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.

Comments

The steak

[alexburke]

If you want the sizzle, see the article. Otherwise, here's the steak, for people like me, who don't have time to read all the articles on Slashdot. (This isn't the whole article, but what I think to be the most poignant parts.)

• Endeavour
  
• ISS
  
• "...when the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided that the limp wing of a new solar array on the station needed to be tightened, engineers worked on the problem around the clock. When a plan was devised, two astronauts on the ground suited up and hopped into a water tank used to simulate weightlessness. When they were finished testing the plan, NASA ground controllers could even tell the shuttle astronauts which torque settings to use on their power tools and gauge the degree of difficulty for each task."
  
• "By contrast, the space station crew was dealing with an air conditioner that broke days ago when the system that removes carbon dioxide from the air also broke down. Since the systems are on the Russian module, the international crew of two Russians and one American dealt with Russian ground controllers, who scolded them after the astronauts decided to set up an alternate system for removing the potentially dangerous gas. 'You could have damaged it,' said a ground controller. 'We have to breathe with something,' snapped Sergei Krikalyov, one of two Russians on the three-man team. At one point the exchange between ground and space grew so heated that a ground controller said, 'Guys, don't swear at me.'"
  
• "As the first crew to live on the space station, the Expedition One crew had little opportunity to adapt to space life when they arrived five weeks ago. They entered a station that had just two days of breathable oxygen. Since then, they have struggled with both the hardware and ground support. 'They plan an activity to take one hour and we know it will take five hours,' ISS crewman Yuri Gidzenko complained.

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I think that it should be noted that...

[StandardDeviant]

... 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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Well, all good shrinks know...

[abhinavnath]

...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)

Re:Well, all good shrinks know...

[Wellspring]

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.

I've been trying to convince my girlfriend of this for some time. Could you post some of the online studies that have been published?

The men of Slashdot appreciate your efforts.

"Houston, we have a fscking problem..."

[the dweeb]

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.

Not learning from Mir

[estar]

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.

In space...

[aonifer]

...they can't hear you swear.

Unless the mike is on.

body language differences

[StandardDeviant]

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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Someone should syndicate this.

[smack_attack]

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"