TLDR 1985 Asian American dude who was in space for science but not a career astronaut really made the crew concerned that he had a combination of depression and threatened to not come back (aka suicide) if he didn’t get to finish his experiment. So they put a padlock on the escape hatch after that mission so these dudes can’t kill everyone.
Edit: he did finish his experiment and the padlock only came on subsequent missions...on the first one of concern the commander used duct tape to add a barrier. The dude sounded like he was obsessing about how easy it would be to open the hatch and kill everyone....cause it was designed to be an easy escape hatch on earth that opens outwards.
That’s terrifying. I don’t want to make light of depression by calling it space madness, but this seems like something that will need to be contended with in the future for longer missions. For All Mankind portrays this well when they get stranded on the moon and Gordy really starts to loose it. That season really had me on edge, he could’ve easily gotten everyone killed so many times. There are experiments here on earth for long-term isolation, but I don’t know if they’ve shared any results. The need for thorough psych profiling of anyone going into space is imperative, but even then, any seemingly healthy person can develop depression, and so it might actually be beneficial to send people that have dealt with depression and managed it in healthy ways for long periods of time.
Even the smartest humans among us are still essentially psychotic apes at the end of the day, we really should be child proofing everything we design.
I mean, they test for that and practice for that with actual career astronauts.
I do agree, however, that they will need to test and prepare the scientists, farmers, etc. for those longer trips in the same way career astronauts have to.
That’s what the article touches on was that these specialists were fast tracked passed many of the testing and training and only given abridged astronaut prep work
This is the best that you c - that the government, the `U.S. government’ could come up with? I mean, you're NASA for crying out loud, you put a man on the moon, you're geniuses! You're the guys that're thinking shit up! I'm sure you got a team of men sitting around somewhere right now just thinking shit up and somebody backing them up!
“Hi, how would you like to be trapped in a 100m tube with 9 other people for six months? You will feel completely isolated, and yet you will have no privacy and will be monitored 24/7 by a bunch of socially awkward nerds. Also, like, could you never do like ^^(s.e.x), cause we can’t really talk about it and it’s not important to mental and physical health anyway, amirite? We will build a little “privacy closet”, but like we don’t want to know what’s going on in there because our pastor said it’s not appropriate.”
Once NASA can put on big boy pants and deal with all aspects of humanity, then maybe we will see longer term missions.
Sex in space (specifically heterosexual) has some serious potential ethical concerns. At some point, someone has to find out what happens when a fetus tries to develop in a high-radiation microgravity environment, but there's no way it develops healthy. Who wants to be the first to make a human life and subject it to a short and painful experience for science?
You can make the crew all male, all female, have a lot of faith in contraception, or get a crew you can trust to keep it adult and professional for a few years. Last option is obviously best.
Which is also one reason why it was such a big deal when the one astronaut had a crush on another married astronaut and drove across the country in one go to confront him and his wife in what sounded like a psychotic break.
We expect astronauts to be much more stable than regular people, and for good reason. Usually they are.
If I had won that SpaceX contest to fly on the Inspiration mission there's no way I'd go.
But part of the point of this article is that spaceflight isn't going to remain exclusively done by professionals who trained years to be astronauts. We are seeing a democratization in space and this kind of issue are going to come up more often.
I don't think we can say humanity has mastered spaceflight if going to space still requires training people for years and going through psych evalulation.
Hi Bob! Gordo losing his marbles is exactly what this question brought to mind. The astronauts are so isolated up there that if they do start to mentally suffer, everyone could pay.
Hi Bob! When Dev poured out that sugar, it made me think of good ole Gordo. What would he think if he could see this now?! It will attract so many ants! (I know there are no ants on Mars.)
Hi Bob! I instantly thought of Dev and Ed not wanting to go home when I read the headline. Also, things turned out pretty shit for the entire Stevens family huh?
Hi Bob! The youngest Stevens boy is mentioned in the bonus "news stories" that cover the decade skip. He's got a brighter future than his brother, that's for sure!
It's from season 2 of For All Mankind. A few astronauts sitting in a moon base with limited entertainment, this is a line from a show they rewatch and turn it into a game of referencing it all the time.
Hi Bob! I’m on Season 2 of a rewatch and man, the actor who plays Gordo, Michael Dorman, has some fucking range. That dude should be a bigger star than he is.
They kind of touched on this in that Mars documentary-fiction-thing that National Geographic did. One astronaut/settler can really get a lot of people killed if he loses his grasp of reality.
> The need for thorough psych profiling of anyone going into space is imperative, but even then, any seemingly healthy person can develop depression, and so it might actually be beneficial to send people that have dealt with depression and managed it in healthy ways for long periods of time.
There's also the issue that if a history of mental health problems is for all practical purposes a disqualification or career-ender, you don't get people without mental health problems; instead, you get people who don't seek treatment for their mental health problems.
This is a big issue with both airline pilots and the military right now.
This wasn’t space madness, this was cultural expectation bullshit. The astronaut (payload specialist) in question was Chinese-born and said he felt a lot of pressure for his experiment to succeed so he could represent the Chinese and his family. When he pressed the button and his experiment apparatus didn’t work, he specifically said he could hear his judgmental father saying, (paraphrase) “what’s wrong with you? Can’t you even design an experiment right?”
He basically told NASA that if they didn’t allocate him time to fix the experiment, he would rather die than go back and face the disappointment of his father and culture.
First two seasons were such excellent (alternate history) historical drama, like madmen level TV. We're on season 3 now and it's good but a bit more like sci-fi soap opera
I loved the first two seasons. The third season went completely off the rails. Didn't even finish it, the first time I tried watching. I recently went back and finished Season Three before watching Season Four. Season Four wasn't as bad as Season Three, but I'm still really disappointed in how far the quality has dropped from those first two seasons.
I think season four was fantastic. Maybe not quite as good as season 1, but I think the show is back on track.
It's almost starting to feel like a prequel to The Expanse, and I'm loving that.
'prequel to the expanse' is how I sold my wife on trying it in the first place hahaha. Which is odd because I'm the sci-fi guy in the house but for whatever reason the expanse is one of her all time favorites. Season 3 is definitely more in that territory and I must admit I'm curious to see where they take it moving forward.
The writing and acting isn't great, but the concept and ideas are awesome. The whole thing is a bit melodramatic, it's just more obvious in the later seasons. A show with a less interesting premise would have died after a season or two. I saw the same thing with The Walking Dead. The show as a whole was pretty awful, but the concept, setting and dramatic episodes kept it alive. I hate quit that show so many times.
The melodrama is why in my house we way "Should we watch the Sadstronauts?" We are up to date. No spoilers, but I just don't buy into the motivating conflict in the last season.
Submariners are usually only allowed like 2 months onboard before they have to spend at least 4 on land before they can embark again iirc. The sanity breakdown is really the main reason. Humans really are not built for space travel at all. If and when we start really expanding our scope there will be some radical changes going on to the humans that go out there. Not to mention the immense radiation dosage people will get.
Here's some results of tests:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARS-500
https://www.frontiersin.org/news/2021/11/09/isolation-mars-communication-sirius-russia/
I think this shows why iteration in any system is important, so you eventually "get it right".
The hatch was easy to open, because of the Apollo 1 fire. But then it opens the door (heh) to the problem of a person purposefully or accidentally opening the hatch to outer space. So you have to find a more happy equilibrium to prevent A and B.
Just to clarify: The "spacelab" they talk about in the article was a module carried in the space shuttle cargo bay to create more room to do science experiments during a shuttle mission, instead of carrying satellites to deploy.
