
The little-known Soviet mission to rescue a dead space station (2014) - david-given
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/09/the-little-known-soviet-mission-to-rescue-a-dead-space-station/
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ChuckMcM
This is a great story, I am glad it has been recovered from the ravages of
time!

It seems we need to start thinking about orbital repair a bit. The story about
the water really struck me. Do we design stations to shut down gracefully
under pressure? Are hand carried atmosphere sensors built into gas masks
useful for recovering a 'dead' station? Are illumination globes, LED bulbs
that can be turned on and float overhead something that we should store in
emergency cabinets in the station? What exactly would the low earth orbit
equivalent of a tugboat have on board? Fun things to think about on a Saturday
afternoon.

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coin
> The controllers, acting against established tradition and procedures of
> their office,

Similar to Chernobyl

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lb1lf
I believe behaviour like this is an (almost) unavoidable result of any large,
rigid structure - I see it myself at work on occasion.

Basically, the collective expectation of success is so strong that if you have
to report that something didn't go according to plan, you are strongly
identified with the failure whether you can be blamed or not - with loss of
reputation, career crash, off to Siberia, whatever being the result.

So - when things start to go wrong, you have every incentive to try anything
and everything which MAY bring the situation back under control - because,
after all, you're already left holding the bag, anyway.

This is a brilliant recipe for s __t-fan interaction escalation.

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ethbro
There was an article by a crisis management expert I read where he noted that
one of the first exercises he does with a group is to ask them to come up with
possible scenarios for failure. Thus at least giving explicit permission to
enumerate things that could go wrong.

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huhtenberg
Dzhanibekov is a legend. He did so much for the Soviet/Russian space program.

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Bromskloss
Stories, please!

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avmich
With James Webb Space telescope coming - and planned for much shorter life
than Hubble - I just wonder, if something goes wrong, could it be repaired,
like Hubble and Salyut-7 were? Can we send Orion to Lagrange point?

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madengr
Probably be cheaper to just build and launch a spare.

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ommunist
This is fascinating. What always will keep me admiring the Soviet heritage is
that these people never did what they accomplished for money or recognition.
These technical breakthroughs and victories were also spiritual.

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ethbro
The Soviets traded traditional religion for a faith in space and science.

For all their faults, that one doesn't seem such a bad bargain.

