3 ms·
Deadlines, political pressure to ignore issues and get it done, is how you get astronauts dead. Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia. And of course Soyuz 1 and Soyu
by mikkupikku 1y ago
Deadlines, political pressure to ignore issues and get it done, is how you get astronauts dead. Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia. And of course Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 / Salyut 1; it's not just a problem for America.
I fear it's going to happen again; Orion isn't safe and hasn't been successfully tested. The heat shield started to disintegrate the last time they tested it and instead of testing it again with their changes they're going to put people in it next time.
- 05 1y agoTo play devil's advocate, the only purpose astronauts serve is PR. Anything that can be done is space could be done cheaper and better with automation/rovers. So it seems that having those astronauts risk their lives for a short term political win is just table stakes, because the alternative for them is to stay on Earth and maybe pay $100K for just an hour in orbit with any of the commercial space tourism companies.
- WalterBright 1y agoAutomation still cannot pick a strawberry.
- genewitch 1y agono strawberries in space
- 05 1y agoIt can't cost effectively pick a strawberry when compared to underpaid workers. It can definitely pick a strawberry cheaper when you take cost of lifting oxygen up from a gravity well into account. And with Moon 'ping' time of 2.6 seconds RTT, direct teleoperation is always an option.
- WalterBright 1y agoCost effectiveness matters, even when cost is no object.
- ramblenode 1y agoI bet it could be done if even a fraction of the Artemis budget were devoted to it.
- WalterBright 1y agoCharles Lindbergh knew his chances of dying crossing the Atlantic were pretty high. After all, previous attempts resulted in many deaths. Armstrong's personal estimate of his odds getting back alive were about 50%. Apollo 13 came within a hair of killing its crew. I fly across the North Atlantic at 30,000 feet, death in seconds if the hull is breached, in a comfortable chair, watching a movie and sipping a drink. Isn't that incredible? I still find it amazing. But I know that was achieved through the loss of many, many lives.
- nxor 1y agoPlanes are incredible. And people die every day flying them. The public seems to have found that out this year
- lesuorac 1y agoCrucially, American's typically don't die from commercial flight every day. It's also entirely reasonable as an American to discount Polio / Ebola and a lot of other stuff that' aren't an issue for them. It doesn't mean that worldwide they aren't a problem. But historically, we've had systems to ensure these things aren't problems so when they become problems its newsworthy.
- Gud 1y agoThey do? How many deadly aviation accidents are there in a year? Seems to me it happens a lot less than every day
- nxor 1y agohttps://www.ntsb.gov/Pages/monthly.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/Pages/monthly.aspx