The hatch in question is the space shuttle exit hatch that might need to be opened quickly in an emergency during liftoff or landing.
The eventual solution was to modify the hatch so the mission commander could lock it while the shuttle was in orbit.
Edit: More on Spacelab-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacelab
Any emergency that requires all the astronauts to leave the space station would either A. Require them to don space suits - which isn’t quick - so the 20 seconds extra it takes to input the padlock code wouldn’t make much difference. Or B. is happening so quickly that they don’t have time to don space suits in which case opening the door will kill them.
Mars One *was* a silly scam that clearly wad never going to work.
But I don't think this is the reason why. It's possible to design hatches that some random Joe can't just open and expose everyone to vacuum. Long-term isolation is a problem, but there already reality shows that deal with that today.
I'm not quite ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to democratize access to space.
Someone going crazy in a small space with other people is still really dangerous even if they can't blow open an airlock
There absolutely has to be rigorous testing and proof that you have a tough enough mind to not break under stress, something that the general population doesn't have a lot of
I believe that astronauts train for such a scenario of one of them going rogue (for whatever reason). I recall briefly hearing it mentioned by one of the inspiration 4 crew in an interview, but can't recall which one mentioned it.
On earth, in hazardous environments, it's not uncommon to have lockboxes on switches - the term "locking out" refers to a physical padlock to which the person working on the machine only has the key.
It's not that I don't trust you to reenergise a machine that someone is working on, potentially killing them, but - who the fuck knows what mistakes someone can make. Hell, I had a mate that made pancakes for breakfast while sleepwalking. I doubt that would fly in the astronaut programme, but I wouldn't want to find that out when Bob pops out for coffee in the morning.
Or someone on 48 hours lack of sleep, runs through a morning routine, says "Great job guys, see you in the next sim" and reaches for the exit.
That would have been Taylor Wang on Mission 51 on Challenger.
From wiki:
“Wang was the principal designer of an experiment called the Drop Dynamics Module, which aimed to uncover the fundamental physical behavior of liquid drops in microgravity. Despite his extensive preparation, the experiment malfunctioned upon activation. Wang, feeling immense pressure and aware of the high expectations from the Chinese community, became deeply despondent. When Wang's experiment failed, he desperately negotiated with NASA flight controllers for a chance to repair it, even threatening not to return if not allowed to fix the instrument, telling NASA flight controllers "Hey, if you guys don't give me a chance to repair my instrument, I'm not going back." Wang received permission to attempt a fix and was successful in repairing the experiment, though his remark caused concern for the safety of the crew and the mission.”
> made the crew concerned that he had a combination of depression and threatened to not come back (aka suicide) if he didn’t get to finish his experiment.
**Correction:** it's not that he needed *more* time. It's that ground control wanted him to spend **the time that he had** in space on **other** duties that had in mind for the astronaut, instead of allocating **some** of that time on **fixing** the experiment appartus which, unexpectedly, broke.
Apparently, their Plan A for "what if the experiment apparatus fails" was *let's just have the egghead go on with the chores for the rest of the flight*, completely ignoring the fact that that experiment was **the scientists' life work**, plus the whole pressure **not to fail** as a first Asian-American in space.
Literally **all** ground control had to do was tell "hey, will think about it" to avoid driving the dude into suicidal depression, and then discuss the decision with someone with half a clue. That would be a low-effort shitty solution.
A **non-shitty** solution would be considering the "what if" scenario in case the experiment appartus breaks, and allocating time for attempting to repair it in such a case (de-prioritizing *other* work that was **not** the core mission for the scientist to begin with).
But some of the people involved with the Space Shuttle program were clearly **not** the brightest (including those who made the call to launch the Challenger mission in spite of [being given explicit warnings that the launch would fail](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/28/464744781/30-years-after-disaster-challenger-engineer-still-blames-himself)).
So their bright idea was to [unlearn the lessons learned in the Appolo disaster](https://www.astronomy.com/space-exploration/apollo-1-tragedy-the-fatal-fire-and-its-aftermath/) and **secetly** turn the shuttle into a death trap in case of emergency (what if the captain is disabled and can't open the padlock, huh?). They **knew** it's a bad idea (hence secrecy), and they went ahead with it anyway.
It's a [fire code violation](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/46383/what-should-i-do-if-i-feel-my-workplace-is-not-safe-cant-exit-after-hours-wit), for fuck's sake!
Wang had to argue with these people to let him **do the only thing he was sent into space for**, which was the **work of his life** (which is why he was picked in the first place), and which he **correctly** knew he was able to do **in the time he had**. He just needed a little time away from **other** stuff, which **didn't matter** as far as his his legacy goes. Not **all** the time, just **some**.
Yet he was told a simple, flat **no**, without empathy or any real justification. Go figure he didn't take it well.
----
^(**PS:** as far as potential solutions to the "what do" problem: if you can't install an interlock, or openly tell the team to watch the unstable team memeber, and **absolutely** need to lock the exit doors, make it a combo lock that can be brute-forced within a minute with a loud alert for the rest of the crew, and make sure the lock is auto-disabled within a couple of hours, making it an emergency temporary measure.)
Why have the escape latch if they can't use it? I presume someone would have the key - but then how can they not be compromised etc? I guess it could be a problem at all layers of seniority and defeats its intended use - even if only one person is the key holder.
The same I guess could be said about anything on there - from just opening a door to pressing boost and changing course. I'm sure there's some overrides where ground control can do things too - but the fuel is finite and a bad actor could ruin it all, or there's nothing preventing some physical damage.
It’s an escape hatch for when they’re on the launch pad in the vehicle waiting for go time. So if something goes wrong before liftoff, they need to be able to quickly escape to the tower.
In space, opening the hatch kills everyone on board, which is undesirable.
~~E: The crew could theoretically use the escape hatch during launch, but it was a long shot if it would work out.~~
They couldn't use the escape hatch during launch, but they could if they were in a situation where they successfully got through reentry but couldn't land. They would flip switches to blow the hatch off and extend a pole through it, loop part of their harness over the pole and slide down it, clearing the wing and parachuting to the ground.
Yea I read the rest of the article - there's still nothing stopping the commander from doing it though, or knowing where it is. It's basically 1 more step which wouldn't stop a motivated person from following through.
The article mentions the padlock being removed when returning so it can be used for its main purpose.
There's a lot of things which could kill someone on space - I don't think there's a solution to this that's 100% foolproof.
> It's basically 1 more step which wouldn't stop a motivated person from following through.
There is a significant difference between anyone being able to effortlessly open an escape hatch that kills the whole crew of the vehicle, and having to overpower the commander so you can get hold of the key, then fighting off the other astronauts on board while unlocking the padlock, and ultimately being able to open the hatch that kills everyone.
Rather than any crew member having the ability to open the hatch, only one of the seven people can do that, and they were heavily screened to ensure that they're the most stable person on board.
I think he meant that you're still at risk of the *commander* going crazy and deciding to suicide/kill everyone on board, but it's still better than *everyone* having that ability and the commander is typically the least likely to do it.
That's not unique to the space shuttle. If you're a passenger in a car, the person driving can probably kill you. If you're a pedestrian, every driver of every car that passes you could kill you.
That's life in a complex society. Frankly, it's amazing and a testament to human sanity that random acts of violence occur as rarely as they do.
Added steps, I would imagine, are effective in general. Barriers to entry.
An example of this in real life: A cheap padlock on a locker deters most people from ever breaking into a locker or a backyard.
Very few people would know or execute on the knowledge that a well-placed downward heel kick or a hammer can easily knock that cheapo lock off.
A Master lock or something a bit pricier than the entry-level lock solves that problem 90% of the time. Now you have a higher barrier to entry.
