
On Thursday a rocket failed. Three humans remain on the ISS. What’s next? - okket
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/10/on-thursday-a-rocket-failed-three-humans-remain-on-the-iss-whats-next/
======
jon889
I feel like too big deal is being made of this, as if people are about to
suggest that we should shut down all human space flight on the Soyuz for good.
The emergency systems worked exactly as they were meant to. There is risk in
going to space but it's worth it, the astronauts know what they're doing and
what could happen. Everyone needs to calm down, wait for the investigation and
then almost certainly get back to putting people in space.

~~~
eps
> _Everyone needs to calm down_

That's just Arstechnica and Eric Berger. His space flight coverage including
the Rocket Report is generally very good, but it always had this rather
noticeable anti-Russian slant - every failure is yet another complete
disaster, Russian space industry is a company of hacks, rockets are held
together by sheer luck, etc.

~~~
yread
Soyuz did have a lot of close calls and disasters over the years though. See
[http://www.jamesoberg.com/soyuz.html](http://www.jamesoberg.com/soyuz.html)

35 anomalies over 222 flights up to 1997

~~~
pc86
How many anomalies and flights from 1997-2018? Why exclude 21-22 years of
data?

~~~
cldellow
Because the article was written in 1997.

~~~
pc86
I know, but I mean is that kind of data easily accessible? Would be
interesting to see if there was any significant change in anomaly rate over
time, no?

------
Dowwie
A well-trained crew and ground control navigated a rapidly evolving, very
dangerous situation enough to try again another day. This launch failed its
mission yet successfully navigated a scenario that human beings are ill-
equipped to handle on their own. Aborting mission and returning the crew to
safety was a great accomplishment.

------
netsharc
To be off-topic, news of the Soyuz feels like the news we should be reading in
2018: space travel instead of news of all the stupid politics and destruction
of the planet. Where we can worry about the spacefarers instead of what next
stupid thing will come out of the White House.

It feels like it's news from a parallel universe.

~~~
rimunroe
It’s certainly less upsetting, but I don’t think we should just try to avoid
reading about the very real & very bad things that are happening when we have
some power to address them.

~~~
simion314
The only power citizens have is in the election day, all the others days what
can you do? Maybe go on the streets and protests but that almost never works.

IMO, we should read less political news, maybe once a week, if something major
happens we will hear about it.

~~~
rimunroe
As the other reply points out, you can do things other than vote. Convincing
like minded friends to get involved and convince their friends is very
effective at the local scale. Local governments can improve—-or worsen—-life
for their citizens dramatically (housing, food, health services,
transportation, safety, etc).

On the larger scale, donations and canvassing matter. I feel like it’s a very
safe assumption that the people frequenting this site have more resources
(money, time, job options) than most.

You can put some of those resources to use by helping out candidates and
campaigns you believe in. You can work with organizations who are working on
the awful problems.

You can run for office yourself. I’ve seen acquaintances do it and win.

You can & should speak out and even quit if your company is doing something
objectionable.

These are all a lot harder than just angrily watching the news (or hate-
reading HN). It requires actual work and possibly significant personal
sacrifice. I’m not always as good about it as I should be, but I feel
confident that I’m getting better, and that those around me are too. It gets
easier every day.

On a personal note: I’m an atheist and my parents mostly were too, but we were
raised going to Quaker meeting. These days I find myself thinking about those
Sunday school classes a lot. They were mostly focused on this kind of message
(they were surprisingly secular). I wish I’d paid more attention. I might have
started paying attention to this kind of thing earlier.

[edit] I totally forgot to reply to the "if something major happens we will
hear about it" part:

What you consider "major" matters a lot though. Things you might normally
think nothing about affect other people a lot. Also, at least in my circles,
people talk way more about national news than local news, so I can't rely on
hearing stuff through the grapevine.

I think it's a basic civic responsibility to keep yourself informed. It's also
something most of us need to be better about.

~~~
simion314
Thanks for the response, I will think more on it and see if I can apply
something(some things may not work for my personality or my local.country
politics)

What I mean by major things you will find out about it is that usually there
is nothing that happens n one day and you will miss it by not reading the news
that day, laws get debated a lot, ton of noise is happening and here in
Romania large protests happen (though not major changes actually come from
those)

I admit that I am a cynic and I see all the parties as the same level of
corruption and incompetence due to my observation that only some type of
personality can go up the ladder.

The point about trying to convince your friends or relatives, does it ever
work? I never seen someone let be convinced by arguments, they always watch
same TV channels, read same papers you can't produce a change in a heated
debate.

I am curious if you think that is any issue in getting informed at the end of
the week, what could have happened that you getting informed with a few days
delay mattered ? If is important you would hear about it on the non political
channels/papers or from other places.

~~~
rimunroe
About the effectiveness of convincing friends & relatives: I know what you
mean about skepticism about changing people's minds. It's hard, and I
certainly don't think you'll realistically ever flip someone's deeply held
belief on its head with a clever argument. The most effective thing I feel
like I can do personally is push people who are already mostly on board with
something out of complacency and toward action. For people who disagree with
me more strongly, I just try to continually nudge them in my direction since
that seems to be more effective than shutting them off.

