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Alpha Station: Grumps In Space
aldheorte writes: "The extolled virtues of polite multinational cooperation and goodwill allegedly exemplifed by Space Station Alpha are giving way to practical difficulties. CNN is carrying a story entitled "Life aboard the space station: long days, sarcasm and swearing" highlighted by ground controllers pleading with belligerent, swearing astronauts; certainly not the 'Gee shucks, darnit' family-values-and-apple-pie team image NASA likes to create." Well, at least they got the solar panels fixed.
BZZZZzzzzzttt! Thank you for playing, try again.
(I really hate it when some armchair theorist starts spouting their latest theory prefaced with "Everyone knows" then procedes to publically drool)
In reality NASA spent a great deal of time researching the optimal crew size for high-stress envirinments and determined that 3 is the optimal number. All of the material is publically availiable & applied in a wide range of disciplines from physchiatry to business management.
Moderators: It was harsh but this fellow was trying to pull a fast one. Making up information is *not* cool and folks *should* get called on it.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Seems I recally that the 70's skylab had an incident when the astronaughts (funny speeling on purpose) went on strike and refusted to do what ground control asked, felt they we're being pushed too hard. Too lazy to look up referances ... ok, here's an easy referance right here.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
What these "science" jounalists need is a trip on Mir or ISS. But not as tourists but to keep sending space news for a year... In the end we will only hear: Well, this *BEEP* space station *BEEP* working as usual ... Today *BEEEEEEEP* solar panels and ***BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP*** rest. *BEEP* Ground "discontrol" is ****BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPP* about us...
For nearly 20 years, Soviet Union/Russia had people on Space. And it becomes clear that the longer you stay there, the worse you get tired and nervous. They start getting sarcastic, nervous, sometimes quite ordinary. With longlivers, talks with ground control become 90% "not for children's ears". And this is not due to bad conditions or lack of air. The problem is on the huge amount of work, the lack of time and all this in an enclosed space on not very familiar conditions (lack of gravity is not as funny as it may seem). Besides there is a psychological problem with ground control that causes serous problems. You're working for monthes in a cage, swetting and having lots of things to do, troubles, glitches and features. You don't see your family or friends and it was monthes before you had be in a party or soemthing. And this damn lack of gravity to help. Now you see that ground controller who just came from home, had just seen his wife, had been in a party last week and tells you that you are doing something wrong... Can't you imagine the reaction? Well I haven't been in Space but I was in one quite remote place once. For several monthes. When someone started to tell me I was wrong through the sattelite phone I could only say:
Ok you damn fat swine, take your ass from your hot seat and come here to the frost telling "I'm wrong" in your f**** sweet tone"
Wait till it becomes at least Beta.
...Nasa may be the next site found in the Smart Filter.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
You'd think they'd try to be extra nice to these guys...
With all the concern about the Iridium satellites coming down unguided, I'd hate to think about what would happen if one of these guys got really mad and decided to give the ISS a shove towards Earth. Bet mom in Nebraska wouldn't be too happy to see the world's largest Erector set come flying into her backyard and mess up the flowers...
(and yes for you physicists out there, I know it doesn't quite work that way...)
brianboruI assume that you're talking about adding a female third person, rather than a male third person (which would be much more fun, IMO).
Things brings up the interesting question...
Is 3 really the optimum crew size in a mixed sex environment, or is it for a single sex environment? Hmmmm? Three alpha males? (Yum!) Or three dominatrix, or a mixture thereof.
there is no unauthorized breeding in Jurrasic Park
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
pitr [alpha]: i am thinkink you might try turnink the wrench clockwise, da?
stef [alpha]: wrench! clockwise! can't you geeks speak in plain !@#$ing english?!
My .02,
My .02,
zencode
iactivist.org/jason
Tension between ground controllers and the astronauts reached a point where the crew actually mutinied, refused to obey ground instructions and took a day off. Can't find any info on this on nasa.gov ... go figure ;) Some generic info
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If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles
The NASA PR engine has long pandered to the US's puritanical values. One doesn't have to dig too deep to discover that Astronauts have been cursing since the Mercury program. More interesting is the relationship between ground controllers in US and Russia. As stated in the article, US ground control carefully plans and simulates every activity to make the Astronauts' difficult tasks as easy as possible. Russian policy is to train the crew well enough that they can improvise in any situation, which makes the 'you could have broke it' comment from the Russian ground control interesting. Were they talking to Shepard? Or was the crew not trained to repair the CO2 scrubber? Anyway, its no surprise to see a space project requiring more than twice the time and effort envisioned by the big heads.