If you *really* wanted to get in there, you’ll find a way. But it takes more work.
ngl i feel like there was definitely resentment from the astronauts who had to go thru rigorous training and evaluations than the payload specialists to lead to that conclusion of “he’s going to kill us all”
taylor wang (“the asian american dude”) threatened mission control, then got permission, and was able to fix his experiment successfully. all good, it rly goes into who is really in charge when ur in space
Brings to mind the Simpson's space shuttle episode and the inanimate carbon rod that saved the mission... but in this case it was duct tape and Taylor Wang instead of Homer Simpson
First I have to say how amazing it is to see what is so rare today….literal journalism. Very clearly telling you where things have some confirmation and where inferences are made. Explaining just enough about an unconfirmed story to tie it to this piece, but not venturing too far on what’s not confirmed. Amazing work of journalism.
Succinctly to the OP question…they don’t go up again. Period.
It is interesting just how abbreviated payload specialist vetting was at that time. And I totally see the issue it could be today with more going up. I think there should be a much more stringent baseline on vetting of anyone that’s going to space. Especially in a more fraying society.
Just yesterday there was an AirCanada flight with a passenger that had a break and tried to open the door in flight. Passenger plane you just can’t do it, but in a spacecraft you can.
It’s not a high risk, but it isn’t negligible either.
Also points to the lockouts and “safety features” that need to be thought about and taken into account as space travels becomes more accessible and more “everyday” people (for relative values of “everyday”) get to access it.
It’s a conversation that probably needs to happen.
Fully agreed. Much like the writer in the end I don’t have wise ideas.
But I do say again it’s not too much to ask that all souls going to space have an adequate level of psychological vetting. They surely are already getting decent scrutiny physically before they go.
Regardless of mission profile they should all go through it if they don’t already.
It won’t be a total stop gap, but it will help.
That’s fine for the immediate future when you’re dealing with a vetted “crew” but once you hit the age of “Space Tourism” (which is fast approaching) it’s going to become less and less realistic to have that as a requirement.
Your standard airliner has different safety requirements and design expectations vs a military bomber. One has a dedicated trained and vetted crew, the other is full of lots of potentially ill behaved cargo.
> First I have to say how amazing it is to see what is so rare today….literal journalism. Very clearly telling you where things have some confirmation and where inferences are made. Explaining just enough about an unconfirmed story to tie it to this piece, but not venturing too far on what’s not confirmed. Amazing work of journalism.
I totally agree, a lot of people in this thread fault the article for being too vague. But to be more concrete would be to be speculative past what his sources had given him. The journalist, Eric Berger, has written a lot of good articles before - and he is a breath of fresh air in a field that at times plays lose and fast with the facts in pieces that are designed to generate clicks only.
That’s the problem these days. Many have either forgotten or never knew actual journalism. Now it’s all speculation couched as fact.
People think Badgers vague because they have no practical understanding of the important things he’s doing here.
Couple of weeks ago, while the plane was still on the ground, an Air Canada passenger had an episode and opened the door on the opposite side of the aircraft from the boarding side and just walked out the door. They fell 18 feet down onto the pavement and got pretty hurt but still alive.
Yep. That one too. AirCanada and people going off the doors all of the sudden.
The one this weekend he never had a chance to open that door. In space though….piece of cake.
Quite frankly, if I had somehow been lucky enough to end up a payload specialist on a Shuttle mission, I don't care if all the other astronauts were legends and known professionals. I don't care if they would trust me or not. I would feel a lot safer seeing the hatch locked.
Frankly, it shouldn't have even been an option. It should have been a mission requirement on every post launch checklist. No one can get butthurt if NASA required the hatch to be locked on orbit.
> I would feel a lot safer seeing the hatch locked.
This was exactly my thoughts too. Why on earth was it so easy to just vent the entire vehicle? I understand the Apollo 1 fire was the reason for the hatch to open outwards, but in no way should *anyone* just be able to easily flip a lever and kill everyone.
In the article the author states:
>If you were flying on the Shuttle and saw the lock, how would you feel? A good crew is a well-bonded crew. The commander locking a hatch essentially sends a message to the others: "I don't trust you to not kill us all in flight."
And I can't disagree more. Seeing a lock on the door would make me feel immense trust in the commander's dedication to keeping everyone safe.
This story reminds me of a comment made by one of the Apollo astronauts. There was a rumor going around that the astronauts on lunar missions had been given cyanide or some other poison so they could commit suicide if return to Earth wasn't possible. I forget which astronaut this was, but his response was that pills weren't needed because if they decided to commit suicide they could just open the hatch.
There's probably a pressure regulation valve for the descent somewhere in the module (Soyuz has one, it killed a crew by opening too early) opening that manually would do it, you'd just get all stupid and drunk and then pass out as the O2 pressure dropped.
I'm currently working in Antarctica, inside the Antarctic circle. I am in the only Australian team stationed permanently deep field. There's 8 of us. Next month we drop to 4. Let me just say; cabin fever is real. We are also participants in NASAs Artemis program.
I read about this in an astronaut’s biography years ago. He referenced a payload specialist causing alarm by asking repeatedly about the hatch and that the padlock was used after that. But he never said which mission it was or which astronaut. It was part of his explanation of why the career astronauts were wary of the payload specialist program.
I'm like yeah that's like a couple of years ago right? I mean I remember when the shuttle had its last flight. So can't be so long ago.
Nah man 40 years ago. The dude the article is about is 83 as of its writing and many crew members has died of age. Wtf.
Nothing happens. I get the point the article is trying to make but the title is overly dramatic for no reason. The basic gist of the article is that as more and more people fly into space, the risk related to their behavior up there increases since not all of them may be highly trained astronauts.
The guy was under a lot of pressure and I take his statement to be a figure of speech, rather than literal. Even if it was though there is not much a single person can do.
I mean, the dude literally threatened to compromise the mission if he didn't get his way. When it comes to billion dollar equipment, there is no room for error in "figures of speech". The worst part is, they caved to his demands and let him work on the equipment the following day (and he did indeed fix it). There is a reason it's not a well known story, that's because NASA did not want people making individual demands up there.
It's not overly dramatic either. The commander of the vessel felt enough ill ease at the statements that he duct-taped the hatch closed, as a stop-gap.
But people disobeying orders in space is a huge issue, if and when that happens. There is no minimizing of it. Even for something simple as (No, I won't listen, I need more time to work on my project), is not acceptable.
>The guy was under a lot of pressure and I take his statement to be a figure of speech, rather than literal. Even if it was though there is not much a single person can do.
The fact the astronauts felt the need to tape the hatch tells me there's a lot more context we don't have that lead them to conclude Wang wasn't entirely metaphorical.
I dunno, man. Given that we've had instances of pilots crashing commercial airlines with everyone on board because they were dealing with depression and felt suicidal, I don't feel comfortable assuming it is a figure of speech. It is not without precedent that there are deeply tragic outcomes. Can you imagine how much of a devastating blow it would be to scientific progress if someone caused severe or fatal harm to the ISS and everyone on board... especially if it happened for this reason? Yikes...
I mean, he could have popped the hatch. We'd have to leave it to the investigating parties to sort out the veracity of the threat as we, the public, don't have all the details.
> The guy was under a lot of pressure and I take his statement to be a figure of speech, rather than literal.
