4 ms·

Astronauts have privacy too

by jensgk 2y ago

JCharante 2y ago
I suppose you're right. As long as there ends up being some form of public discloser either through a journal or press conference in a timely manner (e.g. not 50 years from now) then humanity can still benefit.
krisoft 2y ago
Yes. That is absolutely true. The conflict of course is that the point of sending astronauts to space is to learn about the medical effects of the space environment on human bodies. Basically they are participating in a very expensive publicly funded medical trial. So the goals of that need to be balanced against their privacy. I’m not advocating that NASA should publish high resolution pictures of astronauts with puke stained shirts. But they could say “one of the astronauts experienced symptomps commonly associated with intense motion sickness which started after disembarking the vehicle” or “one of the astronauts had intense headaches” or whatever describes the situation. If the astronauts are not okay with that level of transparency they should pay for their flight with their own money. Is my opinion.
- ruthmarx 2y ago
  The info will be made public eventually. There is no reason it need be public immediately.
  - jgalt212 2y ago
    Unless they are hoping the public forgets to follow up. Sort of like when the president's press secretary says to a reporter when faced with a difficult question, "I'll have to get back to you on that."
    - b3ing 2y ago
      Just like they got back to us on those pipelines that were blown up in the sea, they never said who really did it
- evoke4908 2y ago
  It could be a medical condition entirely unrelated to their mission. If it's unrelated, the astronaut deserves their privacy. If spaceflight made their condition worse in some unexpected way, that should probably be made public. Maybe NASA is just waiting to confirm which option it is?
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    I feel a medical event that happened during a mission should be worth reporting even if it doesn't seem related at the time. There are so few humans that have spent significant time in space, less than 1000 that have went for any time all, and nearly all of them have been publicly funded research missions. Rather than hide data that seems innocuous at the time we should be gathering and sharing that until it's not such a rare research oriented project to travel to space. If you can't put your personal medical privacy interests aside then you shouldn't be the one signing up and being selected for such a public research service function. At the same time I imagine this issue is something extremely mundane... which makes the lack of transparency and resulting media stir even more grating.

Astronauts have privacy too

by jensgk 2y ago

Astronauts have privacy too

I suppose you're right. As long as there ends up being some form of public discloser either through a journal or press conference in a timely manner (e.g. not 50 years from now) then humanity can still benefit.

krisoft 2y ago

Yes. That is absolutely true. The conflict of course is that the point of sending astronauts to space is to learn about the medical effects of the space environment on human bodies. Basically they are participating in a very expensive publicly funded medical trial. So the goals of that need to be balanced against their privacy. I’m not advocating that NASA should publish high resolution pictures of astronauts with puke stained shirts. But they could say “one of the astronauts experienced symptomps commonly associated with intense motion sickness which started after disembarking the vehicle” or “one of the astronauts had intense headaches” or whatever describes the situation. If the astronauts are not okay with that level of transparency they should pay for their flight with their own money. Is my opinion.

ruthmarx 2y ago
The info will be made public eventually. There is no reason it need be public immediately.
- jgalt212 2y ago
  Unless they are hoping the public forgets to follow up. Sort of like when the president's press secretary says to a reporter when faced with a difficult question, "I'll have to get back to you on that."
  - b3ing 2y ago
    Just like they got back to us on those pipelines that were blown up in the sea, they never said who really did it
evoke4908 2y ago
It could be a medical condition entirely unrelated to their mission. If it's unrelated, the astronaut deserves their privacy. If spaceflight made their condition worse in some unexpected way, that should probably be made public. Maybe NASA is just waiting to confirm which option it is?
- zamadatix 2y ago
  I feel a medical event that happened during a mission should be worth reporting even if it doesn't seem related at the time. There are so few humans that have spent significant time in space, less than 1000 that have went for any time all, and nearly all of them have been publicly funded research missions. Rather than hide data that seems innocuous at the time we should be gathering and sharing that until it's not such a rare research oriented project to travel to space. If you can't put your personal medical privacy interests aside then you shouldn't be the one signing up and being selected for such a public research service function. At the same time I imagine this issue is something extremely mundane... which makes the lack of transparency and resulting media stir even more grating.