Soyuz Ballistic Re-entry 300 Miles Off Course

call-me-kenneth writes "Soyuz TMA-11, carrying a crew of three returning from the ISS, unexpectedly followed a high-G ballistic re-entry trajectory and ended up landing 300 miles off-course. The crew, including Commander Peggy Whitson and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, are reportedly in good health. Soyuz capsules have previously saved the lives of the crew even after severe malfunctions that might have led to the loss of a less robust vehicle."

Comments

suppositories

[Anonymous Coward]

they melt in your ass, not in your hand

hmm

[DanWS6]

[insert "in soviet russia" joke here]

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

In America, pilot lands shuttle. In Soviet Russia sojuz lands YOU!

Ballistic trajectory?

[tpheiska]

In the article they state that the vehicle returned in "a plunge with an uncontrollable, steep trajectory." So basically it came down without guidance, maybe the steering systems malfunctioned. The "ballistic trajectory" seems to be an euphemism for coming down like a rock.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[figleaf]

The article also says
"He said the crew missed the target because they changed their landing plan at the last minute without telling mission control."

So most likely it was not a steering malfunction.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[trout007]

A capusle can "sort of fly" during reentry. You can use thrusters to change the attitude of the craft which changes the direction. This requires guidance. You usally use this because it's less stressful on the crew and you have pretty good accuracy. The ballistic trajectory is just like you said. Uncontrolled so you fall like a rock. So you spend less time slowing down in the upper atmosphere. You get to the thicker atmosphere sooner and when you do you are going faster which causes very high G deceleration. Not fun but the craft is designed to do it.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[confused one]

Sometimes you have to ask "What were they thinking?" Then pick your jaw up off the floor and move on...

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[MopedJesus]

The "ballistic trajectory" seems to be an euphemism for coming down like a rock.

A jet mechanic friend of mine is fond of the phrase "the glide-ratio of a rock".

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[Fishead]

According to the voice data recorder, the last comment before the course change was:

"Screw you guys, I'm going home."

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[ThreeE]

The soyuz changes its CG position to change its attitude which rotates the lift vector which changes the trajectory.

There. I fixed it for you.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[Detritus]

I'd take that report with a grain of salt. The first impulse of many bureaucracies is to blame all problems on the flight crew.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[Waffle Iron]

The "ballistic trajectory" seems to be an euphemism for coming down like a rock.

It's not really an euphemism. The definition of "ballistic" literally means to fall like a rock.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, one of the best comments I've ever seen here - BRAVO!!

And don't forget to respect my AUTHORITAE!!

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the US dollar in a high-G ballistic re-entry trajectory?

_anon in Pakistan

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[v1]

basically that's correct. "ballistic trajectory" means there is no course correction/adjustment/maintenance going on during the trip. Like firing a mortar, you initially set the angle and power, and fire it. If your math was good, it lands where you wanted it to. "ballistics" (or "dumb firing") more commonly refers to munitions firing.

He said the crew missed the target because they changed their landing plan at the last minute without telling mission control.

Certainly IS scary. You wouldn't expect the astronauts would have an overriding degree of control over their flight plan. Actually, I would have expected it to be nearly 100% determined from mission control. And even if they did elect to "fall different", it's simply amazing they would not notify mission control. I wonder what sort of reprimand the senior astronut is going to receive over this?

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[arivanov]

No.

Serezha, davai vruchnuyu!!!

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[arivanov]

I wonder what sort of reprimand the senior astronut is going to receive over this? My guess will be a promotion.

The greatest miss in russian landing history ended up being "Cosmonavt No 1" in command of the entire space programme.

To be most exact that was Leonov on his Voskhod 2 mission where they landed nearly 1000 km off course in the middle of the forest near Perm.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[Anonymous Coward]

actually they do something like this when they reach the launch pad for take-off. The leader of the astronauts for the mission gets to say this: "Good luck, and god save you if you screw up".

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[Rei]

When I first read the subject here, all I could think was, "at least they didn't roll off a cliff" (as a Soyuz once nearly did). And "at least they didn't break through a frozen lake and sink to the bottom" (as another Soyuz once did). There are some very serious hazards to using a nearly unguided reentry. If a craft isn't to have wings, at least give it a lifting body or parafoils or something so that it has *some* sort of guidance.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[iiiears]

Ballistic trajectory re-entry was to steep and the atmosphere slowed the ship too quickly causing high G-forces crew? - Does that sound possible? Priceless glimpse of a governmental non-sequitor. "Soyuz capsules have previously saved the lives of the crew even after severe malfunctions that might have led to the loss of a less robust vehicle." -- plainly it didn't go as planned and astronauts were put in unecessary danger. To the courageous astronauts, Welcome back! We admire your courage and are grateful for the knowledge you return with.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[Gonoff]

But a glide ratio with style!

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[garlicbready]

I'm sure it was
"Nyet Nyet, metric I tell you metric"

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to expand on this, the Soyuz reentry is NOT fully ballistic. Some lift is generated during reentry by designing the capsule so that its center of gravity is offset slightly to one side of the reentry module, so that it tilts slightly. This doesn't generate a lot of lift, but enough to allow the capsule to offset its touchdown point to the left or right a few hundred miles to either side of the entry path, or to lengthen or foreshorten the entry path.

By controlling the roll attitude to point the "lift vector" in the direction they want to modify the trajectory, the crew can in effect steer the capsule while it reenters. If they are already "on target", they can negate the lift vector by rolling the capsule.

The same tactic was used with the Gemini and Apollo capsules and is a major reason why those capsules usually landed within sight of their recovery fleets (compared to Mercury, which WAS fully ballistic).

If the ability to control roll disappears (such as in a guidance failure), then the lift vector will orient towards the earth and foreshorten the entry trajectory, increasing g loads and heating.

If a comparable guidance failure occurred on a winged vehicle during reentry, it would be raining aluminum.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[tftp]

Does that sound possible?

Yes, this happens on about 5% of all landings. This is one of "normal" ways to land, though not the preferred one. One advantage of a round landing capsule with ablative thermal shield is that it can't be destroyed however you land; it *will* deliver you to the surface; the only difference between controlled and uncontrolled landing is in where you land, and how many G's you will get. Neither will kill you.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[Mike610544]

it's simply amazing they would not notify mission control. I'm pretty sure we don't have the full story yet. Everyone seems to be responding as though the cosmonauts said "Hey wouldn't it be cool to totally change our reentry procedure ... Yeah, and let's not tell mission control just to mess with them. hehe."
That's almost certainly not what happened.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[jo42]

"the glide-ratio of a rock" Is that an African Rock or European Rock?

Of course, with sufficient horizontal velocity, a rock can 'glide' very far...

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[ozbird]

Douglas Adams said it best: "The spaceships hung in the air in exactly the same way that bricks don't."

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[DerekLyons]

The Russian bureaucracy in particular is quick to attempt to shift blame away from themselves. The first computer failure of this type (the current one is something like the fifth out of fourteen flights) was also blamed on the crew. It was only months later that they admitted it was a hardware problem - and that a fix was in the works. Quite a few years have passed by, yet here we are again.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[DerekLyons]

Except - the Soyuz does no such thing. As the grandparent states, they use thrusters to alter the attitude which alters the lift vector.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[sgage]

They didn't just "miss the target", they made a ballistic reentry. The "crew changed their landing plan" sounds a bit revisionist to me.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[saider]

Are the Soyuz capsules capable of a water landing? Because "where" could be in a location that the device was not prepared for.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[tftp]

Yes, they landed in a lake a couple of times.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was most likely a computer malfunction. This also happened a mission or two back, so apparently it's an ongoing problem.

The Soyuz, like the Shuttle, has been subject to ongoing improvements throughout it's history. It appears in one of the latest updates, they may have introduced a bug in the re-entry computer.

Re:Ballistic trajectory?

[IdeaMan]

You wouldn't expect the astronauts would have an overriding degree of control over their flight plan. I'm really glad you're not in charge of designing equipment controls. If that were the case why bother with cockpit flight controls or for that matter humans. Humans are awesome at compensating for damage. Nearly every system in our bodies handles degradation of some form another, and compensates for it. That extends all the way to our behavior too.

