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Space

Soyuz Damage May Delay Space Station Trip 120

Posted by samzenpus from the how-long-can-you-hold-your-breath dept.
SeaDour writes "As if the failed oxygen generator on the International Space Station wasn't bad enough, rumor has it that the planned launch of a Russian Soyuz capsule to change crews onboard the station may be delayed due to a mishap during ground testing. Apparently one of the small explosive bolts, used to separate sections of the capsule during landing, prematurely exploded, which means the bolts may all have to be inspected for defects. Russian space officals haven't officially confirmed any delay of the October 9 launch date, but I'm sure it's something the two astronauts on the station are thinking about as they repressurize the station with reserve air supplies."
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Soyuz Damage May Delay Space Station Trip More

Soyuz Damage May Delay Space Station Trip

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  • They need to replenish their air supply......... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ARRRLovin ( 807926 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @08:48PM (#10261831)
    The president should get Graham Russel and Clive Davis dispatched to ISS ASAP!

  • well... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by the arbiter ( 696473 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @08:49PM (#10261837)
    This is kinda discouraging. I'm all in favor of manned spaceflight, but...

    Until we're willing to fund not only the station but its support structure, and fund it enough to insure that there's some redundancy in systems, I think it might be time to start thinking about abandoning it in orbit for a while. What spaceflight does NOT need right now is the two sitting ducks..er, I meant crew, dying because we can't keep the structure/support up to snuff.

    • Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @09:02PM (#10261919) Homepage Journal
      they got a soyuz up there that they can use to come down, of course mentioning something like that in the article blurb would cut down on needless comments so it would be against slashdots policy to do so. you think they wouldn't have any redundancy? that they would be that stupid? they would be 'abandoning' it for a while if they didn't get the replacement parts and crew up there before it became too dangerous(now the only real concern here is that if they got faulty bolts on that soyuz too).

      and really...
      "A NASA official told MSNBC.com on condition of anonymity that rumors of a possible delay were "heard in the halls" on Tuesday, but by the end of the day the gossip was that no schedule impact was expected." so that's one 'official' relaying a fucking rumour, too.

    • Re:well... (Score:5, Informative)

      by jnicholson ( 733344 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @09:37PM (#10262096) Homepage
      There is redundancy. There's LOTS of redundancy. About half of the levels of redundancy have currently failed, and they're down to the last half. The *nauts have currently around 4 options they can try before they abandon ship.

    • They have lots of redundancy... (Score:5, Informative)

      by rv8 ( 661242 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @09:37PM (#10262097) Homepage
      Well, if you'd RTFA you'd learn that they have a spare oxygen generator on the space station that can be installed as a replacement if necessary, plus they have a bunch of spare parts they can use to repair the one that is giving trouble. They have over a month's supply of chemical oxygen generators, and they have oxygen supplies in the Soyuz that is docked. So they have lots of redundancy here.

      There has to be some limit to the amount of redundancy they have in any one system, as they only have so much weight and volume available, but they don't seem to have cut any corners in the area of O2.

    • Re:well... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kamapuaa ( 555446 )
      Instead of posting, take the 5 seconds to find the info [yahoo.com]. Or just think things through: if there weren't redundant systems already, the astronauts would be dead.
    • If there were a commercial reason to have a space station, the cost would be in effect zero because income would cover and pay for expenditure. Resupply missions would have been worked into the budget. In an emergency a lender could be found to pick up the cost aganst future profits. And if the whole project became a white elephant, it would show straight off empirically as negative profit.

      How do you socialist spacers grow your budget? The tax take can't go up much (because you'll wreck the economy and shr

  • I realize that space flight is incredibly complex, but is it really that much more complex than regular flight? Why does it seem that space flight is constantly plagued with problems?

    Is it simply that space flight isn't mature enough yet? If commercial space flight ever takes off, is that what will make it more reliable? How can it take off until it is more reliable?

