
An Astronaut Accidentally Called 911 from Space - sanqui
https://www.newsweek.com/astronaut-accidentally-calls-911-space-1276892
======
Amorymeltzer
>The 60-year-old said that to reach the center in Houston, orbiting astronauts
have to dial 9 for an outside line, followed by 011 for an international line.

I suppose it makes sense, but there is something jarring about someone in
space having to dial 9 to get an outside line. I forget that, in some sense,
the ISS is a workplace, and while the view is fantastic it still isn't immune
from some of the banality plaguing the rest of humanity.

~~~
aey
The women’s room on the station is marked W and the men’s room is marked M,
and the doors are round.

~~~
kleiba
I hope you're joking: there's hardly any other place where saving space is
such a big priority. Surely there won't be separate bathrooms for men and
women?? (And if there were, why would they be marked with the first letter of
the _English_ words instead of using language-independent icons?)

~~~
droussel
It's obviously a joke. M and W on round doors in a location with not obvious
up or down direction...

------
Stratoscope
In the mid-1990s I lived in a San Jose neighborhood with underground
utilities. Sometimes water would get into the phone lines and cause short
circuits.

After one bad rainstorm, our phone was unusable. If you picked up the handset
you would just hear a bunch of clicks.

Then two police officers knocked on the door. They said someone had called 911
from my number, they called back and no one answered, so they were required to
come out and investigate.

I told them no one had called 911 and we were fine. Then it dawned on me: the
clicks!

I invited them in so they could listen to the phone, and explained how old
rotary dial phones work: by opening and closing the circuit once to dial a 1,
twice for 2, etc. And the phone system still supported rotary dial phones.

Sure enough, with random clicks all day, the phone circuit had just happened
to detect nine clicks, pause, one click, pause, and one click.

~~~
timthorn
That's exactly why the UK emergency number was set as 999. Needing those extra
clicks meant it was harder for random events to trigger a call.

~~~
n4r9
Well, part of the reason. They wanted to use a number close to 0 so that it
could be dialled on a rotary phone without requiring visibility. 111 was
rejected for the reason of random events or faulty lines, 222 because it
connected to Abbey's local exchange:
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/hist...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8675000/8675199.stm)

------
gregmac
> to reach the center in Houston, orbiting astronauts have to dial 9 for an
> outside line, followed by 011 for an international line

> His comms slip-up set off a security alert at the Houston center, he
> explained, with emergency staff to check the room where the space station’s
> line connected to Earth.

Dialing 9 and "outside lines" implies there's some sort of PBX system, which
makes sense. What I don't get though, is if the outside lines are in Houston,
why do you have to dial the international access code 011 to call Houston? I
thought maybe there was a country code allocated to the ISS, but according to
a Reddit thread, they just use Houston numbers [1]. I think the first bit from
the article is just a mistake (eg he wasn't calling a Houston number, just
_through_ Houston).

Aside, it's amazing how many (new) PBXs still use the "dial 9" requirement. If
you dial a 10 digit number (in North America), it's obviously destined for an
outside line. If you avoid assigning extensions that conflict with area codes,
you can even use early dialing (where the call is placed as soon as a number
pattern is recognized), but that's optional as the system will just wait a few
seconds to see if you're dialing more digits or not. Already anyone with an
extension that starts with the local area code probably already gets lots of
misdialed calls since people forget to dial 9 all the time.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/56yxnd/til_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/56yxnd/til_the_area_code_for_the_international_space/)

~~~
NedIsakoff
How do you know he was calling Huston? He's Dutch. Maybe he was trying to call
home?

~~~
alistairSH
Not sure why this is being downvoted, as I'm pretty sure that's the correct
answer.

9 - gets him out of the internal exchange 011 - gets him out of the USA xx -
country code (probably 31 for the Netherlands) then whatever other numbers are
required inside the Netherlands

------
ergothus
> it is surprisingly easy to communicate with the Earth while aboard a space
> station in orbit. He suggested astronauts can reach terrestrial phones via
> satellites around 70 percent of the time

That SHOULD be surprising, but the real surprise to me is that I had never
thought about it being hard.

We live in age with enough wonders that I take them for granted. I cant decide
if that is amazing or depressing.

~~~
antognini
Low Earth orbit isn't really that far away. The ISS is only about a four
hour's drive away, if only your car could drive straight up.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Actually, given that, why does the call have so much latency?

~~~
Piskvorrr
Never have I ever been in a call where the latency was dictated by speed of
light, since about early 1990s when phone lines went digital. There's an awful
lot of routing and switching along the (rather indirect) way, and each hop
adds some ms to the mess. Even if the call was only Houston-transatlantic (or
worse, transpacific for whatever peering reason)-Netherlands, you'd get pretty
bad latency. Add the orbit-relay station-Houston leg, and I assume you'd have
a bad time.

Ham radio, on the other hand - now we would be talking significant fractions
of _c_!

