Posted on 04/23/2008 5:41:23 AM PDT by Prospero
The crew of the Soyuz capsule that landed in Kazakhstan hundreds of kilometers off-target after an unexpectedly severe descent was in serious danger, a Russian news agency reported Tuesday.
Interfax quoted an unidentified space official as saying that the capsule entered the atmosphere improperly, with the hatch-first, instead of with its heat shields leading the way. As a result, the hatch suffered significant damage.
The official said the TMA-11 capsule's antenna burned up during the descent, meaning the crew couldn't communicate properly with Russian Mission Control. Also damaged was part of the valve that equalizes pressure inside and outside the capsule.
Interfax said the official was involved in the investigation into Saturday's landing.
The Soyuz crew included South Korea's first astronaut, Yi So-yeon, U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
And HERE
And HERE
"Considering that this situation has repeated itself, it is obvious that the technological discipline in preparing space equipment for a flight is declining. There is no guarantee that the crew of a Soyuz spacecraft landing a half a year from now would not face the same difficulties." - Anonymous Russian space official
Dr. Whitson has just broken the American space endurance record, and almost ended her second six-months on orbit with a real bang.
Lunar Networks alerted me to this. the real story.
Lunar Networks is a comprehensive lunar exploration blog, specializing in Lunar Exploration, past, present and future, and more importantly, published by two long-time Freepers. They dug into the story with Ian O'Neill of Universe Today ( more of a "greenie" site, but fairly well read). The International Herald Tribune seems to be the first out with more details to a wider readership.
If anyone has any other links to new information, I know Lunar Networks would appreciate it.
The Department of Education spends six or seven times as much federal dollars as NASA. Do we really want Congress to force NASA to use this aging Russian system to give us a lift to the Space Station we paid for from 2010 to 2015?
The capsule landed 260 miles off course. Video showed the crew very wobbly.
No one ever said space exploration is totally safe. If it was we wouldn’t call them heroes for being astronauts.
Who screwed up?
Like I’ve said many times, I don’t know why we waste our resources on manned flight anyway. It’s been done before, ad nauseum, and the missions accomplish little because they spend the entire mission trying to keep the crew safe.
What they should do is something completely different—build robots to build infrastructure on the moon... power plants, mines, buildings, rail lines, factories, foundries, communications networks, stockpiles of materials, etc., almost all constructed with local lunar resources, and then when they’ve got a large enough infrastructure, then and only then, send humans.
That would be a lot cheaper, and it would spur a robotics industry here on Earth.
What little video NASA TV has shown of the return was delayed by 2 days, and showed Peggy Woodston visibly shaken. I though that it was because of her extended stay in orbit, but now we know better.
Too close for comfort.
How long had they been in orbit? Everyone is very wobbly when they are back at 1G for the first time in months.
For manned space flights, Any landing that you can pull survivors out of the wreckage, regardless of their condition, is a good landing.
That's not to say that the US couldn't improve upon the quality of the explosive bolts and timing issues in the Soyuz.
I doubt that the capsule came down 20 minutes late. If anything it came down early.
Tycho Magnetic Anomaly? When did we get up to 11? We haven't found TMA-1 yet.
For manned space flights, Any landing that you can pull survivors out of the wreckage, regardless of their condition, is a good landing.
You're one of those "glass half full" people, aren't you?
That all depends on whether I'm pouring or drinking :)
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