    • Re:Reliability? (Score:4, Funny)

      by peculiarmethod ( 301094 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @08:58PM (#10261897) Journal
      Haven't you heard? hard core Lucifer loyalists who want to bring you their New World Order with human-reptilians ruling this planet are sabotaging the Space Program so we are defenseless when they greys come down to activate the dormant DNA in special host families. (those super powerful secret families that we all know about)

      (/endrollingoftheeyes)

    • Re:Reliability? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WolfWithoutAClause ( 162946 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @09:36PM (#10262092) Homepage
      I realize that space flight is incredibly complex, but is it really that much more complex than regular flight?

      Probably, slightly, you have to deal with more problems that you don't have to deal with in aircraft- vacuum, heating, radiation etc. etc.

      Why does it seem that space flight is constantly plagued with problems?

      Mainly because there are bugs in the vehicles, or the production line that produces the vehicles, or bugs in the way that the vehicles are being used.

      The reason that the bugs are there is because every vehicle in service right now has only been launched a hundred or so times at most. Most aircraft have seen many times more launches than that during testing; and the bugs would have been removed. In addition there's more experience on how to avoid some of the bugs in the first place in aircraft- this experience has not been directly applied to launch vehicles.

      If commercial space flight ever takes off, is that what will make it more reliable?

      Pretty much yes, launch any vehicle enough; uncover the bugs and remove them, and you have a safe vehicle at the end of it.

      How can it take off until it is more reliable?

      You have to have brave people.

    • Re:Reliability? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jnicholson ( 733344 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @09:40PM (#10262117) Homepage
      Space flight isn't constantly plagued with problems. They've had a run of bad luck in the last year and a half, but prior to that they were running ahead of their expected averages.

      They're doing OK - don't knock them. Some things go spectacularly well, and some pretty badly, but most go acceptably.

      • I think the main issue here is that when there is a problem, everyone remembers and takes notice of that, but when there's a big success, no one really cares that much. It's like people are more interested in the problems than the actual results.

        One huge example I can think of is the rovers. It seemed like everyone knew about when they had problems, and it was a big deal. I wonder how many people know that the rovers preformed better than expected, and that their missions have been extended.

        • What gets me is the number of people who are saying the rovers are overengineered and clearly too much money was spent. I guess NASA just isn't allowed any latitude in either direction...

    • Re:Reliability? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Daetrin ( 576516 ) on Thursday September 16, 2004 @12:09AM (#10262986)
      I realize that space flight is incredibly complex, but is it really that much more complex than regular flight? Why does it seem that space flight is constantly plagued with problems?

      The problem isn't (necessarily, though i'm not sure of it) that spaceflight is that much more complex. The problem is that there is a much smaller margin of error.

      Airplanes can have roofs peel back, engines fall off, and all other of pretty bad things happen, and yet the planes often manage to come in for a safe landing anyways. A spacecraft has a (comparitively) small hole poked in it by some foam and the entire thing disintegrates during reentry.

      Spacecraft deal with more extreme conditions and are much farther away from help, so even when something small goes wrong it can go _really_ wrong.

    • If the average car built in the United States or Japan has at least one problem, why should you think spacecraft which are much more complex and having to deal with increadable stresses would be free of problems?
    • You don't think commercial air travel is "plagued with problems"? The difference is, solving those problems is routine and doesn't make front page news.
  • So, if the oxygen generator fails, they don't have redundant oxygen generators with a fail-over mechanism, to work uninterruptedly? Are they too huge that they have just one, and depend on reserve supplies? I hope they get the supplies soon. Perhaps, when China also launches their space vehicles, we will have more countries to rely on in case of space emergencies.
  • Those exploding bolts... touchy little buggers, always going off at the drop of a pin. Why is there nothing else?
    • It's your dream to someday design something that requires exploding bolts, right?
    • Those exploding bolts... touchy little buggers, always going off at the drop of a pin.
      The only other time that I have heard of explosive bolts going off by themselves was during Virgil "Gus" Grissom's Mercury flight, when the capsule hatch blew after splashdown.
      It is such an uncommon occurance that some engineers suspected that Grissom paniced and blew the hatch himself.
      • It's thought that he didn't blow the hatch.