~~~
bluGill
In the 1970s (early 80s? my memory is not good) calls sometimes went via
satellite in geosynchronous orbit. Those had a lot of latency and didn't last
long for that reason. ISS in low earth orbit shouldn't have much latency so
long as they have a connection back down to the ground that doesn't involve
other satellites.

~~~
Piskvorrr
That's a big _if_ , its orbit can take it pretty much anywhere. But even given
a direct downlink, much of the telephone call latency is an artifact of call
routing on the ground.

------
perlgeek
We had similar things happen at a previous $work, where you needed 09 to dial
out, but one of the largest cities closed by had the prefix "0911". Here in
Germany, our emergency lines are 110 and 112, so if you called any "0911
2<something>" number, and forgot to add the 09 prefix, you'd be calling the
fire department.

But of course, this not being from space, it's not that news worthy :-)

~~~
illegalsmile
Similar situation here where you had to dial 9 then the number. Many employees
with fast fingers who dialed long distance would find themselves accidentally
double tapping the 1 and calling 911. After numerous emails and meetings they
changed the dial out number to 8. No more incidents. Not news worth at all!

~~~
thomnottom
That brings back painful memories. 8+ years of dialing 9 to get an outside
line and only 1 person had made that mistake (while trying to dial 411!) at a
previous company. Then new management comes in and it happens twice in 2 days.
Supposedly a huge fiasco and they started pushing to change the dial out digit
immediately. Such a headache.

------
sremani
Reminds me of how Indian graduate students from New Delhi accidentally call
911 because India code is 91 and Delhi area code is 11.

------
iambateman
Why would there be a lag in the call? I don’t think other satellite phones
have much perceivable delay.

So the question is...do astronauts get 10 spam calls per day like the rest of
us?

~~~
Sharlin
They use IP telephony, bounced through geosynchronous satellites like their
other Internet traffic. So the best-case signal roundtrip is already close to
150000 km. I'm not sure whether standard satellite phones would work on the
ISS.

BTW, is the spamcall/robocall thing a US phenomenon? I mean, I haven't heard
anyone talking about those except Americans. I only get regular human
telemarketers every now and then, but I generally don't answer calls from
unknown numbers anyway.

~~~
ForHackernews
UK gets huge numbers of spam/scam calls:
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/06/bt_call_scam/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/06/bt_call_scam/)

~~~
weavie
Yeah I'm in the UK. I don't even bother answering the landline anymore.

------
Finnucane
Something similar happened to a friend of mine in a hotel back in the days of
dial-up. His laptop dialer was hiccuping, and instead of dialing 9-1-(access
number) was dialing 99-11-(access number). After a couple of tries, a couple
of cops showed up at the room wondering what was going on.

~~~
ltc5505
Growing up I had a SO whose phone number had the pattern: XXX-XX9-11XX. I also
had a hidden landline in my room for when my parents would take my phone at
night. One night, around 2AM, my call redirected to an emergency dispatcher as
if I had dialed 911, and I promptly hung up the phone (out of fear). When I
redialed the number I was again redirected, and such a conversation ensued:

ME: Sorry, my phone seems to be redirecting my calls. I apologize for
disruption. Please don't dispatch an officer to my home.

DISPATCHER: We are definitely sending over an officer.

ME: Please don't. I'm going to get in a lot of trouble.

DISPATCHER: ... Okay, now the officer is going to check your home and verify
with each member of the family that everything is alright.

My parents were not pleased to be woken up by a police officer at 2AM to check
if they were okay. I got in a lot of trouble. I then called my ISP and had
them add the troubled phone number to a list of non-redirecting numbers.

I believe the cell number I was calling was issued before ISPs started
redirecting numbers with 911 to emergency dispatch. The redirection of my call
was probably a result of my ISP implementing the redirection.

~~~
blastofrocks
Wait what , any number with 911 will be redirected ?

Does that for a 10 digit phone number out of 10! all possibilities, 8! are
gone ?

Can there only be 3588480(10! - 8!) safe phone numbers ever ?

~~~
drfuchs
Nope. It’s fine to have the substring “911” in your phone number. This guy
must have experienced a hiccup in the system somewhere. What I want to know is
how he managed to get a secret landline installed in his parents’ house.

~~~
pimlottc
> What I want to know is how he managed to get a secret landline installed in
> his parents’ house.

I'm assuming the poster had a secret extension to the existing landline, not
an entirely separate line.

~~~
rtkwe
Or they just had a spare phone they plugged into the socket their parents
didn't know about (the phone not the socket). I'd be surprised if OP has gone
and spliced an additional line instead of their just being a socket in their
room already.