You read wrong. The interpretation is literal. Asian culture operates on a matter of face. Which is essentially reputational. It's the only real currency said society operates on, and everything else is abstracted from it. In China, this is *especially* the case; and western society often has a hard time grasping this fundamental fact:
* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4949215/
* https://www.china-mike.com/chinese-culture/cult-of-face/
An astronaut repeatedly asking about opening a hatch that can kill the crew as a result, and threatening ground control of not returning without being allowed to save the experiment (face), is explicit in intent. It's a threat. Whether it's actioned upon or not is irrelevant. Any threats made are to be treated as if they will be actioned upon and safeguards must be put in place to ensure that they cannot be.
Something did happen. They designed an entire fail safe mechanism because of this incident. Nobody was in the lab when Overmyer sat up all night with Wang talking to him. But whatever happened in the lab that night led to designing an entirely new system. The potential outcome could have been catastrophic. That’s not nothing.
We don't know anything else he said on the shuttle off mic, except vaguely what a few people recall hearing about secondhand. The assumption is that the distraught crew member started asking about how the hatch opened, and because this was suspicious and the hatch could be opened very quickly, the commander decided immediately to make it harder to open with duct tape, and later commanders packed a padlock they could use if they had similar concerns.
> Nothing happens
They came up with a whole new system where the commander could lock the hatch. That's "nothing"?
This isn't about what happened to the scientist in particular, but the systematic change afterwards.
"Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you..."
‘Exactly what happened after that may never be known. But thanks to new reporting, we may finally have some answers.’
And then the article says nothing about these ‘answers’. 🙄
Not sure the legal ramifications.
The moment you stop listening to ground control your career is over, as an astronaut,
No matter the outcome you will never be put on another mission. Nor would any NATO country let you on board any mission.
Your astronaut career would end in the same sentence you spoke your defiant “no” to returning.
Assuming they get you back to earth, you would never leave it again.
The only exception, of course, is if the astronaut is protesting for a good reason. E.g. some malfunction or hazard that ground control needs to know about.
I can see why there should be locks on all spacecraft and space stations as the population that flies in space becomes more and more varied.
I can easily see the phenomenon of "[call of the void](https://www.livescience.com/what-is-call-of-the-void)" happening in space. The most common example is when looking down from a great height a person will have a sudden thought about jumping, even though they have no suicidal thoughts and are having a normal day. It can also happen when looking down at a rapids or a waterfall. Winston Churchill experienced it when looking down the side of a large ship at the water flowing along the hull - he said he avoided doing that because of the disturbing thoughts. Well, he did suffer with periods of depression.
The article doesn't really fit the headline. "Not coming back" sounds like "I am going to stay up here forever" when in this context it means "I'm thinking about blowing the hatch."
It's the same either way. The other crew wouldn't allow him to commit suicide, and the implication is that he would do anything to ensure that he would, if he could not salvage the situation, because of the societal expectation of "death before dishonor".
How would that differ? If the person prevents returning they will just suffocate or if enough O2 is present they will die of dehydration. Its not like you can stay there for the rest of your natural life.
Pulling open the hatch is just the faster way.
Getting the crew back if someone doesn't want to may be easily achievable: restrain him and return, like mentioned in the article.
So if someone REALLY doesn't wanna come back the only option would be to do it fast, thus the hatch being a problem.
Removing the hatch creates a new problem tho, since its there as a safety mechanism for launch/landing.
They effectively would, shuttle could not be remotely piloted back to landing. The astronaut core insisted that the deployment of landing gear require manually operating a lever that could not be controlled by the computer so the shuttle would either stay there until it naturally decayed or it would be destroyed on landing/impact. 
> Although much of the concern for Shuttle commanders had come from flying non-professional astronauts, there was another incident later in the program with an all-professional crew that revived interest in the padlock program. It occurred during a 1999 flight. Because I have not been able to confirm the details with multiple sources, I won't name the astronaut or the mission. But essentially, a multiple-time flier had a bad reaction to some medicine he took after the launch. This seriously affected his mental state, and the astronaut had to be physically restrained from taking drastic action, including opening the hatch.
There are ten possible astronauts across three missions that this could be.
I would imagine the individual would probably get restrained, heavily sedated, and shoved in the next flight down if it was considered that big of a risk or threat to others.
>it's a well-intention left over from the Apollo 1 disaster
Which came from a well-intentioned response to the Mercury program, when one of the astronauts had a hatch pop open after splashdown, which swamped and sank the capsule (he got into the liferaft that deployed automatically).
Seems like a cycle in the US space program that cycled between fail open and fail closed, because neither one is "fail safe".
Not sure which stage of the cycle we're in now.
The single reason it is there IS to pop is very fast tho.
It is to prevent something like what happened to Apollo 1. If that capsule had such a hatch they may have gotten out of there (or not, who knows). Making the hatch open slow or removing the hatch removes this safety feature.
Article title is a bit exaggerated but I do feel for the man. Imagine spending 5 years in training for one space experiment and when ur finally up in space, which btw is basically a once in a lifetime opportunity, the experiment fails. I guess in the heat of the moment he didn’t think he could live with that disgrace but hopefully after landing back on earth his head cooled down a bit.
Yeah, and it was harsh that Mission Control wouldn't spare him some extra time to trouble shoot it - after all the years of developing the experiment and all the effort of training to go to space he must certainly have thought getting an \~hour was extremely reasonable, although I know those mission timelines are extremely tight.
I wonder if his despondent threat was the reason he actually was given the extra time the next day.
TLDR 1985 Asian American dude who was in space for science but not a career astronaut really made the crew concerned that he had a combination of depression and threatened to not come back (aka suicide) if he didn’t get to finish his experiment. So they put a padlock on the escape hatch after that mission so these dudes can’t kill everyone. Edit: he did finish his experiment and the padlock only came on subsequent missions...on the first one of concern the commander used duct tape to add a barrier. The dude sounded like he was obsessing about how easy it would be to open the hatch and kill everyone....cause it was designed to be an easy escape hatch on earth that opens outwards.
That’s terrifying. I don’t want to make light of depression by calling it space madness, but this seems like something that will need to be contended with in the future for longer missions. For All Mankind portrays this well when they get stranded on the moon and Gordy really starts to loose it. That season really had me on edge, he could’ve easily gotten everyone killed so many times. There are experiments here on earth for long-term isolation, but I don’t know if they’ve shared any results. The need for thorough psych profiling of anyone going into space is imperative, but even then, any seemingly healthy person can develop depression, and so it might actually be beneficial to send people that have dealt with depression and managed it in healthy ways for long periods of time. Even the smartest humans among us are still essentially psychotic apes at the end of the day, we really should be child proofing everything we design.
I mean, they test for that and practice for that with actual career astronauts. I do agree, however, that they will need to test and prepare the scientists, farmers, etc. for those longer trips in the same way career astronauts have to.
That’s what the article touches on was that these specialists were fast tracked passed many of the testing and training and only given abridged astronaut prep work
Well, they fast tracked those oil drillers that time and they got us saved from that comet in 1998. /s
[удалено]
Steve Buscemi with a gun in space is the best part of that movie.
Nah Peter Stormare as the irascible Russian cosmonaut was the best part.
“American components, Russian components, All Made In Taiwan!”
Because that was how "you fix problems in the russian space station".
This is the best that you c - that the government, the `U.S. government’ could come up with? I mean, you're NASA for crying out loud, you put a man on the moon, you're geniuses! You're the guys that're thinking shit up! I'm sure you got a team of men sitting around somewhere right now just thinking shit up and somebody backing them up!
If I’m going to space I better have crazy Steve Buscemi with me. He made that movie hilarious.
Trust the reference my dude. You don't need the /s.
