
Russian Cosmonauts Say That the Hole in the Soyuz Was Drilled from the Inside - tlrobinson
https://www.universetoday.com/140996/russian-cosmonaut-says-that-the-hole-in-the-iss-was-drilled-from-the-inside/
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CapitalistCartr
So I was teaching a new guy on building some of the interior work on
sailboats. I showed him how to drill a couple of holes through the fiberglass
flange to mount something-or-other. Several hours later my boss asks me why
there's two small holes in the hull. Well, I didn't specifically tell him
_not_ to drill through the flange, the cm of space, and through the whole
hull.

~~~
Waterluvian
I'm a smart person but when learning stuff I often feel really dumb because I
ask what should be really obvious questions. It's some weird mix of ignorance
and fear of doing it wrong in front of the boss.

"So fasten x to y with a screw."

"Do I drill through and into the workbench too?"

"Why would you do that?!"

(In my mind) well I saw someone else fastening a work piece to the bench
temporarily like that and why would the screw be this long then? Oh wait yeah
that makes zero sense. My logic centre isn't working fast at all.

~~~
randallsquared
If you don't know, it is not clear that it makes zero sense. I'm often on each
side of this, and what it really drives home is that most people do not
actually consider most of the ways in which something can be done differently.
:)

~~~
scarejunba
Classically illustrated by the "give instructions to make a sandwich game"
[https://youtu.be/cDA3_5982h8](https://youtu.be/cDA3_5982h8)

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jimnotgym
Do you ever find yourself in the position whereyou are holding a brand new
drill (for instance) in your hand, and you are just desperate to try it on
_something_. I am the same with a new knife, something is going to get cut.
Maybe this happened? "I wonder how well this drills aluminium, OMG it went
right through"...pretend nothing happened.

It is a bit like developers with a new js framework I suppose.

~~~
skookumchuck
> pretend nothing happened

Sure, but in the hull of the spacecraft that's leaking my air away, I'd still
put a wad a chewing gum in the hole to patch it.

~~~
Tade0
As someone who fought and lost a war with holes in an inflated mattress I have
to say that even one atmosphere is a surprisingly powerful amount of pressure
when applied over a long period.

~~~
larkeith
On the other hand, it's probably easier when the air's moving the other
direction.

~~~
Tade0
One of the ideas was to put a piece of insulating tape inside so that it could
push from there.

It would have worked if it weren't for a rubber column inside just next to the
hole which required my tape to be curved at a right angle - screwing up any
proper insulation.

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jimhefferon
In the museum on Nantuckut there is a display devoted to the _USS Essex_ , a
whaling ship (it is the ship that the whale rams, I think). One incindent that
made an impression on me was a sailor, who was driven insane by boredom, and
sabotaged the ship, just for something to happen.

I understand space to be unbelivably boring.

~~~
antongribok
My boss's classmate from college went up to the ISS for the first time a
couple of years ago. They graduated about 25 years ago and his classmate
worked nonstop for 25 years to get to go to space.

My understanding is once there, you work 16 hour days non-stop.

I think most people would describe being on the ISS as anything else but
"boring".

~~~
Zigurd
There was a mutiny on a Skylab mission due to overworking the crew

~~~
evan_
Overworking the crew and the absolutely horrendous quality of life on Skylab

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org3432
Well if it was drilled from the outside in, that would be spooky.

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mkl
Not really. It was most likely done on the ground.

~~~
chiefalchemist
I suppose. But I would think cabin pressure and such are checked pre-launch.

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ygra
The hole was sealed with glue initially. Temperature change in orbit
eventually made it brittle and fall out, so the loss in pressure was only
detected in orbit, but not prior to launch.

~~~
ufmace
That makes too much sense...

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chiefalchemist
If it was deliberate then it sound like someone who doesn't know wtf they were
/ are doing. That rules out the astronauts, seems to point to someone on the
ground, pre-launch, with nefarious intentions but a lack of knowledge on how
best to execute that ill intent.

Maybe?

~~~
rco8786
I’d guess incompetence over malice

~~~
chiefalchemist
I'm suggesting both. That is, someone with bad intentions but too incompotent
to exectute correctly.