About how frequently you actually need to read the news: if you're asking "do
things move fast enough that hearing about an event when it happens vs a few
days later matters?", then no, I don't think it does, and for some things you
really need to wait before there's any useful information. But, at least
personally, I don't think I could dedicate a block of time on the weekend to
reading up on the events of the week. I follow some journalists on Twitter as
well as some folks focused on local matters, and ask my brother questions
about things I hear since he has more experience and I'm still relatively new
to all this. Also, newspapers are great!

Lastly, about all parties being equally corrupt: I think they're all corrupt,
but I don't think they're equal in either the degree of corruption or in the
magnitude of harm their policies & discourse cause. On just one current issue:
it's hard not to look at consistently Republican-lead policies that
disproportionately disenfranchise black people and think that one side is very
much worse here. Even if both sides are trying to stop their opponents from
getting more votes, one side is clearly being more ruthless & cruel. Again,
this is just one issue, but it's a big one and I believe there's plenty of
evidence that this isn't an isolated case.

~~~
simion314
Thanks again for your reply, I am also getting information from my brother
related to politics and sports since he keeps a closer eyes on this topics.

I agree is impossible to have a rigorous way of comparing the party corruption
but I think that always the party in power will use all it can to win the next
election, like voting populist laws, changing electoral rules and here in
Romania attacking the justice department that is investigating the politicians
and changing laws so most corrupt politicians won't be put in jail but keep
their freedom.

------
pimmen
The Soyuz has an exemplary track record. Sure, there were a few accidents 50
years ago during the Soviet space program that were very bad, but it has
transported people to and form the ISS for such a long time astronauts swear
by it. This is almost like making a big fuzz about whether or not it's safe to
drive after hearing about a highway crash. Yes, there are risks, but even more
so than with driving the crew knew what they were doing. And they are even
more aware of historical space related accidents than most people are.

~~~
warp_factor
I agree completely with you. But you are picking on the medias that use it to
"clickbait" and sell a narrative. Facts and reliability don't mater. It has
been transformed into sensationalism and into a "USA vs Russia" narrative.

------
sajithdilshan
Correct me if I'm wrong. As humans even though we are technologically far
advanced than we were 10 years ago, I suppose rocket technology and space
exploration areas have not been caught up with the latest technological
advancements.

This is the perfect time for another space race. But the only problem is that
I can only think of China as a contender.

~~~
SECProto
Not to sound like a fanboy, but I think SpaceX would be a strong contender in
any space race. Non-governmental, but very much pushing boundaries.

edit: Hm, I've never been downvoted on HN before. Care to explain why? I think
my comment is adding to the discussion, in that OP was speculating only China
could possibly be a contender in a space race. Certainly, SpaceX developing
propulsive landing and reuse of the first stage is pretty game changing -
liquid flyback boosters had only been proposed before, never actually created
& used. SpaceX's ongoing experiments with fairing return leave me optimistic
that it will work out fairly soon, too.

------
varshithr
The upcoming Crew Dragon and Starliner are more important now than ever.

~~~
rbanffy
They continue to be as important as they were on Monday. None will be flight-
ready before this incident is fully evaluated, corrections in process/design
applied and the system is cleared to fly again. All safety mechanisms worked
as designed and the crew landed safely. The astronauts on the ISS still have
their Soyuz if they really need to come down.

Nothing changed. Soyuz is still incredibly reliable. It's a bit old, a bit
expensive (Crew Dragon, flying on reused Falcon 9's, will be much cheaper) and
_very_ cramped for 3 astronauts, but it does the job and has been doing it for
what, 40 years?

------
netsec_burn
This comment is meta, i.e. not strictly related to the content.. but looking
over the HN comments, I find a majority is pro-Russian with the exception of
one downvoted comment noting accurately that the US equivalent of cheap
spaceflight (Crew Dragon) is important for these missions to the ISS. This is
just speculation, but I wonder if the issues that Reddit identified with the
campaigns by Russian entities may be as far reaching as YC. The content of the
comments is interesting too, attacking the reputation of journalist.

~~~
warp_factor
I think as another comment explained, you are conflating pro soyuz and pro
russian. I couldn't care less about the russians, but the Soyuz is a beautiful
feat of human engineering. This Rocket was designed more than 30 years ago and
its simple and beautiful design passed the test of time.

I think what a lot of readers hate (and I'm part of those) is that a lot of
simplified articles (like this one) seem to completely forget that this rocket
is still the most reliable rocket upto this day, and uses sensationalism in
order to clickbait.

~~~
netsec_burn
Soyuz is exclusively manufactured by Russian entities, and whether or not we
like to acknowledge it politics permeates spaceflight too. This is similar to
how SpaceX is an American company. It's okay to conflate in context when we're
talking about influencing national perception.