This video sums it up:
http://www.videosift.com/video/One-winged-F-15-flying-and-landing-after-midair-collision

It seems like you want to remove the capability of some of the most well trained individuals on the planet control over their own fate.

"less robust"

[Swampash]

read "Made in America"

Re:"less robust"

[morgan_greywolf]

read "Made in America"

Uh, no. The reason I know this is because we don't make a damn thing here anymore. What's that? Ford Taurus? No, that shit's assembled in America with parts made in Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Japan.

Re:"less robust"

[call-me-kenneth]

Well, maybe.

The US hasn't had a man-rated traditional stack since the last Apollo in 1976, but the next-gen Ares launcher will be a traditional inline design with the payload at the top. That, plus the lack of enormous asymmetrical control and lifting surfaces required for (some value of) atmospheric flight pretty much eliminates the sources of danger caused by the shuttle design.

OTOH, the somewhat... controversial? decision to make the Ares first stage an adaption of the existing shuttle solid rocket boosters is proving rather problematic, owing to the well-known pogo oscillation modthrusterse problems of SRBs. (that's just a random story that popped up on google, no doubt there are much better overviews elsewhere.) Basically as designed the vehicle would crush the crew to jelly with high frequency +/1 70G vertical oscillations (shortly before the entire stack shakes itself to pieces.) (This wasn't a problem on the shuttle because there are two SRBs coupled through the external tank.)

Anyway, in a few years' time we'll be able to start comparing the safety of like with like.

No-one outside the space geek community seems to have noticed, but the Ariane-V launched ATV cargo vessel (payload: ~20 tons) has now launched human flight-rated hardware (the ATV, now docked to ISS), albeit without humans in it when it went off. I suspect there are some interesting things being doodled on napkins at cafes and bars all over Darmstadt.

Re:"less robust"

[arivanov]

I suspect there are some interesting things being doodled on napkins at cafes and bars all over Darmstadt. Yep. That and building a Soyuz capable launch pad in Guinea... Hm.... That does call for some napkin calculations...

Re:"less robust"

[meringuoid]

No-one outside the space geek community seems to have noticed, but the Ariane-V launched ATV cargo vessel (payload: ~20 tons) has now launched human flight-rated hardware (the ATV, now docked to ISS), albeit without humans in it when it went off. I suspect there are some interesting things being doodled on napkins at cafes and bars all over Darmstadt.

The original plan for Ariane V was that it would be the launcher for the Hermes spaceplane. Every so often the idea of a European manned spacecraft gets kicked around; they were talking about going in with the Russians to develop the Kliper a while back, but the current favourite appears to be a capsule design, based on Soyuz in the same sort of way that Orion is based on Apollo.

ESA is certainly capable of doing this - the ATV is ample proof of that. Whether we'll actually get around to it is another matter. Hermes was cancelled because constant overruns and design alterations sent the costs through the roof, and the Germans got tired of signing all the cheques. They'll be wary of getting drawn in to another project that might end as nothing more than a heap of extremely expensive paperwork. Britain won't even consider getting involved; it's a longstanding national policy to work only on unmanned space missions. Like many grand European projects, the politics is a bloody nightmare.

Re:"less robust"

[Thecla]

It's only a matter of time before a primitive ballistic re-entry takes its toll. We can do better than this! Aerodynamic crew return vehicles like the x-40 concept are much more elegant and safer. Large payloads can be delivered by the various heavy lift launchers.

How far exactly?

[MagdJTK]

According to the first paragraph of the article, the distance by which they were off was 400km, which Slashdot claims is 300 miles.

Perhaps the calculations were done by the same person who worked out the re-entry trajectory?

Re:How far exactly?

[whoda]

It says 420km, which gets rounded down to 400 in the headline paragraph.

420km in miles is 260, which gets rounded up to 300 for the Slashdot article.

Re:How far exactly?

[Daimanta]

That, or they used MS Excel to do the calculations ;)

Re:How far exactly?

[SteveDob]

In both cases the figure was rounded to 1 significant figure, which is as relevant as is needed for the audience.

Re:How far exactly?

[FlyByPC]

In both cases the figure was rounded to 1 significant figure, which is as relevant as is needed for the audience.
You're trying to explain significant figures to /. ? You must be new here. Good luck, sir.

Re:How far exactly?

[Linker3000]

Let me guess - you work for NASA?

Re:How far exactly?

[call-me-kenneth]

Story submitter here... I used 300 miles because the NASA press release (the second link in the story) says:

"The landing was approximately 295 miles from the expected landing site" ...which I rounded to 300 to try to make the story sound more exciting than it really is, just in order to flatter my inadequate sense of identity and self-esteem. Little did I reckon on the elite mental arithmetic of the Slashdot readership! I hang my head in shame.

Re:How far exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

In both cases the figure was rounded to 1 significant figure, which is as relevant as is needed for the audience.

Mod parent up +0.05 informative!

Re:How far exactly?

[Original Replica]

We all know how well NASA handles metric conversion.

Re:How far exactly?

[r_jensen11]

So, how does this relate to german school boys?

Re:How far exactly?

[budgenator]

Huntsville Al, the city nearest to the Marshall Space flight center has had metric speed limit signs for 40 years that I know of.

Re:How far exactly?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

In Soviet Russia, 300 miles is 400 kilometers and a bottle of wodka.

Deja vu

[DanWS6]

The glitch that caused a Soyuz space capsule to come to Earth more than 300 miles from its intended landing point early this month has still not been identified, Russian officials said today.

The head of a panel that investigated the off-course landing said at a news conference that although the exact flaw was not known, its chances of recurring were small and future Soyuz passengers would be at no extra risk.

Published: May 27, 2003

I wonder if they've upgraded the chances of recurring.

Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[CodeBuster]

There is an interesting article, written by a Canadian, in which he discusses the manual descent training that he received as part of cosmonaut training. Apparently, one of the back up computer systems is your brain itself (i.e. full manual control or renentry with analog controls and instruments). Queue the Soviet Russia jokes now...In Soviet Russia the re-entry computer is YOU!

From TA: "Under nominal end-of-mission situations, an automatic re-entry system will return the Soyuz vehicle and crew from space safely back to the ground. However, the crew must be familiar with the several backup modes that exist in instances when the automatic system fails. One of the backup re-entry modes is the crew themselves! For certain hardware and software malfunctions, the crew will be required to manually fly the Soyuz back to Earth through the atmosphere."

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[Phanatic1a]

But at 10G, the crew's probably not going to be conscious to operated that manual system. 10G is enough to cause G-induced loss of consciousness (GLOC) in anyone, even physically fit, properly trained, and prepared personnel. Even fighter aircraft, where the pilot is in a properly reclined position and is wearing a g-suit, limit maneuvering to 9g, because after that, that pilot's asleep.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[johnny cashed]

I would think that once you're experiencing 10G, your course has already been set. It is a space capsule, not a maneuverable atmospheric vehicle. The only control I could imagine is the decent burn, just prior to "falling out" of orbit. Once that happens, it is like going over the hump on a roller coaster, gravity takes over from there.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[confused one]

I concur. However, there would also be important functions like retro-rockets and parachutes to consider. If you are operating the craft manually, you'd better be conscious to activate them.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[jovius]

Sounds reasonable. If everything else fails there would at least be a chance to try it yourself.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[johnny cashed]

I agree, but I think that operating the craft "manually" is overstated. I would think that things like the retro ("soft" landing) rockets and the parachutes would be operated automatically. Not only automatically, but I would bet that the cosmonauts wouldn't be able to activate them if they wanted to. Especially since the landing rockets are supposed to fire 1 meter off the ground. If it lost battery power, I'm sure they are screwed regardless.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[zyklone]

The Soyuz TMA actually does generate some lift, not so much but enought to prevent rock-like behaviour usually.
But not this time apparantly.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[johnny cashed]

Addendum:

According to this link: http://www.astronautix.com/flights/mireo23.htm the landing rockets failed anyway, which resulted in a hard, but survivable landing.