        http://www.astronautix.com/flights/merrymr4.htm

        The mystery of Grissom's hatch was never solved to everyone's satisfaction. Among the favorite hypotheses were that the exterior lanyard might have become entangled with the landing bag straps; that the ring seal might have been omitted on the detonation plunger, reducing the pressure necessary to actuate it; or that static electricity generated by the helicopter had fired the hatch cover. But with the spacecraft

  • Back-up supplies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheWingThing ( 686802 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @08:55PM (#10261880)
    Hmm, from the links, it seems they only have oxygen canisters that would last one month. But NASA says they are in no immediate danger. Commander Gennady Padalka is confident he can clear the blockage and get the machine running again, said NASA spokesman Rob Navias. In the meantime, Padalka took spare parts and installed them in a spare oxygen generator, which could serve as a replacement if necessary So they have an extra oxygen generator, but I wonder why they don't have something like a 'RAID' system of these devices, instead of swapping parts after one of them fails.

    • Re:Back-up supplies (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @09:09PM (#10261949)
      They have 3 oxygen generators. All 3 are now broken. It's not like they have more spares laying around. They're talking about trying to repair one of the other broken ones.
    • As the other poster said, they have three redundant generators. This is an issue of serial failures, not lack of forsight.

      Also, they're not in immediate danger because they have a Soyuz return capsule currently docked at the station. They'll abandon the station if the next flight up gets delayed dangerously long.
  • Looks like Soyuz and Gemini problems are related to me: they put the Gemini bolts in the Soyuz and vice versa :-)

  • Oblig (Score:5, Funny)

    by ZosX ( 517789 ) <zosxavius@nOSpAm.gmail.com> on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @09:04PM (#10261929) Homepage
    In soviet russia...nah...too easy.

    zosX

  • Of course (Score:5, Funny)

    by Exiler ( 589908 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @09:04PM (#10261932)
    The real question we, as geeks, should be posing on Slashdot is: Where can I get some of these exploding bolts?

  • A bit of a sensationalist item by Slashdot. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by reality-bytes ( 119275 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @09:05PM (#10261936) Homepage

    "I'm sure it's something the two astronauts on the station are thinking about as they repressurize the station with reserve air supplies."

    Of course, if the 'worst' comes to the 'worst' the 2 astronauts use the Soyuz module which is attached to the ISS to return to Earth; they don't depend on another launch just to get back if there is a problem.

    If they use the 'lifeboat' Soyuz, there are no explosive bolts to worry about there because they have already been fired.

    Of course, it would put the module/lifeboat situation out of sync but that can be made up by launching a second time after the next crew goes up.

  • safe flight and explosive bolts dont mix (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    comparing space flight to regular flight is not very fruitful. regular flight is not safe either,and is plagued with problems. why? because both airlines, and space programs are very cheap, and very dishonest. notice it is the same backroom of aero companies that make both types of equipment. commercial, military, and space equipment is made as cheaply as possible. this is because space orgs need lots of money to "study psychological effects of space" and other make-work schemes.
    the concept of explosive bo
  • ...they should be young and lively when they get back.

  • Intercepted message from earth... (Score:5, Funny)

    by TiggertheMad ( 556308 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @09:16PM (#10261987) Journal
    "ISS, this is Huston. What is your status, over."

    "Huston, we are bingo air. Repeat, we are bingo air. send some up on a redbird, over"

    "ISS, that is a negative. Soyuz has dents in the fenders. Recomend you try that Jedi shit from episode one where they hold their breath, over."

    "Huston, episode 1 sucked, over."

    Wow, here's hoping everything turns out ok, the planet has had enough stuff go bad for manned space flight recently.
  • It's an extra Soyuz capsule, permantently attached, to be used as a lifeboat in case of emergency evacuation.

    As usual, it's the Russians bailing us out...
    • It's quid pro quo for NASA building all the sections of ISS that Russia failed to deliver on time.