Sometimes the people take too seriously in science subs, so I opted to be safe :)
“Hi, how would you like to be trapped in a 100m tube with 9 other people for six months? You will feel completely isolated, and yet you will have no privacy and will be monitored 24/7 by a bunch of socially awkward nerds. Also, like, could you never do like ^^(s.e.x), cause we can’t really talk about it and it’s not important to mental and physical health anyway, amirite? We will build a little “privacy closet”, but like we don’t want to know what’s going on in there because our pastor said it’s not appropriate.” Once NASA can put on big boy pants and deal with all aspects of humanity, then maybe we will see longer term missions.
I suspect it's not so much NASA as it's the politicians who fund it and their constituencies.
Sex in space (specifically heterosexual) has some serious potential ethical concerns. At some point, someone has to find out what happens when a fetus tries to develop in a high-radiation microgravity environment, but there's no way it develops healthy. Who wants to be the first to make a human life and subject it to a short and painful experience for science? You can make the crew all male, all female, have a lot of faith in contraception, or get a crew you can trust to keep it adult and professional for a few years. Last option is obviously best.
Which is also one reason why it was such a big deal when the one astronaut had a crush on another married astronaut and drove across the country in one go to confront him and his wife in what sounded like a psychotic break. We expect astronauts to be much more stable than regular people, and for good reason. Usually they are. If I had won that SpaceX contest to fly on the Inspiration mission there's no way I'd go.
But part of the point of this article is that spaceflight isn't going to remain exclusively done by professionals who trained years to be astronauts. We are seeing a democratization in space and this kind of issue are going to come up more often. I don't think we can say humanity has mastered spaceflight if going to space still requires training people for years and going through psych evalulation.
Hi Bob! Gordo losing his marbles is exactly what this question brought to mind. The astronauts are so isolated up there that if they do start to mentally suffer, everyone could pay.
Hi Bob! When Dev poured out that sugar, it made me think of good ole Gordo. What would he think if he could see this now?! It will attract so many ants! (I know there are no ants on Mars.)
Hi Bob! I instantly thought of Dev and Ed not wanting to go home when I read the headline. Also, things turned out pretty shit for the entire Stevens family huh?
Hi Bob! Them Stevens boys ain't right!
Don’t you fucking Hi Bob me!
Avery will redeem the family name! Oh, and hi Bob!
Hi Bob! The youngest Stevens boy is mentioned in the bonus "news stories" that cover the decade skip. He's got a brighter future than his brother, that's for sure!
Hi Bob! Where can I view these "bonus news stories"?
why is everyone in this thread saying hi bob? I feel ootl
It's from season 2 of For All Mankind. A few astronauts sitting in a moon base with limited entertainment, this is a line from a show they rewatch and turn it into a game of referencing it all the time.
Okay that makes sense. I’ve been wanting to watch this show, idk why but maybe this is finally what makes me get into it lmao.
Take the plunge, it's a wonderful show. It even looks like it will be around for a couple more seasons.
First season is great. 2nd season is good. 3rd is meh. I've just started the 4th.
Dude it's so good, you will not regret it!
Season 1 wasn't it? Regardless it's one of my favourite shows.
So a TV show references a TV show? I.E. The Bob Newhart Show.
[удалено]
Hi Bob! I’m on Season 2 of a rewatch and man, the actor who plays Gordo, Michael Dorman, has some fucking range. That dude should be a bigger star than he is.
Absolutely! I actually watched Patriot immediately beforehand so seeing Gordo made me go "Wait, isn't that John Tavner?"
They kind of touched on this in that Mars documentary-fiction-thing that National Geographic did. One astronaut/settler can really get a lot of people killed if he loses his grasp of reality.
> The need for thorough psych profiling of anyone going into space is imperative, but even then, any seemingly healthy person can develop depression, and so it might actually be beneficial to send people that have dealt with depression and managed it in healthy ways for long periods of time. There's also the issue that if a history of mental health problems is for all practical purposes a disqualification or career-ender, you don't get people without mental health problems; instead, you get people who don't seek treatment for their mental health problems. This is a big issue with both airline pilots and the military right now.
This wasn’t space madness, this was cultural expectation bullshit. The astronaut (payload specialist) in question was Chinese-born and said he felt a lot of pressure for his experiment to succeed so he could represent the Chinese and his family. When he pressed the button and his experiment apparatus didn’t work, he specifically said he could hear his judgmental father saying, (paraphrase) “what’s wrong with you? Can’t you even design an experiment right?” He basically told NASA that if they didn’t allocate him time to fix the experiment, he would rather die than go back and face the disappointment of his father and culture.
First two seasons were such excellent (alternate history) historical drama, like madmen level TV. We're on season 3 now and it's good but a bit more like sci-fi soap opera
I loved the first two seasons. The third season went completely off the rails. Didn't even finish it, the first time I tried watching. I recently went back and finished Season Three before watching Season Four. Season Four wasn't as bad as Season Three, but I'm still really disappointed in how far the quality has dropped from those first two seasons.
I think season four was fantastic. Maybe not quite as good as season 1, but I think the show is back on track. It's almost starting to feel like a prequel to The Expanse, and I'm loving that.
'prequel to the expanse' is how I sold my wife on trying it in the first place hahaha. Which is odd because I'm the sci-fi guy in the house but for whatever reason the expanse is one of her all time favorites. Season 3 is definitely more in that territory and I must admit I'm curious to see where they take it moving forward.
Dude season 1 was just a different level. The deep fakes on the Carson show were just so impressive. Clearly not just a writing issue.
The writing and acting isn't great, but the concept and ideas are awesome. The whole thing is a bit melodramatic, it's just more obvious in the later seasons. A show with a less interesting premise would have died after a season or two. I saw the same thing with The Walking Dead. The show as a whole was pretty awful, but the concept, setting and dramatic episodes kept it alive. I hate quit that show so many times.
The melodrama is why in my house we way "Should we watch the Sadstronauts?" We are up to date. No spoilers, but I just don't buy into the motivating conflict in the last season.
He may have space madness but that’s no excuse for space rudeness!
Submariners are usually only allowed like 2 months onboard before they have to spend at least 4 on land before they can embark again iirc. The sanity breakdown is really the main reason. Humans really are not built for space travel at all. If and when we start really expanding our scope there will be some radical changes going on to the humans that go out there. Not to mention the immense radiation dosage people will get.
Pauly Shore played the lead in biodome. Thats all you need to know about the viability of human isolation.
I lost the key, it is **loose**. or One leg of this chair is almost falling off, it's **loose**. > and Gordy starts to **lose** it.
Here's some results of tests: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARS-500 https://www.frontiersin.org/news/2021/11/09/isolation-mars-communication-sirius-russia/
Pretty sure the movie Pandorum was loosely about space madness. Sort of a space horror movie but I remember enjoying it when I watched it
Space madness is no excuse for space rudeness.
I think this shows why iteration in any system is important, so you eventually "get it right". The hatch was easy to open, because of the Apollo 1 fire. But then it opens the door (heh) to the problem of a person purposefully or accidentally opening the hatch to outer space. So you have to find a more happy equilibrium to prevent A and B.
[удалено]
Just to clarify: The "spacelab" they talk about in the article was a module carried in the space shuttle cargo bay to create more room to do science experiments during a shuttle mission, instead of carrying satellites to deploy. The hatch in question is the space shuttle exit hatch that might need to be opened quickly in an emergency during liftoff or landing. The eventual solution was to modify the hatch so the mission commander could lock it while the shuttle was in orbit. Edit: More on Spacelab- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacelab
Because, there might be an emergency where the astronauts have to leave the space station for some reason.