And according to this: http://www.jamesoberg.com/soyuz.html the crew has no control over the parachute deployment. (This is written in entry 6 B under "Special Questions)

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[DieByWire]

But at 10G, the crew's probably not going to be conscious to operated that manual system. 10G is enough to cause G-induced loss of consciousness (GLOC) in anyone, even physically fit, properly trained, and prepared personnel. Even fighter aircraft, where the pilot is in a properly reclined position and is wearing a g-suit, limit maneuvering to 9g, because after that, that pilot's asleep.

In an aircraft, the pilot's head is necessarily somewhat higher than the rest of his body so that he can see outside, especially forward. That's why high G's result in a loss of blood flow to the brain.

An astronaut doesn't have that limitation. I wouldn't be surprised if their seating position makes them less vulnerable to GLOC than a pilot.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[berashith]

I would also think that having just spent some time in a much less than 1 G environment, that the 10G is even more severe by relativity. Aren't the astronauts a bit wobbly when they return to a normal G load?

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[J05H]

Ballistic reentry like this is still under computer control. Manual reentry is for an even-worse condition Soyuz. IIRC ballistic reentry is for off-nominal or main computer crashing. Article says they altered course before reentry without telling MCC so they were either having trouble or screwing around. This is another testament to Soyuz robustness - still the safest spacecraft around.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[confused one]

the crew has no control over the parachute deployment.

That is probably a good thing, given than an incapacitated crew might not be in able to deploy. They are probably simple, robust systems based on altimeters.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[jalet]

In Soviet Russia the re-entry doesn't make the vehicule explode.

-20 Not funny.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[dogmatixpsych]

Pilots who are exposed to high Gs (i.e., fighter pilots) wear special pants that basically squeeze the blood out of their legs to increase blood pressure in the head.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[Anonymous Coward]

Pilots who are exposed to high Gs (i.e., fighter pilots) wear special pants that basically squeeze the blood out of their legs to increase blood pressure in the head. And also have the fortunate side effect of providing artificial bladder control if they DO pass out!

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[Anonymous Coward]

shameless self promotion:

I wrote a blog entry(rather a short story for fun - but with facts intact) based on my knowledge about space: http://mailvarun.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-is-it-not-so-easy-to-sell-apples-in_17.html

It is about how difficult it is to sell apples in space station :).

-V

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is a space capsule, not a maneuverable atmospheric vehicle. "
I don't know if it applies to the Soyuz but the Apollo capsule could maneuver during reentry. It's center of weight was not exactly in the center of the capsule. By rotating the vehicle it could maneuver a a bit.
Odds are the Soyuz can do the same.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[AHuxley]

In Capitalist West you need another seven astronauts.
In In Soviet Russia, Germans designed good capsule for you.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[DerekLyons]

This is another testament to Soyuz robustness - still the safest spacecraft around.

In some alternate reality in which Soyuz was ever the safest space craft in the first place... sure. Here in the real world, it's safety is statistically indistinguishable from the Shuttle's.

Re:Full Manual Re-entry is Possible in Soyuz

[J05H]

The major difference is that Soyuz hasn't killed anyone since 1971 or there-abouts. Statistically STS and Soyuz are indistinguishable but STS's accidents have been spread throughout it's operational life while Soyuz' deaths all occurred early on in development.

(funny, you are "friend", "friend of a friend" and "foe of a friend" on my slashdot-o-meter)

In Soviet Russia

[GroeFaZ]

Soyuz misses YOU!

Genie in a Bottle

[skeeto]

They didn't come back with any beautiful, belly-buttonless genies, did they?

Horse shoes and hand gernades

[edwardpickman]

Hey give them some credit they hit the right planet.

Re:Horse shoes and hand gernades

[fuego451]

"Hey give them some credit they hit the right planet."

And, the right continent and country within 250 miles of the desired touchdown point in spite of a glitch. Pretty damn good, I'd say.

Re:Horse shoes and hand gernades

[mysticgoat]

"Any landing you walk away from is a good landing."

Ancient quotation from the early days of airplanes... and still appropriate.

Good to have the cosmonauts back in one piece.

With love from Russia!

[desmondhaynes]

300 miles which side? Am I close enough? Let me run. With love from Russia!

In Soviet...

[etinin]

In Soviet Amerika, you kill space shuttles.

sort of off-topic

[zappepcs]

This is one of the reasons that material/websites are listed as inaccurate sources of data. Rounding is good when you are talking about 1.300056000 billion dollars as 1.3billion. But in the case of simple math that the reader can do on their own rather quickly, it is imprudent to do any rounding.

A professional news reporter would know that there have been trouble with the US space program regarding conversions to and from metric units. Therefore it is professionally prudent to make sure you are not lumped in with the same idiots who made those mistakes.

It's not that hard, really. Such things are the stuff of journalism classes from the 50's or sooner. How not to look like an idiot when reporting the news!

Re:sort of off-topic

[MrNaz]

"Such things are the stuff of journalism classes from the 50's or sooner."

Spoken like a true foreigner.

Re:sort of off-topic

[zappepcs]

Out of curiosity, how does that statement make me a foreigner? What country do you think I am from? I'm truly interested in how writing styles or indeed simple phrasing can be used to determine where I am from.

Re:sort of off-topic

[ozmanjusri]

Out of curiosity, how does that statement make me a foreigner?

You've made an intelligent point without threatening anyone.

That's downright unamerican.

Re:sort of off-topic

[Anonymous Coward]

Such things are the stuff of journalism classes from the 50's or sooner I think that should be the 50s or *earlier*. The fact that you make good sentences and spell correctly, but use the wrong word in a place where no native speaker would ever use it is probably what lead the GP to his conclusion

I don't think it gives a real indication of where you're from, unless your native language (like Dutch and possibly German) does not distinguish between sooner and earlier ("vroeger"). It's the same with much/many, large/tall, etc.

(Spoken like a true fellow foreigner... :-) )

Re:sort of off-topic

[flimflam]

Out of curiosity, how does that statement make me a foreigner? What country do you think I am from? I'm truly interested in how writing styles or indeed simple phrasing can be used to determine where I am from. I think because it makes absolutely no sense. "50's or sooner"? Seriously, what does that mean?

Re:sort of off-topic

[MrNaz]

I was actually agreeing with you, implying that if you think that journalists have learned these things, then you couldn't possibly be from America, as American journalism has none of these things. Obviously, you missed the joke, and so did the mods, who gave me -1 flamebait :(

I shall endeavour to make my humour more obvious from now on. Knock knock...

Re:sort of off-topic

[amorsen]

But in the case of simple math that the reader can do on their own rather quickly, it is imprudent to do any rounding. This is simply wrong. The original number had 1 digit precision. The new number has 1 digit precision. Don't invent precision.

Re:sort of off-topic

[Jesus_666]

That's right, we Europeans are above randomly threatening people. And if anyone disagrees I'll smash his face in with a brick!

Re:sort of off-topic

[rcw-home]

Very often, especially in American news reporting, you'll see an exact unit converted from a previously-rounded metric figure. To make up an example: "Witnesses said the flames from the fuel tanker crash reached between 328 feet to 656 feet in the air." Of course, the source they are quoting said "100-200 meters". It kinda sucks because it implies a level of precision that wasn't ever there.

Re:sort of off-topic

[hey!]

Spoken like a European.

Americans know that violence never truly solves anything, unless it is caught on camera.

I'm impressed

[Whuffo]

They came down in a space capsule on a ballistic trajectory - in other words, dropped like a rock.

The fact that they survived the experience is amazing. Say what you want about Soviet technology, this was a very, very neat trick.

Re:I'm impressed

[aliquis]

Which indeed are what most of us would say about soviet technology.

Re:I'm impressed

[JockTroll]

Spoken like a true loserboy nerd. For Soyuz capsules, ballistic reentry is a viable backup reentry mode that is planned for. Lifting re-entry is preferred because it greatly reduces the G-forces experienced by the crew, but the craft CAN re-enter on a ballistic trajectory. Vostok, Voshkod and Mercury capsules all re-entered ballistically. TMA-10 (october 2007) also made a ballistic reentry.