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ggm
What's the agregate pressure loss in the ISS which is just taken as "meh" and
ignored? Is there one? I could imagine a leak being known from input/output
maths but once you get to the error digits there are a number of sources of
input and output (outgassing of materials? Incidental losses with inefficient
vacuum pumps emptying Chambers) which would mean it wasn't clear there was a
leak. I guess the Dynamics of a leak stand it pretty Stark: constant
unremitting loss. Except of course if it's in a flexing part. Or a function of
thermal change in orbit or a-periodic for some reason...

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_gen_name
Cant they determinate the point in time when the air of the hole started
acting as a thrust vector?

~~~
Symmetry
No need, they can determine the point in time the air started escaping from
looking at the internal pressure.

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stevage
Anyone have any good theories as to how this could have happened? Is it really
plausible that it was "accidentally" drilled during manufacture, and not
detected?

I mean, _surely_ there must be some kind of testing step where they test that
the craft is completely airtight. And no one is going to be drilling anything
after that point.

~~~
ars
Don't forget it was sealed, and the seal failed. So it was initially air
tight.

To me that excludes sabotage, and instead points of error that someone tried
to cover up. It also points to someone low-level/unskilled since they did a
bad job of sealing it.

~~~
jcims
Do they know for sure it was sealed or is that just the theory how it would
have got into space without detecting air loss on the ground?

Based on the tracks around the actual hole it looks accidental to me.

~~~
greglindahl
Part of the point of looking outside was to see if they could see any remains
of the seal. Something was preventing it from leaking air, until it did.

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known
Reminds me of cloning error [http://steeljawscribe.com/2007/04/30/red-bulls-
of-replicatio...](http://steeljawscribe.com/2007/04/30/red-bulls-of-
replication-the-b-29-and-tu-4-bull)

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vertline3
I do this mistake sometimes, I am off in my measuring, and have to drill a
hole beside the one I drilled. I know it's likely not the cause, but if I
built a shuttle, maybe it would have holes like this too. :/

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sandworm101
Anyone who has ever held a drill can see in the pic that it was drilled from
the inside. That means nothing in relation to _when, where or who_ did said
drilling.

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ape4
Can they figure out if it was drilled in space or Earth

~~~
huhtenberg
There are drill bit skid marks, so, in theory, it might be possible to build
some sort of a model (of a drill held by a human hand) and then see under
which conditions these skids marks _are_ possible.

But that's without considering that the simplest explanation is usually the
right one and the at-orbit sabotage is just not that.

~~~
theoh
Presumably there's a "breakout" burr on the outside surface of the metal which
indicates that the drill bit emerged through that surface.

~~~
Phlarp
This only indicates that the hole was made from one side or the other-- we
can't say for sure that just because the hole was drilled from the inside that
it was done in orbit.

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rurban
We knew that already in September, due to the way the hole was plastered up.
With the wrong material. The spacewalk just confirmed the coverup by the
engineer who really should have told his boss. With the right material to
cover it up it would have been no problem at all, so it had to be fixed in
space.

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CaliforniaKarl
> they wasted no time plugging the hole with epoxy and gauze. [from article]

>Sealed with epoxy and resin [from photo caption]

I'm kindof confused, was it resin-impregnated gauze?

I'm also curious: If the hole was in a more-critical location, like one of the
station's modules, would that be the repair process? Or would they be doing
welding in space?

~~~
userbinator
It's a small hole that doesn't really compromise structural integrity, and it
doesn't have to hold that much pressure --- remember that sea-level
atmospheric pressure is <15psia, and in the vacuum of space it's effectively
0, so the difference is <15psi.

~~~
overlordalex
This brings to mind a great Futurama scene:

> Fry: How many atmospheres can this ship withstand? > Farnsworth: Well it's a
> spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one

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hkt
At least it wasn't drilled from the outside..

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JumpCrisscross
If the seal had remained, would the capsule have survived re-entry?

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intins
The hole was not in the part that reentered the atmosphere. Soyuz is made up
of 3 modules: Orbital, Descent, and ISM. The hole was located on one of the
modules that was jettisoned before deorbit.

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known
Russian Cosmonaut says that the Hole in the ISS was Drilled From the Inside

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geuis
Just to be clear, the title is incorrect. The hole is in the Soyuz, not the
ISS.

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dang
Ok, we've changed that above.

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soyrunner
Perhaps that section stunk and someone drilled a hole to relieve the stink to
space.

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narrator
Just adding the theory below for completeness. Search in the article for the
part about the ISS:

[http://www.unz.com/ishamir/toilet-wars/](http://www.unz.com/ishamir/toilet-
wars/)