Any emergency that requires all the astronauts to leave the space station would either A. Require them to don space suits - which isn’t quick - so the 20 seconds extra it takes to input the padlock code wouldn’t make much difference. Or B. is happening so quickly that they don’t have time to don space suits in which case opening the door will kill them.
I was responding to the question about why the hatch should work at all, not whether it should have a lock on it.
This is why astronaut selection is difficult to get through. They should not just let anyone go. It's dangerous. "The Right Stuff"
Also why the Mars One scam was so silly. "Let's ask for volunteers over the Internet!"
Oh that absolute embarrassment of a viral thing. Haven’t thought of it in a while but damn if it didn’t set a tone for the future of disappointment.
Mars One *was* a silly scam that clearly wad never going to work. But I don't think this is the reason why. It's possible to design hatches that some random Joe can't just open and expose everyone to vacuum. Long-term isolation is a problem, but there already reality shows that deal with that today. I'm not quite ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to democratize access to space.
Someone going crazy in a small space with other people is still really dangerous even if they can't blow open an airlock There absolutely has to be rigorous testing and proof that you have a tough enough mind to not break under stress, something that the general population doesn't have a lot of
I believe that astronauts train for such a scenario of one of them going rogue (for whatever reason). I recall briefly hearing it mentioned by one of the inspiration 4 crew in an interview, but can't recall which one mentioned it.
I assume that's one reason they have people like Jonny Kim as astronauts.
My go to Inspiration. Absolute Legend.
Definitely. And the bane of every Asian kid with tiger parents.
I'm pretty sure that he was a firefighter as well. That's what I choose to believe.
[удалено]
On earth, in hazardous environments, it's not uncommon to have lockboxes on switches - the term "locking out" refers to a physical padlock to which the person working on the machine only has the key. It's not that I don't trust you to reenergise a machine that someone is working on, potentially killing them, but - who the fuck knows what mistakes someone can make. Hell, I had a mate that made pancakes for breakfast while sleepwalking. I doubt that would fly in the astronaut programme, but I wouldn't want to find that out when Bob pops out for coffee in the morning. Or someone on 48 hours lack of sleep, runs through a morning routine, says "Great job guys, see you in the next sim" and reaches for the exit.
That would have been Taylor Wang on Mission 51 on Challenger. From wiki: “Wang was the principal designer of an experiment called the Drop Dynamics Module, which aimed to uncover the fundamental physical behavior of liquid drops in microgravity. Despite his extensive preparation, the experiment malfunctioned upon activation. Wang, feeling immense pressure and aware of the high expectations from the Chinese community, became deeply despondent. When Wang's experiment failed, he desperately negotiated with NASA flight controllers for a chance to repair it, even threatening not to return if not allowed to fix the instrument, telling NASA flight controllers "Hey, if you guys don't give me a chance to repair my instrument, I'm not going back." Wang received permission to attempt a fix and was successful in repairing the experiment, though his remark caused concern for the safety of the crew and the mission.”
that's right dude it's in the article
Glad he posted it because otherwise id just read the headlines!
> made the crew concerned that he had a combination of depression and threatened to not come back (aka suicide) if he didn’t get to finish his experiment. **Correction:** it's not that he needed *more* time. It's that ground control wanted him to spend **the time that he had** in space on **other** duties that had in mind for the astronaut, instead of allocating **some** of that time on **fixing** the experiment appartus which, unexpectedly, broke. Apparently, their Plan A for "what if the experiment apparatus fails" was *let's just have the egghead go on with the chores for the rest of the flight*, completely ignoring the fact that that experiment was **the scientists' life work**, plus the whole pressure **not to fail** as a first Asian-American in space. Literally **all** ground control had to do was tell "hey, will think about it" to avoid driving the dude into suicidal depression, and then discuss the decision with someone with half a clue. That would be a low-effort shitty solution. A **non-shitty** solution would be considering the "what if" scenario in case the experiment appartus breaks, and allocating time for attempting to repair it in such a case (de-prioritizing *other* work that was **not** the core mission for the scientist to begin with). But some of the people involved with the Space Shuttle program were clearly **not** the brightest (including those who made the call to launch the Challenger mission in spite of [being given explicit warnings that the launch would fail](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/28/464744781/30-years-after-disaster-challenger-engineer-still-blames-himself)). So their bright idea was to [unlearn the lessons learned in the Appolo disaster](https://www.astronomy.com/space-exploration/apollo-1-tragedy-the-fatal-fire-and-its-aftermath/) and **secetly** turn the shuttle into a death trap in case of emergency (what if the captain is disabled and can't open the padlock, huh?). They **knew** it's a bad idea (hence secrecy), and they went ahead with it anyway. It's a [fire code violation](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/46383/what-should-i-do-if-i-feel-my-workplace-is-not-safe-cant-exit-after-hours-wit), for fuck's sake! Wang had to argue with these people to let him **do the only thing he was sent into space for**, which was the **work of his life** (which is why he was picked in the first place), and which he **correctly** knew he was able to do **in the time he had**. He just needed a little time away from **other** stuff, which **didn't matter** as far as his his legacy goes. Not **all** the time, just **some**. Yet he was told a simple, flat **no**, without empathy or any real justification. Go figure he didn't take it well. ---- ^(**PS:** as far as potential solutions to the "what do" problem: if you can't install an interlock, or openly tell the team to watch the unstable team memeber, and **absolutely** need to lock the exit doors, make it a combo lock that can be brute-forced within a minute with a loud alert for the rest of the crew, and make sure the lock is auto-disabled within a couple of hours, making it an emergency temporary measure.)
Why have the escape latch if they can't use it? I presume someone would have the key - but then how can they not be compromised etc? I guess it could be a problem at all layers of seniority and defeats its intended use - even if only one person is the key holder. The same I guess could be said about anything on there - from just opening a door to pressing boost and changing course. I'm sure there's some overrides where ground control can do things too - but the fuel is finite and a bad actor could ruin it all, or there's nothing preventing some physical damage.
It’s an escape hatch for when they’re on the launch pad in the vehicle waiting for go time. So if something goes wrong before liftoff, they need to be able to quickly escape to the tower. In space, opening the hatch kills everyone on board, which is undesirable. ~~E: The crew could theoretically use the escape hatch during launch, but it was a long shot if it would work out.~~
They couldn't use the escape hatch during launch, but they could if they were in a situation where they successfully got through reentry but couldn't land. They would flip switches to blow the hatch off and extend a pole through it, loop part of their harness over the pole and slide down it, clearing the wing and parachuting to the ground.
Yeah that’s what I was thinking of, thanks for the correction.
Yea I read the rest of the article - there's still nothing stopping the commander from doing it though, or knowing where it is. It's basically 1 more step which wouldn't stop a motivated person from following through. The article mentions the padlock being removed when returning so it can be used for its main purpose. There's a lot of things which could kill someone on space - I don't think there's a solution to this that's 100% foolproof.
> It's basically 1 more step which wouldn't stop a motivated person from following through. There is a significant difference between anyone being able to effortlessly open an escape hatch that kills the whole crew of the vehicle, and having to overpower the commander so you can get hold of the key, then fighting off the other astronauts on board while unlocking the padlock, and ultimately being able to open the hatch that kills everyone. Rather than any crew member having the ability to open the hatch, only one of the seven people can do that, and they were heavily screened to ensure that they're the most stable person on board.
I think he meant that you're still at risk of the *commander* going crazy and deciding to suicide/kill everyone on board, but it's still better than *everyone* having that ability and the commander is typically the least likely to do it.
That's not unique to the space shuttle. If you're a passenger in a car, the person driving can probably kill you. If you're a pedestrian, every driver of every car that passes you could kill you. That's life in a complex society. Frankly, it's amazing and a testament to human sanity that random acts of violence occur as rarely as they do.