So shut the shithole you're talking out of, loserboys. For all your bragging about "science" and "technology", you know jack. You only look at the pictures while we jocks beat you up and shit on your faces.

Re:I'm impressed

[c6gunner]

The fact that they survived the experience is amazing. Say what you want about Soviet technology, this was a very, very neat trick.

Despite the pointless profanity which makes his comment appear to be a mindless rant, JockTroll actually made a good point in his response to you.

He's right, there's nothing amazing about the Soyuz surviving a ballistic re-entry, since that's what it was designed to do. This isn't the shuttle we're talking about - you can't compare the two. It's like saying that it's amazing that a 747 can continue flying with one broken engine, while a Cesna can't. You'd be comparing two completely different things.

Re:I'm impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this just shows that Russian technology is build very very robust and not necessary advanced, just like the AK-47.

Re:I'm impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right: you're comparing a craft that was designed to fail in about the safest way possible all things considered, and a craft where it's apparently assumed that absolutely everything in a giant Rube Goldberg sequence of events goes absolutely perfectly.

If you're planning on landing, which would you rather ride in, a Soyuz which might make for a bumpy landing, or a Space Shuttle which is likely to explode and kill you rather than make it safely down?

That's what I thought.

Re:I'm impressed

[slashgrim]

American components, Russian Components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN! - Lev Andropov

Re:I'm impressed

[aliquis]

:D:D:D lol, thanks, I needed it :D

Re:I'm impressed

[budgenator]

I suspect that the difference between "dropping like a rock" and a controlled re-entry is something on the order of 0.01%

Re:I'm impressed

[moosesocks]

Soyuz did indeed work exactly as it was designed to do.

However, when the design specification calls from a device that allows a crew of three to fall uncontrolled from orbit "like a rock" and survive relatively unharmed (even after the failure of several systems), I'm impressed.

Similarly, if the crew had not survived, I don't think anyone would be blaming the engineers, considering the number of other things that went wrong.

The Russians seem to have taken Murhphy's law to heart, and came up with a basic design that ensures the survival of the crew under virtually any circumstances. Even if this may have been the design goal, it's absolutely remarkable that we're capable of achieving it, just like spaceflight itself.

Re:I'm impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you are a fucking dork. Suicide. Now.

Space launches are routine now

[davidwr]

It's nice to know it takes a mishap to make news.

I'm not impressed.

[DerekLyons]

The fact that they survived the experience is amazing. Say what you want about Soviet technology, this was a very, very neat trick.

When it comes to Soviet technology only one thing needs to be pointed out: This brings the re-entry failure rate of the current mark of Soyuz to 20% and trending upwards. (This report on Soyuz landing safety with the older marks is sobering reading.)

Re:I'm not impressed.

[EsonLinji]

Of course, this is still a lot better than what happens to a space shuttle that has problems on re-entry.

Re:I'm not impressed.

[Anonymous Coward]

One such failure happened last year. Apparently for this launch they changed all analog control stuff (that apparently failed last time) to digital, would be interesting to see if the problem will be traced again to this thing. Effectively ballistic re-entry is a fall-back scenario for this capsule, it is never a good scenario especially for people not trained for it. It is safe to say that safety of Soyuz re-entry is quickly becoming very questionable.

Re:I'm not impressed.

[Anonymous Coward]

This wasn't a re-entry failure at all. It landed and the crew is fine. Ballistic re-entry is a contingency for the Soyuz, and it functioned exactly as it was meant to.

The Soyuz are rugged little buggers, far more so than any other re-entry vehicles. Their failure rate is excellent considering how long they have been in service.

It comes down to this: If you were undergoing a re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and there was a problem, would you rather be in a Soyuz capsule which has proven effective fall-back measures, or would you rather be in a shuttle that have the unfortunate tendency to completely breakup?

Re:I'm not impressed.

[khallow]

This is incorrect. The reentry was successful. Using a fallback mode is not a failure of reentry, it is a failure of the primary mode of reentry. For example, burning up in the atmosphere or "lithobraking" (slowing down only when you leave a smoking crater in the ground) are failures of reentry. Reading through Oberg's report, he indicates that there were few actual reentry failures and most of these occured early in the program. Further you seem to be counting things like a capsule landing on its side as a "failure". I'm not interested in playing semantics games with the several posters here who claim otherwise. But a failure in a reentry system isn't automatically a failure in the process of reentry. The capsule and crew arrived intact. In my book, that makes the reentry successful no matter how many systems failed on the way down.

Re:I'm not impressed.

[Orleron]

Russian technology... American technology.. it's all made in China!!

Re:I'm not impressed.

[fm6]

The failure rate is not good. But look of the system as a whole: it can suffer major failure and still deliver its crew home safely. It's also a lot cheaper than the U.S. shuttle, which may suffer a lower failure rate, but is much more likely to kill its crew when it does fail.

Neither system is really great. But the Russians know how to make a workable system cheaply, and know they can't design out Murphy's Law. That's the future of space flight. Assuming it has one, which I'm no longer willing to do.

Re:I'm not impressed.

[call-me-kenneth]

Oh dear, +5 informative and no-one's noticed that figure's fantasy. No-one's died on a Soyuz since 1971.

Re:I'm not impressed.

[moosesocks]

The last fatality was in 1971 with a much older version of the spacecraft.

Saying that Soyuz is no good is like saying that Linux is no good because the 2.2 kernel sucked.

Soyuz is a $#*#*ing remarkable spacecraft. Its reentry mechanism might not be the most elegant, but is certainly the most robust, and has proven able to get the crew back even after every other system has failed.

Since the last fatality in 1971, Soyuz cosmonauts have survived two booster failures -- one in which the booster wildly deviated off-course, and another in which the rocket exploded on the pad with the capsule still attached.

To contrast, the Space Shuttle was destroyed by a piece of foam, and must follow its landing procedure to a T in order for the crew to have even a remote chance of survival.

Re:I'm not impressed.

[DerekLyons]

I'm not interested in playing semantics games with the several posters here who claim otherwise.

Yet, that is exactly what you are doing by claiming that a failure of a major system during reentry isn't a reentry failure.
 
 

In my book, that makes the reentry successful no matter how many systems failed on the way down.

In my book, when you have a major system fail routinely... you have a serious problem. After all, fifteen crews landed safely despite O-ring failure and dozens of crews landed safely despite tile damage.

Re:I'm not impressed.

[DerekLyons]

The failure rate is not good. But look of the system as a whole: it can suffer major failure and still deliver its crew home safely.

Up until the day it doesn't. Fifteen crews landed safely despite major O-ring damage. Dozens of crews landed safely despite significant tile damage.
 
 

It's also a lot cheaper than the U.S. shuttle

So what? A subcompact is cheaper than a full size truck too, but only a fool or an idiot would confuse the two.
 
 

the U.S. shuttle, which may suffer a lower failure rate, but is much more likely to kill its crew when it does fail.

That's what folks who haven't actually studied the space shuttle believe.

Re:I'm not impressed.

[DerekLyons]

The last fatality was in 1971 with a much older version of the spacecraft.

That's an emotional argument, not an engineering argument.
 
 

Saying that Soyuz is no good is like saying that Linux is no good because the 2.2 kernel sucked.

I'm saying Soyuz isn't as good as those who rely on rumor and urban legend for their space information believe - because version after version it suffers significant and ongoing problems. (Nor is the Shuttle as bad as those who rely on rumor and urban legend for their space information believe.)

Re:I'm not impressed.

[moosesocks]

How is that an emotional argument?

The Soyuz has been modified extensively since it was first designed in the 1960s, and not a single crewmember has died since 1971 whilst on board a Soyuz.

Those are facts. Yes, tons of other things have gone wrong, and there have been (far too) many close calls. However, these are typically the result of other failures of the Russian Space Programme, and not the Soyuz hardware.

