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Rock Climbing is Easy.
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A friend was an astronaut. He did a couple trips to the Space Station including living on it for three months and doing around 8-10 EVAs. I got to see him blasted into space. That was cool. A colleague was on the Challenger when it failed. That was sad. |
divnamite wrote: This guy was on the Yosemite SAR. It seems NASA still heavily recruits from the military which makes a lot of sense. Astronaut & YOSAR is pretty much the ideal curriculum vitae, as far as I’m concerned.... “He also manages the geometric programming Python package GPKit.“Geeeez buddy leave some accomplishments for the rest of us?! |
Tamiban Gueterstan wrote: The first 9 shuttle flights had about a 1 in 9 chance of catastrophic failure. Basically russian roulette for the entire crew. The chance towards the end of the program was 10 times smaller, which was still pretty high. Just read the first paragraph of that article, and everything about this is fascinating. What analysis did they do to develop those probabilities? How are risks calculated retroactively? If the “actual” probability of surviving the first 5 years of shuttle launches was giving something like 20:1 odds, wow. Just wow. “[Non-abortable] Failure is not an option” when it comes to crewed launches. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a possibility. Surely, there must be more to being an astronaut than being willing to accept heinous risk. Otherwise every half-wit gumby climber could do the job. But damn is that willingness to suffer for a higher purpose a mathematically necessity.... And despite the inherent conflict of interest between management selectively communicating minimal risk while the engineers raised maximum risk concerns, gotta wonder what odds each astronaut strapping in believed they were facing. I think if I was thinking solely of myself alone, I’d be willing to accept upwards of 50/50 risk, depending on the necessity of the mission and operational cost of reducing those odds to less than 50/50. But when I think of how my family/friends/society might be impacted by a fatal failure, that risk tolerance drops down to like 5-15% range for a SUPER important mission, and ~1% for a standard one. When I think of how much risk I as a citizen would be willing to take voting for/or against a potentially fatal launch, unless the science is pretty essential, I’d prioritize safety & survival above all else, put “acceptable failure risk” in the 1 out of 1000 range. We don’t really need humans to die to get to space right now. Easy enough to launch climate satellites autonomously. We send humans into space because it is hard and empowering, not because it is immediately, absolutely necessary for tackling important Earthly problems of human concern. The Right Stuff, and all that, eh? Edit: Gahhhhhhh I don’t know what my point is here or why I wrote all this. |
Allen Sanderson wrote: A friend was an astronaut. He did a couple trips to the Space Station including living on it for three month and doing around 8-10 EVAs. I got to see him blasted into space. That was cool. A colleague was on the Challenger when it failed. Condolences for the loss of your colleague. I was present for one of the aborted launches of STS-128. I think it was the first abort, due to weather? Either way, it remains one of my greatest disappointments that we couldn't stick around a few more days to see the launch, but I’m really grateful that NASA was so prudent and didn't give a flying funk how it would make us spectators feel if they aborted. EVA is some of the coolest shit I can imagine. I reckon scuba diving is the training for the sensation of moving while floating, but I’d be curious to know how they prepare for that “First steps a doozy!” sensation of leaving the airlock for the first time. Seems like pulling into the headwall on Outer Space on the Bastille would be a pretty optimal simulator, no? |
Brent Kelly wrote: EVA is some of the coolest shit I can imagine. I reckon scuba diving is the training for the sensation of moving while floating, but I’d be curious to know how they prepare for that “First steps a doozy!” sensation of leaving the airlock for the first time. There are some good documentaries on NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab. |
Allen Sanderson wrote: Gonna have to check it out! Thanks! |
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They use VR these days, apparently! |
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https://youtu.be/LUAOwceIzRM
Anthem for Project Artemis. |
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I had a songwriter client in the studio a few times named Eric Anders. One day he blew my mind when he told me his father, Bill Anders, took this iconic photo from Apollo 8 while in lunar orbit. Galen Rowell declared it "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken."  |
Kristian Solem wrote: I had a songwriter client in the studio a few times named Eric Anders. One day he blew my mind when he told me his father, Bill Anders, took this iconic photo from Apollo 8 while in lunar orbit. Galen Rowell declared it "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken." Earthrise. Beautiful. Small world, ain’t it? https://www.andersobitz.com/Diggin’ the vibes. Thanks! |
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Laika of Sputnik 2. A true pioneer. |
Brian ~+~+~+ wrote: Laika of Sputnik 2. A true pioneer.  |
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SO COOL! |
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Tangential to the thread, on the subject of laudable aviators— |