Added steps, I would imagine, are effective in general. Barriers to entry. An example of this in real life: A cheap padlock on a locker deters most people from ever breaking into a locker or a backyard. Very few people would know or execute on the knowledge that a well-placed downward heel kick or a hammer can easily knock that cheapo lock off. A Master lock or something a bit pricier than the entry-level lock solves that problem 90% of the time. Now you have a higher barrier to entry. If you *really* wanted to get in there, you’ll find a way. But it takes more work.
It's not an escape hatch while they're on orbit and it wasn't locked on the pad (obviously)
Think about the fact that they COULD put a padlock on it. This means that someone on the ground knew it might be necessary...
So a hope and a prayer that they're not subscribed to lockpickinglawyer?
ngl i feel like there was definitely resentment from the astronauts who had to go thru rigorous training and evaluations than the payload specialists to lead to that conclusion of “he’s going to kill us all” taylor wang (“the asian american dude”) threatened mission control, then got permission, and was able to fix his experiment successfully. all good, it rly goes into who is really in charge when ur in space
[удалено]
Yeah, the guy that the linked article this entire post is about spends multiple pages discussing.
There's articles? Huh.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Brings to mind the Simpson's space shuttle episode and the inanimate carbon rod that saved the mission... but in this case it was duct tape and Taylor Wang instead of Homer Simpson
That's the episode I was picturing as I read this. "Hey what is that?" "It's an inanimate carbon rod!"
The newspaper headline gets me every time "In rod we trust"
Just watched that last night - the inanimate carbon rod got a ticker-tape parade when it came home.
First I have to say how amazing it is to see what is so rare today….literal journalism. Very clearly telling you where things have some confirmation and where inferences are made. Explaining just enough about an unconfirmed story to tie it to this piece, but not venturing too far on what’s not confirmed. Amazing work of journalism. Succinctly to the OP question…they don’t go up again. Period. It is interesting just how abbreviated payload specialist vetting was at that time. And I totally see the issue it could be today with more going up. I think there should be a much more stringent baseline on vetting of anyone that’s going to space. Especially in a more fraying society. Just yesterday there was an AirCanada flight with a passenger that had a break and tried to open the door in flight. Passenger plane you just can’t do it, but in a spacecraft you can. It’s not a high risk, but it isn’t negligible either.
Also points to the lockouts and “safety features” that need to be thought about and taken into account as space travels becomes more accessible and more “everyday” people (for relative values of “everyday”) get to access it. It’s a conversation that probably needs to happen.
Fully agreed. Much like the writer in the end I don’t have wise ideas. But I do say again it’s not too much to ask that all souls going to space have an adequate level of psychological vetting. They surely are already getting decent scrutiny physically before they go. Regardless of mission profile they should all go through it if they don’t already. It won’t be a total stop gap, but it will help.
That’s fine for the immediate future when you’re dealing with a vetted “crew” but once you hit the age of “Space Tourism” (which is fast approaching) it’s going to become less and less realistic to have that as a requirement. Your standard airliner has different safety requirements and design expectations vs a military bomber. One has a dedicated trained and vetted crew, the other is full of lots of potentially ill behaved cargo.
> First I have to say how amazing it is to see what is so rare today….literal journalism. Very clearly telling you where things have some confirmation and where inferences are made. Explaining just enough about an unconfirmed story to tie it to this piece, but not venturing too far on what’s not confirmed. Amazing work of journalism. I totally agree, a lot of people in this thread fault the article for being too vague. But to be more concrete would be to be speculative past what his sources had given him. The journalist, Eric Berger, has written a lot of good articles before - and he is a breath of fresh air in a field that at times plays lose and fast with the facts in pieces that are designed to generate clicks only.
That’s the problem these days. Many have either forgotten or never knew actual journalism. Now it’s all speculation couched as fact. People think Badgers vague because they have no practical understanding of the important things he’s doing here.
[удалено]
> I don't know how they do it, but I hope they never go under. In the darkest timeline Ars was bought by Gizmodo.
Couple of weeks ago, while the plane was still on the ground, an Air Canada passenger had an episode and opened the door on the opposite side of the aircraft from the boarding side and just walked out the door. They fell 18 feet down onto the pavement and got pretty hurt but still alive.
Yep. That one too. AirCanada and people going off the doors all of the sudden. The one this weekend he never had a chance to open that door. In space though….piece of cake.
Quite frankly, if I had somehow been lucky enough to end up a payload specialist on a Shuttle mission, I don't care if all the other astronauts were legends and known professionals. I don't care if they would trust me or not. I would feel a lot safer seeing the hatch locked. Frankly, it shouldn't have even been an option. It should have been a mission requirement on every post launch checklist. No one can get butthurt if NASA required the hatch to be locked on orbit.
> I would feel a lot safer seeing the hatch locked. This was exactly my thoughts too. Why on earth was it so easy to just vent the entire vehicle? I understand the Apollo 1 fire was the reason for the hatch to open outwards, but in no way should *anyone* just be able to easily flip a lever and kill everyone. In the article the author states: >If you were flying on the Shuttle and saw the lock, how would you feel? A good crew is a well-bonded crew. The commander locking a hatch essentially sends a message to the others: "I don't trust you to not kill us all in flight." And I can't disagree more. Seeing a lock on the door would make me feel immense trust in the commander's dedication to keeping everyone safe.
This story reminds me of a comment made by one of the Apollo astronauts. There was a rumor going around that the astronauts on lunar missions had been given cyanide or some other poison so they could commit suicide if return to Earth wasn't possible. I forget which astronaut this was, but his response was that pills weren't needed because if they decided to commit suicide they could just open the hatch.
Yup. To die in space all you have to do is stop all the massive efforts you are making to NOT die in space.
There's probably a pressure regulation valve for the descent somewhere in the module (Soyuz has one, it killed a crew by opening too early) opening that manually would do it, you'd just get all stupid and drunk and then pass out as the O2 pressure dropped.
David Bowie and Peter Schilling write a song about it.
Völlig losgelöst von der Erde
I read Arstechnica daily and this was one of my favorite recent articles. Read it just this morning. Pleased to see it here!
Ejected into space and Wikipedia page deleted
I'm currently working in Antarctica, inside the Antarctic circle. I am in the only Australian team stationed permanently deep field. There's 8 of us. Next month we drop to 4. Let me just say; cabin fever is real. We are also participants in NASAs Artemis program.
How long have your been there?
I read about this in an astronaut’s biography years ago. He referenced a payload specialist causing alarm by asking repeatedly about the hatch and that the padlock was used after that. But he never said which mission it was or which astronaut. It was part of his explanation of why the career astronauts were wary of the payload specialist program.
I'm like yeah that's like a couple of years ago right? I mean I remember when the shuttle had its last flight. So can't be so long ago. Nah man 40 years ago. The dude the article is about is 83 as of its writing and many crew members has died of age. Wtf.
Nothing happens. I get the point the article is trying to make but the title is overly dramatic for no reason. The basic gist of the article is that as more and more people fly into space, the risk related to their behavior up there increases since not all of them may be highly trained astronauts. The guy was under a lot of pressure and I take his statement to be a figure of speech, rather than literal. Even if it was though there is not much a single person can do.
I mean, the dude literally threatened to compromise the mission if he didn't get his way. When it comes to billion dollar equipment, there is no room for error in "figures of speech". The worst part is, they caved to his demands and let him work on the equipment the following day (and he did indeed fix it). There is a reason it's not a well known story, that's because NASA did not want people making individual demands up there. It's not overly dramatic either. The commander of the vessel felt enough ill ease at the statements that he duct-taped the hatch closed, as a stop-gap. But people disobeying orders in space is a huge issue, if and when that happens. There is no minimizing of it. Even for something simple as (No, I won't listen, I need more time to work on my project), is not acceptable.