~~~
reaperducer
_I 'd be surprised if OP has gone and spliced an additional line instead of
their just being a socket in their room already._

I wouldn't. This is how the nerdier of my friends got their computers online
in the 80's.

In early modem days, a lot of people bought modems without thinking the whole
process through. Once they got it home, they realized that either the room
with the computer didn't have a phone line, the phone jack was inconveniently
located, or after spending $300 on a 150-300 baud modem, they didn't realize
they'd have to spend another $200 on a phone line + $50/month for the jack +
$xx for dialtone.

Splicing phone lines and fishing them through the walls with a coat hangar
became an art. And if it wasn't practical in your house, you sometimes ran a
phone line through the trees to your buddy's house.

It was all very educational.

------
empath75
My screen stopped working on my iphone a few weeks ago, and I was trying to
get it to reset to see if it fixes it, and I hit the side button 5 times,
triggering the call to 911.

When they answered, I said something like. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to call,
my phone screen stopped working and i was trying to reset it and .."

"Sir, you need to call your phone provider, not emergency services." _click_

~~~
acct1771
Long-press is the standard "alt use" of things on phones, these days.

------
bboreham
Something missing from this story.

If ‘9’ gets you an outside line, then you miss the ‘0’, the number seen by the
telco starts ‘11...’

Maybe the pbx is programmed to recognise ‘911’ and dial that, without
requiring an outside line?

~~~
DKnoll
The '9' prefix to reach an outside line likely corresponds to a specific
outbound route that handles phone numbers matching a certain regex (generally
length). Depending on how outbound routes were configured on the PBX a prefix
might not be required for the outbound route set up with regex to match 911.

I think this is often done as a safety feature, so somebody not knowing or
forgetting the exit number can still dial 911 in an emergency and reach
emergency services.

I've seen PBXs set up this way in past.

------
dghughes
It's rather apt to be an astronaut with the last name Kuipers.

~~~
lucb1e
Dutch here. Other than kuip as in badkuip or a ship's kuip, I don't see what
it refers to. Does it mean anything funny in the context of space?

~~~
edwinjm
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt)

~~~
lucb1e
Oh right, how did I miss that.

------
SonnyWortzik
Here is how I pictured it going.

> operator: "911 what is your emergency?"

> "...........Hello, I need assistance??"

> operator "Sir, Sir. Do you need help?"

> "........... YES I am here, Who is this? ......."

> operator: "Sir, we began tracing your call and are on the way.... wait...
> Sir what is your current location"

> "uuuummmmmm.... well about 2000 km up..... Sorry dialed the wrong number..."
> _hung up_

> operator: ".....???"

isn't day dreaming fun? LOL

~~~
foo101
Please don't do this here. Comments like this degrade the reading experience
on HN. This is why you are getting downvoted. The HN crowd generally prefers
more substantive comments and discourages low effort humor.

~~~
SonnyWortzik
This is in good fun. What is wrong? I mean the original post is not really a
Scientific Journal article. It was posted for fun. So lets have fun once in a
while.

~~~
dang
Humor's fine but the bar is high. Low-quality humor grows like crabgrass or
kudzu and soon takes over. People are vigilant about not letting that happen
here, not because they don't like fun, but because they've seen it happen
elsewhere on the internet.

Most people overestimate how funny their comments are. scott_s said it best:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289)

~~~
lostlogin
It would be interesting to read the top voted HN jokes, presumably they should
be good if the bar is high.

------
iforgotpassword
Offtopic, but is there some malware on this website? First I was rather
annoyed because there was an autoplaying video that stayed at the top of the
screen covering half of it, with only a very tiny x at the top right to close
it. After that chrome asked me if I want to allow the site to show
notifications, but then chrome asked me to access my camera! Why on earth
would a news site need access to my camera?

~~~
mr_toad
Not on the site itself, but I’m using an third-party-script blocker.

------
coding123
Did they send out a car?

------
disishhsha
I worked for a unicorn startup. We got in trouble when our SDRs (entry-level
salespeople who did cold calls all day) kept accidentally calling 911.
Ultimately the solution was to reprogram the phone system to allow 7 as a
prefix in addition to 9.

------
throw7
Our workplace had 9 for outside line and someone accidentally called 911. It
was changed to 2 after that happened.

------
luizfzs
I see you are a redditor as well.

------
ccnafr
Gravity plays tricks on your fingers.

------
johan_larson
Well, at least he didn't try to order a pizza.

"Jaa, I vaant too laage pies vit pepperuuni. Let me give yoo die oobital
parametaas."