There's no folklore involved here. The simplistic design of the Soyuz ensures that its crew can return safely, even after multiple other systems have failed, whilst the immensely complex design of the shuttle depends upon a great many systems, the failure of any one of which can spell disaster for the crew.

Re:I'm not impressed.

[khallow]

Yet, that is exactly what you are doing by claiming that a failure of a major system during reentry isn't a reentry failure.

Bingo, you got my point.

In my book, when you have a major system fail routinely... you have a serious problem. After all, fifteen crews landed safely despite O-ring failure and dozens of crews landed safely despite tile damage. That is true. It still doesn't mean you should mangle the meanings of success and failure.

Re:I'm not impressed.

[Anonymous Coward]

lithobraking is one of the best words I've ever heard.

ObSovietRussiaJoke

[FlyByPC]

...In Soviet Russia, questionable navigation systems report on *you*!

China

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot China - many products are 100% made in China and assembled in Mexico. Sometimes, they're actually assembled in the USA.

With the Dollar getting so low (I won't go into the politics of it) even Walmart is getting expensive.

So, economists, aren't we supposed to be better off? Hmmm? Or are you going to have to modify your theories to reflect the modern era?

Speaking of which, I need to start interviewing Elbonian economists - I have to offshore that now, too.

Re:China

[Original Replica]

With the Dollar getting so low (I won't go into the politics of it) even Walmart is getting expensive.

I think what is happening is goods from China are price correcting. If you think Wal-mart is getting expensive, maybe you should try shopping there on the pay scale of the people who make the clothes you are buying. For many years now the Yuan has been kept artificially low, giving China a strong advantage in international trading. They kept their currency values (read labor cost) low by buying up US debt, which kept the dollar high, Japan may have done the same thing. In effect, Asia has been subsidizing US consumerism for decades. So the western world moved a huge amount of their manufacturing to China. In 2005 China stopped their policy of keeping the Yuan fixed at 8.28 yuan to the dollar, now it's up to 7 yuan to the dollar so everything made in China costs 18% more. China still maintains some trade advantage as they now have a much better manufacturing infrastructure and labor pool, but the now rising yuan is going to slingshot the standard of living in China up to that of the western world in short order. That means that "Made in China" is soon going to cost just as much as "Made in the USA". Which really just means that the people making it are getting paid a fair living wage, and the item actually costs what it is worth.

Re:China

[lessthan]

Or the manufacturing industry will move to the next third world country...

Re:China

[ChrisMaple]

Good analysis. Whether Chinese products will cost as much as US products in the long term will depend upon political factors: tariffs and tax burdens and restrictions on production.

Re:China

[hackingbear]

That's exactly what's happening, as reported by Chinese and HK media. The clothing factories in southern China are closing in large number and relocated to Vietnam.

I'm sure if that relocations are completed, we will see all criticism of Vietnamese human rights and labor abuses rather than that of Chinese, in our mainstream media.

You can't fight with money!

Re:China

[tsotha]

They kept their currency values (read labor cost) low by buying up US debt, which kept the dollar high, Japan may have done the same thing.

That sure was nice of them, though I'm not sure it's a good idea to trade actual stuff for little pieces of paper. Especially when the US government controls the value of that paper. Recently I've been wondering if the recent inflation of the dollar is nothing less than the theft of half of China's currency reserves.

Re:China

[budgenator]

I heard that Buick is exporting cars to China, who would have thought that would happen!

Re:China

[KKlaus]

Chinese producers can respond to distorted exchange rates simply by raising the prices they charge foreigners though. After all, if an American Consumer is willing to spend 20 dollars worth of yuan to buy a toaster, there isn't anything that stops a Chinese exporter from charging that consumer 20 dollars worth of yuan. It doesn't matter whether 20 dollars turns out to be 140 yuan or 165.6 yuan, because the transaction is governed by supply and demand. It's well known that there is an immediate benefit to exports from a depreciating currency, however I believe it's also well known that the phenomenon is temporary, because prices adjust to take into account the new exchange rate. So for a while Asia (particularly China) was subsidizing the US consumer, it's been decades since China enacted its policy to peg the yuan (crawling peg now) to the dollar, and the subsidization you're talking about has long since ended. I've heard prominent economists come down on both sides of this issue (mine and yours) but it seems fair to say that you are likely to be at the very least over stating the level of the subsidy, because you're ignoring the ability of the Chinese producer to adjust to the dollar price of the yuan.

Re:China

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yes China has kept the yuan low and that is a factor,

but also the US Government has an significant annual deficit, and a large overall deficit.

But when we have a fiscal crisis, the Federal Reserve starts lending out hundreds of billions of dollars in short term loans to financial institutions.

So the question is, where does this money come from? Do they just print up some more and hand it out? Because if they do, that leads to inflation. But perhaps this is more complex than I understand it to be.

Then of course there is fuel. Oil hitting $115 a barrel (average $65 in 2007, and about $25 in 2002) This drives up the cost of everything being shipped/manufactured etc. I don't see how hitting $5-6 gallon or more within a year isn't a certainty if that price holds.

And then of course the US has started using crops for fuel, aggravating the cost of food further (as prices already will be rising due to transportation/harvesting costs).

Re:China

[Viceroy Potatohead]

It's not only China who subsidizes US consumers. If Joseph Stiglitz is to be believed (I personally would be unable to contradict him), a fair amount of the developing world does.

From: "Making Globalization Work"[Ch. 9]:

...the United States, seemingly cannot live within its means, borrowing $2 billion a day from poorer countries.
Some of these dollars...go to pay off their enormous debts....Others go to buy bonds...Most of the bonds are short-term US Treasury bills (usually referred to as 'T-Bills'), which in recent years have yielded as low as 1 percent interest. There is something peculiar about poor countries desperately in need of capital lending hundreds of billions of dollars to the world's richest country." He doesn't go into it, but it seems to me that capital investment at a substandard interest rate in US currency would be "artificially inflating" US currency, rather than "artificially devaluing" Chinese (or whoever's) currency. IANAE, so I don't know.

As an aside, somewhere in the same book he gives his opinion that individual buying power for China/India will rise, but fall for the US, and end up closer to the China/India end of things...

Re:China

[gronofer]

They kept their currency values (read labor cost) low by buying up US debt, which kept the dollar high, Japan may have done the same thing.

That sure was nice of them, though I'm not sure it's a good idea to trade actual stuff for little pieces of paper. Especially when the US government controls the value of that paper. Recently I've been wondering if the recent inflation of the dollar is nothing less than the theft of half of China's currency reserves.

Yes, it's quite peculiar. It looks like they have now seen the light, and taking more of an interest in useful things, e.g., shares in mining companies.

If the poor performance of the US continues for long, its government may lose the privilege of being able to cheaply borrow money in its own currency. Instead it would be forced like many other governments to borrow in a hard currency such as the Euro.

Re:China

[Idiomatick]

This is a good thing... After a while vietnam will move up... then africa and so on. Countries joining the 2nd world/1st world is a good thing.

Re:China

[morgan_greywolf]

Yeah, they even managed to get buyers for both of them!

Re:China

[hackingbear]

I'm watching a report on this issue by Hong Kong's ATV as I'm typing this. Another cause of the exodus of factories (probably >50% are owned by Hong Kong business people) is blamed on the new Chinese labor law enacted this year which closes many of the loopholes of the old one and causing labor cost to rise. On one hand, it is good for the Chinese laborers are getting more protection from the government; on the other hand, the factories just close down, move and fire the workers. (Contrary to popular belief here, Chinese labor laws are tougher than that of the U.S.; just that few private companies, owned by HK, Taiwan, and Japanese, obey.)

Every year, there are estimated 2 million new college graduates entering the job market in the Guangdong province. How many non-college-graduates are entering job markets across China? I can't estimate.

That's why if anyone live in China long enough would be getting sympathized on how hard their government's job is.

Re:China

[Anonymous Coward]

It also suggests that, long term, there may be hope of some of these jobs/industries coming back to the countries they migrated from. Assuming anyone in those countries would still want them...

Something is missing from this story...