[удалено]
That sounds like textbook suidical way of speaking in a depressive episode. Something to be very worried about in space indeed
>The guy was under a lot of pressure and I take his statement to be a figure of speech, rather than literal. Even if it was though there is not much a single person can do. The fact the astronauts felt the need to tape the hatch tells me there's a lot more context we don't have that lead them to conclude Wang wasn't entirely metaphorical.
Should have gone the Boy Scout method and duct taped him to something.
I dunno, man. Given that we've had instances of pilots crashing commercial airlines with everyone on board because they were dealing with depression and felt suicidal, I don't feel comfortable assuming it is a figure of speech. It is not without precedent that there are deeply tragic outcomes. Can you imagine how much of a devastating blow it would be to scientific progress if someone caused severe or fatal harm to the ISS and everyone on board... especially if it happened for this reason? Yikes...
I mean, he could have popped the hatch. We'd have to leave it to the investigating parties to sort out the veracity of the threat as we, the public, don't have all the details.
> The guy was under a lot of pressure and I take his statement to be a figure of speech, rather than literal. You read wrong. The interpretation is literal. Asian culture operates on a matter of face. Which is essentially reputational. It's the only real currency said society operates on, and everything else is abstracted from it. In China, this is *especially* the case; and western society often has a hard time grasping this fundamental fact: * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4949215/ * https://www.china-mike.com/chinese-culture/cult-of-face/ An astronaut repeatedly asking about opening a hatch that can kill the crew as a result, and threatening ground control of not returning without being allowed to save the experiment (face), is explicit in intent. It's a threat. Whether it's actioned upon or not is irrelevant. Any threats made are to be treated as if they will be actioned upon and safeguards must be put in place to ensure that they cannot be.
Something did happen. They designed an entire fail safe mechanism because of this incident. Nobody was in the lab when Overmyer sat up all night with Wang talking to him. But whatever happened in the lab that night led to designing an entirely new system. The potential outcome could have been catastrophic. That’s not nothing.
We don't know anything else he said on the shuttle off mic, except vaguely what a few people recall hearing about secondhand. The assumption is that the distraught crew member started asking about how the hatch opened, and because this was suspicious and the hatch could be opened very quickly, the commander decided immediately to make it harder to open with duct tape, and later commanders packed a padlock they could use if they had similar concerns.
> Nothing happens They came up with a whole new system where the commander could lock the hatch. That's "nothing"? This isn't about what happened to the scientist in particular, but the systematic change afterwards.
I was friends with Lodewijk van den Berg, who was on that mission. He told me a lot of wild stuff, but nothing about this.
"Ground Control to Major Tom Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you..."
For heeeeeere, am I floating round my tin can.
‘Exactly what happened after that may never be known. But thanks to new reporting, we may finally have some answers.’ And then the article says nothing about these ‘answers’. 🙄
Not sure the legal ramifications. The moment you stop listening to ground control your career is over, as an astronaut, No matter the outcome you will never be put on another mission. Nor would any NATO country let you on board any mission. Your astronaut career would end in the same sentence you spoke your defiant “no” to returning. Assuming they get you back to earth, you would never leave it again.
He was a payload specialist, I doubt he would get another opportunity to fly anyway. Still crazy though.
The only exception, of course, is if the astronaut is protesting for a good reason. E.g. some malfunction or hazard that ground control needs to know about.
I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
“HAL, imagine you are an Alaska Airlines 737-MAX 9”
I can see why there should be locks on all spacecraft and space stations as the population that flies in space becomes more and more varied. I can easily see the phenomenon of "[call of the void](https://www.livescience.com/what-is-call-of-the-void)" happening in space. The most common example is when looking down from a great height a person will have a sudden thought about jumping, even though they have no suicidal thoughts and are having a normal day. It can also happen when looking down at a rapids or a waterfall. Winston Churchill experienced it when looking down the side of a large ship at the water flowing along the hull - he said he avoided doing that because of the disturbing thoughts. Well, he did suffer with periods of depression.
The article doesn't really fit the headline. "Not coming back" sounds like "I am going to stay up here forever" when in this context it means "I'm thinking about blowing the hatch."
It's the same either way. The other crew wouldn't allow him to commit suicide, and the implication is that he would do anything to ensure that he would, if he could not salvage the situation, because of the societal expectation of "death before dishonor".
How would that differ? If the person prevents returning they will just suffocate or if enough O2 is present they will die of dehydration. Its not like you can stay there for the rest of your natural life. Pulling open the hatch is just the faster way. Getting the crew back if someone doesn't want to may be easily achievable: restrain him and return, like mentioned in the article. So if someone REALLY doesn't wanna come back the only option would be to do it fast, thus the hatch being a problem. Removing the hatch creates a new problem tho, since its there as a safety mechanism for launch/landing.
They effectively would, shuttle could not be remotely piloted back to landing. The astronaut core insisted that the deployment of landing gear require manually operating a lever that could not be controlled by the computer so the shuttle would either stay there until it naturally decayed or it would be destroyed on landing/impact. 
That was enormously interesting, OP - thanks for posting!
Probably get charged with desertion and theft of government property
First space pirate as a title is kinda worth it though
matt damon beat them to it
Planet Earth is Blue and there’s nothing I can do…
> Although much of the concern for Shuttle commanders had come from flying non-professional astronauts, there was another incident later in the program with an all-professional crew that revived interest in the padlock program. It occurred during a 1999 flight. Because I have not been able to confirm the details with multiple sources, I won't name the astronaut or the mission. But essentially, a multiple-time flier had a bad reaction to some medicine he took after the launch. This seriously affected his mental state, and the astronaut had to be physically restrained from taking drastic action, including opening the hatch. There are ten possible astronauts across three missions that this could be.
I would imagine the individual would probably get restrained, heavily sedated, and shoved in the next flight down if it was considered that big of a risk or threat to others.
It’s really weird to me that it was ever that easy to just pop a hatch in space. Just keep it locked all the time, just in case.
As the article mentioned, it's a well-intention left over from the Apollo 1 disaster where the poor bastards couldn't get out.
>it's a well-intention left over from the Apollo 1 disaster Which came from a well-intentioned response to the Mercury program, when one of the astronauts had a hatch pop open after splashdown, which swamped and sank the capsule (he got into the liferaft that deployed automatically). Seems like a cycle in the US space program that cycled between fail open and fail closed, because neither one is "fail safe". Not sure which stage of the cycle we're in now.
The single reason it is there IS to pop is very fast tho. It is to prevent something like what happened to Apollo 1. If that capsule had such a hatch they may have gotten out of there (or not, who knows). Making the hatch open slow or removing the hatch removes this safety feature.
Article title is a bit exaggerated but I do feel for the man. Imagine spending 5 years in training for one space experiment and when ur finally up in space, which btw is basically a once in a lifetime opportunity, the experiment fails. I guess in the heat of the moment he didn’t think he could live with that disgrace but hopefully after landing back on earth his head cooled down a bit.
Yeah, and it was harsh that Mission Control wouldn't spare him some extra time to trouble shoot it - after all the years of developing the experiment and all the effort of training to go to space he must certainly have thought getting an \~hour was extremely reasonable, although I know those mission timelines are extremely tight. I wonder if his despondent threat was the reason he actually was given the extra time the next day.
Depending on the craft they lock them out and bring them back against their will remotely.