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... from the article's description the friction exists primarily between the ground controllers (American and Russian) and the ISS crew, not among the ISS crew as most previous posts seem to speculate. These three guys have had quite a while to train together on the ground and are working closely together under adverse circumstances, so I'd bet that they get along pretty well given where they are and what they're doing (how much stress would you be under in a tin can that makes a submarine look roomy, surrounded by hard vacuum, and you only have 48 hours worth of O2 upon setting foot therein?).
Now add to that stress some jerkoff piloting a chair on the ground being pissy at you. I'd swear and be sarcastic too. Note also that the Russian language, and particularly their military slang, has a rich oral tradition when it comes to profanity (English absolutely pales by comparison, from my experience as a native English speaker and university-educated Russian speaker[1]), so the two Russian crewmen no doubt have a large palette with which to paint the situation and ground crews unflatteringly.
[1] My fianceé is trilingual in English, German, and Russian, and in her opinion Russian is by far the most profane in terms of common usage. Just an additional point of reference... :-)
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News for Geeks in Austin, TX
...that groups of three are the most unstable small grouping. There is always potential to form dynamic, shifting 1-against-2 conflicts. With the present crew, American-vs-Russian, commander-vs-other 2 crew (both of which coincide w/ the current command rotation), or minor shit like 2-guys-who-like-coffee vs 1-guy-who-likes-tea or something equally inane. Emotional conflicts as described are expected w/ a group of three.
(btw, IANAPsychiatrist)
My other sig is also a
NASA has made available flight data and radio exchange transcripts of previous space missions. I'd sure like to see what's in the logs in these latest missions.
The article on CNN and MSNBC both sound like the stories told by the American astronaunts in Burrough's book Dragonfly. The problem seems that ground control (russian and US) doesn't seem to be able to come up with realistic timelines. reasons in Dragonfly why it was difficult. a)what is up there doesn't match the ground inventory b) the task was not simulated properly so the estimate was off. c) the crew is isolated and if they using russian ground control they only have comms for 10 minutes out of every 90 minute orbit. So the normal back and forth conversation between a astronaunt and ground control wasn't present on Mir. It was more like 80 minutes later 80 minutes later This goes on and on for days. Solution: Experience and communication. The US has a lot of experience training for short-term mission. Now we need to learn what to do for long-term mission. As long as they don't try to critize the astronaunts we should get the kinks worked. The good news is that next month US Ground Control will take over the station.
...they can't hear you swear.
Unless the mike is on.
Hmm. I think given that data that it may not be intentional that the Americans felt the Russians were hacked off at them. Russian body language and linguistic habits can seem really gruff and cold to people not familiar with them (e.g. Russians very, very, very, veryrarely smile in public, to them it's a subconcious sign of sugar-coated, goody-two-shoes insincerity (now think about how Americans tend to smile first and ask questions later, is it any wonder most Russians think Americans are a bunch of twits?)). So the Russians may have just been in normal operating mode and the Americans misinterpreted it (magnified by the fact they have the personal space of a veal calf up there). Russian culture and American culture have grown much more accustomed to each other than they were in the 1970s, though, so this may not be as big a deal as it might have been then.
(This is not to imply that Russians are actually cold and gruff, they just might seem that way to strangers. My experience with them personally has been 180 degrees opposite in that you couldn't hope for warmer friends once they get to know you and you become accustomed to their body language.)
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News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Kinda makes me think of MTV's Real World(TM) (shiny thing network), Survivor(TM) and Big Brother(TM).
Bill Shepherd: "I'm sorry Sergei, the tribe, er crew, has decided to vote you off the ISS"
Yuri Gidzenko: "We are thinkink you are takink up too much oxygen and not workink hard enough on da solar array"
NASA Ground Crew: "Sergei, the crew has spoken, please remove your helmet and step out of the ISS"
Hammer of Truth