[DieByWire]

Mr Perminov said the craft followed the back-up landing plan, a so-called "ballistic re-entry" - a plunge with an uncontrollable, steep trajectory

He said the crew missed the target because they changed their landing plan at the last minute without telling mission control.

Astronauts don't just don't go changing re-entry profiles willy-nilly. If they did it, there was a reason they needed to.

Remember the collision between the Progress supply ship and Mir during the manual docking? The first thing the Soviets did was blame it on the Russian cosmonaut. It turned out the whole operation was poorly planned, rehearsed and was an accident waiting to happen.

There's a lot more to this story than we've heard yet.

Re:Something is missing from this story...

[kriptonus]

Yep; Switching to a Ballistic trajectory would tend to make you fall short of your target and land early; yet they overshot by almost 300 miles and landed 20 minutes late. There had to be a failure that caused them to spend too much time in the upper atmosphere, not losing momentum quickly enough. Once they realized they were overshooting they must have switched to plan B.... and without a time consuming chat with ground control.

Re:Something is missing from this story...

[budgenator]

Probably too much ionization to talk to anyone.

We've been thrown off course just a tad

[nightfire-unique]

Miss, are you telling us absolutely everything?!

Not exactly. We're also out of coffee.

[Ok, PANIC!]

Uh, wait a sec here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Soyuze descent trajectories are planned so that a safe ballistic option is always available, no matter what happens to the control system. But excuse me, isn't this the THIRD ballistic re-entry of the TMA series?

TMA-1 : ballistic
TMA-10 : ballistic
TMA-11 : ballistic

If you ask me, I think there's going to be a few more people going ballistic over this... I don't think the previous Soyuz generations had this many ballistic returns.

Oblig

[iminplaya]

"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.

Astronauts.

[radarsat1]

Wow. Stories like this remind me of the huge BALLS it takes to strap yourself onto a rocket and fly straight into orbit, and then come back down again. We like to think that technology has progressed so far that things like space travel are safe, and to a large extent it is. But with the shear number of things that can go wrong and the calculations that have to be *just so* in order to get back safely, I am seriously humbled to remember that astronauts are still explorers, and, frankly, still Heroes to mankind. Let's not forget it.

Re:Astronauts.

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

Stories like this remind me of the huge BALLS it takes to strap yourself onto a rocket and fly straight into orbit, and then come back down again.

Maybe you should say huge nads or something else that's more unisex, considering both of the astronauts in this case were women. :)

Re:Astronauts.

[call-me-kenneth]

As a matter of fact, two-third of the crew were women.

Re:Astronauts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, Yuri is a male Russian name.

Re:Astronauts.

[Anonymous Coward]

both of the astronauts in this case were women. :)

Both of three? No way in hell would the Russians let women pilot a space capsule :)

Re:Astronauts.

[Crypto Gnome]

Maybe you should say huge nads or something else that's more unisex, considering both of the astronauts in this case were women. :) No, he's just met some female russian cosmonauts.

If I remember correctly..

[BigGerman]

.. the difference is 8-10G vs. normal 2-3G on re-entry. What a ride.

Nice Spin

[Dun Malg]

I love the "spin" in this line:

Soyuz capsules have previously saved the lives of the crew even after severe malfunctions that might have lead to the loss of a less robust vehicle. Well yeah, it's not surprising that the Soyuz is built more robustly than other spacecraft, given that it has a 20% malfunction rate. It's a classic Soviet design philosophy: when quality and precision are unavailable, substitute brute strength.

Re:Nice Spin

[kinabrew]

How many Soyuz shuttles have not survived re-entry? And what percentage of launches have not met with a successful landing?

Re:Nice Spin

[whitehatlurker]

Well, slightly higher in the wikipedia page referenced is a section on accidents. Count the number there. I think the most infamous was Soyuz 11, where the interior was vented to space.

It's rather a case of "we make them rugged, 'cause we got a lot of other problems we have to overcome."

Re:Nice Spin

[call-me-kenneth]

Exactly... 1971, the last fatality in a Soyuz capsule. How many fatal accidents have the US had since 1971?

Did you ever read up on how close STS-1 came to disaster? Go look at some footage of John Young at the post-landing press conference. Seem a little perky? No wonder, he's just flown the thing in manually after the aerodynamic models failed to predict the hypersonic airflow at re-entry correctly. The point of degeneracy (the hottest spot, right on the nose cone) moved off to the side of the orbiter, the sideslip meter pegged at off-scale high at +4 (twice the maximum expected value), at which point Young took manual control and flew Columbia back to Florida himself. Oh yeah, and a bug in the aerodynamic body flap forced it all the way upwards during the launch, which should have wrecked the hydraulics. Young also said afterwards that had they known that was happening, they'd have flown to SRB separation and ejected. Don't get me started on the manual override of an error condition that the textbook said would result in the orbiter ditching in the eastern Atlantic, which was not expected to be a survivable accident. A ground controller decided the signal was spurious, overrode it, and waited to hear if an SSME exploded...

Anyway - the Soyuz 11 accident was in fact caused by a first-flight glitch; although Soyuz was proven design by then, this was the first mission to Salyut 1, the forerunner of Mir. (Arguably the lineage of the ISS runs straight back to Salyut 1, but that's another tangent.)

Re:Nice Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

As a pilot, I would rather have something that can survive an accident than something that is guaranteed never to have one. The reason is because you can never avoid all accidents, so the guarantee is worthless. Give me something robust which will save me in the event of a catastrophe, not something slick with empty-headed promises about never screwing up.

Re:Nice Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow 20%?!

The U.S. has 5 space shuttles, and two have blown up.

I may be no Rocket Scientist; but I think they are doing pretty well!

Re:Nice Spin

[barzok]

20% of Soyuz missions have resulted in failure.

Fewer than 2% of Space Shuttle missions have done the same.

Re:Nice Spin

[mlyle]

Taken from a web forum, but I've seen similar stuff before:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/military/read.main/54404/

Soyuz (1967-Present)
Flights: 95
Failures: 4 (2 non-fatal)
Failure Rate: 4.21%

Cosmonauts Flown: 228
Fatalities: 4
Fatality Rate: 1.75%

Shuttle (1981-Present)
Flights: 116
Failures: 3 (1 non-fatal)
Failure Rate: 2.59%

Astronauts Flown: 692
Fatalities: 14
Fatality Rate: 2.02%

This is a statistical dead heat. There is simply not a big enough sample size to distinguish between a 1.75% and a 2.02% fatality rate. And the "who had an accident more recently" does not establish it either.

Both are good systems, each has respective advantages (simplicity and low-cost vs. a lot of on-orbit assembly and payload capability). It's good the world has both, and we may never know which would be safer with infinite flights.

Re:Nice Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

And the "who had an accident more recently" does not establish it either. I disagree with this. It's certainly not conclusive, but the fact that the Soyuz's fatalities were all fairly early on indicates that it was a troublesome system at the outset which has now matured into something fairly robust, if not free from error.

Ironically, the fact that the Soyuz has had more non-fatal incidents makes it safer in my eyes. (The counts on both systems of non-fatal incidents are extremely underestimated in my opinion. There are a large number of incidents with the Shuttle, many like Challenger and Columbia but less severe, and many others, none of which actually affected the mission in the end. There are also a large number of incidents with the Soyuz which didn't end up killing anyone.) It indicates that the system can tolerate failure better, even though it may also be more prone to those failures. You'll never eliminate failures, so it's better to have a system which can recover from them than one which can't but doesn't have them as much.

It's true that the statistics are not conclusive, but the histories of the respective programs would seem to indicate that the shuttle is dangerously fragile.

Re:Nice Spin

[LaughingCoder]

Your argument is nonsense. You claim (no citations) that both programs underestimate their non-fatal incidents. You then make the bizarre leap that because this is the case (again, there is no proof of this), and because the shuttle has had more recent fatalities, that the shuttle must be "dangerously fragile" relative to the Soyuz, which, per your analysis, can "tolerate failure better, even though it may also be more prone to those failures". You have absolutely no basis upon which to make these judgements. In fact, I would suggest that the statistics show that the shuttle is actually quite a bit more reliable than Soyuz. The only reason the fatality rates are similar between the two platforms is because the shuttle crew is 7 while the Soyuz crew is only 3. So, each shuttle fatal incident kills more than twice as many astronauts as does each Soyuz fatal accident. This means that in order to have the same fatality rate (which, statistically, they do) the shuttle must have fewer than one half the accidents (which, statistically, it does). Therefore, the shuttle is twice as reliable as Soyuz.

