example. It’s a fairly new vehicle, newer than the Dragon capsule.

elif 2y ago

On an island you can call for a boat or a helicopter. You can relax and eat all your food knowing those options exist. On a space station your options are considerably more limited.

wongarsu 2y ago
With SpaceX's launch cadence they could easily shift some flights. Of course you'd need a Crew Dragon that has completed refurbishment, and need to integrate it with a rocket. A month sounds like a reasonable timeline to get an unexpected rescue mission to the ISS. Which isn't great if you need a medevac, but that's why they have enough space craft docked
shiroiushi 2y ago
>On an island you can call for a boat or a helicopter. Boat, yes; helicopter, no, unless the island is pretty close to civilization. Helicopters have very limited range. No helicopter is going to rescue you from some remote island in the south Pacific, unless it was launched from a rescue ship (in which case it was really the ship that rescued you; the helicopter was merely more convenient for transportation between the ship and the island than a tender boat).