Re:Nice Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

You want citations, hit up wikipedia. The count I was replying to was not taken from national space programs, but from a forum. So I'm not refuting anything particularly authoritative in the first place. The count was a count of failed missions, so it didn't count anything which didn't result in death or an abort. Things like crashing through the surface of a frozen lake and nearly freezing or suffocating the cosmonauts inside before a daring swimmer/helicopter rescue get counted as a success by those measures, which is silly.

The relative fragility of the systems can be seen from their designs and from the nature of the incidents which have occurred. The Shuttle has basically no provisions for anything to go wrong. The early-launch abort modes are extremely dangerous and completely untested, whereas the Soyuz has a reliable and tested escape tower which has already saved people. Likewise the Shuttle's thermal protection system is extremely fragile, resulting in one mission which nearly ended in disaster and another one which killed seven people because some ice fell off a huge tank full of cryogenic liquids. Soyuz uses proven ablative heat shield technology which is protected during the launch and doesn't get pieces of it rattled off just because of a rough launch.

Lastly, your understanding of statistics is pretty broken. The crew sizes are irrelevant. If each fatal accident kills everyone on board (which has been the case so far) then the percentage of fatal accidents per mission and the percentage of fatalities per crew will be identical. It's completely ridiculous to think that the Shuttle is safer because it achieves a similar fatality rate while launching (and killing) a larger group of people at a time.

Re:Nice Spin

[LaughingCoder]

It's completely ridiculous to think that the Shuttle is safer because it achieves a similar fatality rate while launching (and killing) a larger group of people at a time.

Actually, it is you who needs a statistics primer. The definition of safety for transportation vehicles ALWAYS divides fatalities by the number of people transported(actually, usually they multiple the number of people times the miles traveled). In other words, you need to normalize. Otherwise the comparison is meaningless.

Re:Nice Spin

[call-me-kenneth]

[Citation needed.] You are astonishingly badly mistaken.

Re:Nice Spin

[call-me-kenneth]

It was bollocks when you said this earlier and it's bollocks now. A mission which does not kill the crew is a success.

Re:Nice Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

This is only true when examining the number of accidents, not the percentage of accidents, or accidents per exposure hour, or accidents per mile, or any other such measure, because all passengers experience those equally.

Take an example. Transportation system A carries 1 passenger, transportation system B carries 100. You launch both A and B 1000 times. Of those 1000 times, there are 10 fatal accidents for each system which kill all the passengers.

A has suffered 10 fatalities out of 1000 passengers, for a passenger fatality rate of 1%.

B has suffered 1000 fatalities out of 100,000 passengers, for a passenger fatality rate of, hey this looks familiar, 1%.

By your logic, B is actually 100 times more reliable because it carries 100 times the number of people but has the same fatality rate. But simply looking at the numbers you can see that this is wrong. They both have a 1% accident rate, and they both have a 1% fatality rate because of it. The two systems are equally reliable and equally safe, the number of passengers per trip has nothing to do with it.

Re:Nice Spin

[LaughingCoder]

It's completely ridiculous to think that the Shuttle is safer because it achieves a similar fatality rate while launching (and killing) a larger group of people at a time.

At best, Soyuz' "safety" record is the same as the shuttle's since their unnormalized fatality rates are basically the same. If you normalize, as is usually done when evaluating transportation systems (such as comparing the relative safety of air travel versus automotive travel), the shuttle is twice as "safe". And I submit that it is not "completely ridiculous" to consider a normalized fatality rate when evaluating safety. Let's consider for a moment your assertion that the Soyuz is safer because more consideration (relative to the shuttle) was given to protecting the crew in the event of a system failure. This means that a failure is supposedly less likely to lead to fatality, and you claim this therefore makes the Soyuz a safer vehicle. By that logic, traveling by car is much safer than traveling by airplane because when a plane goes down, usually everyone dies. But in car crashes, survival is much more likely. Additionally, using another of your arguments, the plane "kills" hundreds whereas the car only kills a few. So clearly flying is much less safe than driving, right? Well, as it turns out, this is not the case if you normalize for passenger-miles traveled, and in fact the opposite is true.

Now, as regards "reliability", there has been much speculation in this thread that the Soyuz has a high rate of failure and so it has been designed to mitigate the results of those failures. If this speculation is indeed true, then the Soyuz is clearly less "reliable" than the shuttle. But this is speculation, so if we stick to the facts we have available we find the shuttle has basically the same (mission) failure rate as Soyuz.

Re:Nice Spin

[barzok]

I was pointing out the fallacy of the AC's post. He claimed that the Shuttle has failed more because a larger percentage of the vehicles have failed, not the number of missions.

Re:Nice Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you please explain how you apply normalization to the percentage of failures per launch? It simply doesn't work the way you think it does, and your constant repetition of it won't change that fact. Normalization is what you use to make all of the numbers equivalent; here, they are already equivalent, and the percentage of passengers who get killed is the same regardless. If you disagree, please post the actual numbers instead of just waving your hands and saying "divide by two". I already showed an example of why it doesn't apply here, just replace 1 and 100 with 3 and 7 if you want to make it match the real systems.

If 2% of the passengers die then your risk of dying is 2%. It doesn't matter if you share the vehicle with 2 other people or with 6.

Re:Nice Spin

[mlyle]

Note that the shuttle has additional capabilities and allows its crews to remain on-orbit longer. Also, the larger crew size means it can carry more mission-related specialists above flight crew.

So, the shuttle, even though it has a currently higher fatality rate per launch, might very well have a lower fatality rate per man-hour spent in space on it or per unit of work done in space. Of course, when Soyuz is used with a space station, some of this advantage is mooted. In all, it's complicated, and the fatality rate is statistically identical in deaths per passenger-trips.

Note that additional astronauts have flown since the Columbia disaster, so the death rate stands now at about 1.9%. Before Columbia the death rate was 1%, superior to Soyuz-- clearly a lot more flights are needed before things converge so that we really know, and we're not going to reach that point.

Both systems are really neat, and each have their place-- it's good for manned spaceflight that Russia has continued to improve capsule capabilities and that the United States built such a capable on-orbit assembly and work platform.

Re:Nice Spin

[LaughingCoder]

OK, is my face red? I went back and re-read the original comment which listed the fatality rates as 2% and 1.75%. I had mistakenly read them as fatalities/missions, not fatalities/astronauts. I was advocating for the latter, thinking the statistics were the former. But I was mistaken - the normalization had already been done.

Re:Nice Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoops. Well, I'm glad we got that figured out!

Mod parent funny please

[zappepcs]

I hope that someone with points mods your comment funny... nearly brought tears to my eyes.

Re:Astronauts and Cohones

[abarrow]

I too am humbled. It really does take cohones to do all that.

Sooo, what does it tell you when two of the astronauts that came down at 10Gs and one of the ones who has the longest time in space than any other human being, do not, in fact, have cohones...

I wouldn't be /.

[WED Fan]

That, or they used MS Excel to do the calculations ;)

Well, hell, it wouldn't be /. if someone didn't find a way to get an anti-MS comment in on every story. Congrats. But you don't get extra points until you can make it anti-Bush and anti-Christian and then mention Cuba and the holy prophet RMS, holiness is his name, at the same time. Oh, and you also need to remember to correct someone's grammar, and call dupe on Taco, while exhorting others to RTFA and then taking the poster to task for not linking to the printable version or find a version that is not copyrighted.

Did I forget something?

Oh, yeah, you need to mention how your grandmother can install and configure Ubuntu in 3 mouse clicks.

Re:I wouldn't be /.

[SteveDob]

> Oh, yeah, you need to mention how your grandmother can install and configure Ubuntu in 3 mouse clicks.

1 Start voip program
2 Select 'Smartass Grandchild' from contact list
3 Call and say 'please install and configure Ubuntu for me'

Heavyside Layers

[Anonymous Coward]

Alan Shepard hit over 11g during re-entry, and he didn't pass out and could still hit switches. The early astronauts training- had them routinely hitting 10g or more and they didn't pass out.

There's a difference between the eyes-down load on a fighter pilot sitting in an ejection seat (even the semi-reclining versions, which aren't really very reclined) and the eyes-in loading on a astronaut laying on their back. The main difference is that the person on their back isn't having their blood trying to fill their boots when the Gs strike like the person sitting in a chair.

The two don't really compare. I'd advise you to do a little research before trying to make that case.

Re:Heavyside Layers

[call-me-kenneth]

Alan Shepard hit over 11g during re-entry, and he didn't pass out and could still hit switches. Yeah? Well Chuck Norris could hit 12G and wouldn't need to hit the switches, he'd just look at them and they'd switch themselves out of pure fear.

Re:Heavyside Layers

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. Chuck Norris wouldn't even bother with the switches. The Earth would rather get out of his way than risk incurring the wrath of Chuck Norris. Of course the Earth is big and slow so it can't get away quite fast enough. The result is a perfect landing. Chuck wouldn't even be sweating!

Re:Heavyside Layers

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

Re:Heavyside Layers

[Anonymous Coward]

Chuck Norris could hit 12G and it wouldn't get back up again. Ever.

Female Driver

[Anonymous Coward]

He said the crew missed the target because they changed their landing plan at the last minute without telling mission control.

No turn signal. Probably putting on make-up too.

All I have to say is ....

[PPH]

... get off of my lawn!!!

When it comes to orbital re-entry...

[Abies Bracteata]

...nothing beats the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) approach.

AK-47

[Fifth Earth]

I find it interesting that Russia makes (made) both the Soyuz and the AK-47, which have reputations for robustness and ability to function in adverse conditions, while America makes the M16 and the Space Shuttle, which have reputations for failure in less-than-ideal conditions.

Granted, I hear the latest versions of the M16 and its descendants are much better.

Re:AK-47

[Anonymous Coward]

The M16 also has a reputation for not sending bullets wildly off course, unlike the Soyuz.

Re:AK-47

[dafing]

Wish I had modpoints for you, that was a quality comment sir.

I get very angry seeing the anti-soviet tone on /., yes I find the "in soviet russia" jokes funny at times, in the same way Borat is funny. But to truly believe that "because we were at war with them years back and beat them, they are always going to be losers compared to us. U-S-A! U-S-A!"

I find it amazing that the Soviets got anything done even remotely near the level they have. Think of space stations, HELL, first into space etc etc etc, they had drones flying about LONG before the Americans even looked up at the moon! :P

Shame about the AC's comment. I'd take an AK47 anyday, not only is it far better as an assault rifle, THEY ARE NOT MEANT TO BE SNIPER RIFLES, but its also better looking, you'd have to agree the heavy metal and polished wood looks a lot nicer than the plastic M16!

Re:AK-47

[alexmin]

Have you ever tried to adjust AK after it's being in regular use for 5 years? If not, then shut up and talk only about the stuff you have a clue about. PS Fsking paper warriors

Re:AK-47

[dafing]

And hello to you too friend :)

Why yes, I have used an AK47 before. Nothing wrong with it. Many other people would consider it a fine weapon as well, do you have a grudge against it?

Admittedly, no I am not a current soldier on a battlefield. I did not start the talk of guns, just mentioned that I liked the AK47 better than the M16, both of which I have tried. Have you used both of them?

Have a super week wherever you are!

Re:AK-47

[Anonymous Coward]

What the...? Where would you find yourself with an AK in regular use for five years where you would not be issued a replacement rather than trying to do maintenance in the field? Srsly! It's not a target range weapon, it's generally made for actual shooting conflicts, typically in lightly to moderately built up areas occupied by small autonomous units. It does very well in those situations.

That AKs can be sold to rich collectors in peaceful places who find long term maintenance difficult is not too high on the vast majority of the various AK manufacturers' minds.

If you can't deal with high turnover then the AK is not for you. Good luck with your war! How is it going against those Jezails and hand-built Pak frontier AKs, which turn over even faster and are even cheaper than shipped factory built AKs?

Yeah well

[Anonymous Coward]

When I eat Kimchee, methane gases build up within

me a few hours later. I can imagine the lateral
  expulsion of these gases can alter the course of the
  capsule significantly.

Soyuz nerushimy

[RAMMS EIN]

Fortunately, soyuz is unbreakable!

Flamebait?

[aliquis]

I'm moded flamebait because I say the foreign soviet countries/russia manages to do some neat tricks with technology? Why is that? The make awesome space, plane, anti missile, rifles, ... cheap and with good reliability. How isn't that neat?

Whatever ..

Re:Flamebait?

[clichescreenname]

Note: I didn't mod your post down.

I did, however, have a different understanding of what it meant than the explaination you provided above. When you said

Which indeed are what most of us would say about soviet technology. I thought that you were making a snarky comment about how the Russians were "tricking" us into believing that their technology worked, and that most groundbreaking Russian tech was a fraud.

Hope that helps explain why you were modded down.

Re:Flamebait?

[aliquis]

Yeah, I understood something like that may have been the case. What I wanted to say was that they managed to do quite some tricks with cheaper and more reliable technology. Whatever, I like the russians technology.

Like this:
http://www.optimalbody.se/forum/showthread.php?t=1221

I guess it would had helped if I had typed USSR > * but then I would get modded down for that instead! :/, so I didn't.

Women Drivers????

[Crypto Gnome]

How is it that nobody here has so far complained about Three Women in Space who could not even get The Directions Back To Planet Earth right?

Lost In Space, anyone?

Russian technology

[Opportunist]

It is not fancy. It is not stylish. It looks like a warthog and it handles worse. It's highly uncomfortable and anything but user friendly. But one thing it is: sturdy.

Remember the MIR? It outlasted its planned duration by, if I'm not too mistaken, by almost a decade. It wasn't meant to last that long, but it did. It was pretty much what the first paragraph said. It was noisy, ugly, smelled funny and anything but comfortable. But it was sturdy, and what broke down could be fixed with onboard means.

I wouldn't bet on that in a "western" space ship. After all, someone wants to sell you spare parts for it...

Re:Russian technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Engineering cultures vary from organization to organization.

Some Eng cultures optimize for robustness, so that even in the event of multiple serious failures, there is only a degradation of mission outcome, rather than a complete loss.

Other Eng cultures optimize for cheapness, so that even in the event of any serious failure, while the mission objectives are unfulfilled, the cost of a "redo" is low enough (finance, time, ...) that it's the obvious thing to do.

Other Eng cultures optimize for precision, so that the liklihood of any serious failure is extremely small.

All of these optimizations require considerable discipline to get right and there are serious trade-offs to consider. None of them is free from Byzantine failure modes, and in competent engineering organizations, failure analysis will usually reveal long chains of small mistakes, often involving critical decisions that conflict with the dominant engineering culture (e.g. cost cutting when targeting precision or robustness; insufficient cost-stripping or supply-chain-shortening when targetting cheap and fast recovery from failure; misunderstanding the retention of counterproductive systems as belts-and-braces robustness; and so on).

That a variety of engineering cultures are at work in space exploration is useful, since successes and mistakes made as a result of optimization in one direction can still inform future decisions in engineering organizations that tend to optimize in another direction.

Strange priorities

[Zero return]

It's a bit odd that you mention a three-person crew "including Commander Peggy Whitson and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko", and leave out the more interesting member, So-yeon Yi, who happens to be Korea's first cosmonaut, and a woman at that. Actually, it looks worse than a bit odd.

Can't believe no one's mentioned this, but...

[DingoTango]

another Tycho Magnetic Anomaly?

Anonymous Coward.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sooo--Just how does it feel to spend over 190 days in a weightless environment and then be subjected to 10 G's????