      Of course, ISS is an international clusterfuck that should be mothballed YESTERDAY, but that's a different kettle of fish.

  • Clarification, they don't really 'explode' (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @10:03PM (#10262234) Homepage
    The 'explosive bolts' mention don't actually explode. The correct name is 'frangible bolt'. A small charge goes off inside it and breaks down the structure so it seperates cleanly. 'Explosive bolt' suggests that it goes off like a firecracker, but shooting shrapnel around inside a million pounds of cryogenic fuel and delicate machinery would be unwise.

    Also, in response to the post that asked why there were so many problems w/ spaceflight, there's one thing the responders failed to mention: assembly line quality.

    If you build 30 soyuz capsules over a 30 year period, each one is still very much like a craftsman assembled item. If, on the other hand, you build 100 devices of similar complexity in a year, then you can have real assembly lines with better inherent quality. The defects/flight and cost would drop dramatically if there were more spacecraft being built. Check the quality of the pre-Ford cars against the Model T, and the difference is immediately apparent.
    • I would think that hand building each one would produce better quality than assembly line work.

      A better car analogy would be a Rolls Royce vs. a Cadillac. Granted, a Caddy is a good car, but a Rolls is far and away a better car. Another analogy that might be more familiar to readers here would be comparing a vanilla Dell with a machine custom engineered for a specific purpose. I would put my money on the custom job.

      I also submit that the Model T wasn't better than it's ancestors because of an assembly

      • Granted, a Caddy is a good car...

        Not to detract from your point, but this is an erroneous statement. To further support this: The old adage "Don't ever buy a first year GM" is an old adage for a reason. Every Caddilac is a first year GM.

        Back on topic, though. I feel that spacecraft are actually of better quality than most assembly line produced machines. Consider the constant high load under extreme conditions. They benefit from the pros of both custom jobs and assembly line jobs. Many of the parts

  • What's with all the problems with manned flights? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dzimas ( 547818 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @10:10PM (#10262283)
    I suspect that a decade of funding neglect is what's causing such heartache for the US and Russian space programs. I wonder how long before the Chinese surpass them and set up their own space station? Given the general living conditions in the former USSR (yes, I've spent months living there), I can't see a sustained effort from the Russians for much longer. And the Americans don't seem interested anymore - the space-race ended years ago, and it no longer makes headlines unless everyone dies. I guess I better enroll in Mandarin classes... :)

  • Maybe someone can enlighten me.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Fortress ( 763470 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @10:22PM (#10262354) Homepage
    ...as to what exactly an oxygen generator is. From what does it generate oxygen? I thought spacecraft just carried pressurised (or liquefied) oxygen and just regulated it into the internal atmosphere. Is this one of those gag devices like a lumber stretcher or a left-handed monkey wrench? Do astronauts haze the new guy by saying "Hey, go check the oxygen generator. Then see if you can find my black hole."

  • Gus Grissom Vindicated "It just blew!" (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    NASA Said it had never happened...

    Apparently one of the small explosive bolts, used to separate sections of the capsule during landing, prematurely exploded, which means the bolts may all have to be inspected for defects.

    Now it has happened again.

  • what a mess (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Chuck Bucket ( 142633 )
    we really need the shuttle (or whatever *should* be taking over for it by now...) to get back in the game. no more of this dropping pieces of foam to doom the rentry...ugg.

    CB

  • Alpha testing space flight (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iamlucky13 ( 795185 ) on Thursday September 16, 2004 @12:53AM (#10263258)
    While it's true to a degree that space flight is inherently more difficult than atmospheric flight, that isn't the sole, or even the main factor contributing to the unreliability of space flight. It's also not really a problem of using old equipment. In fact, the problem can be considered using new equipment. Don't worry, I'm not crazy. Read on.

    The Wright Brothers crashed several times before their first powered flight, and they crashed on their third flight, and they crashed several times more in the years following that. It was part of starting out. Compare that with now. Every part in an airplane is rigorously tested, at least in the prototype. Most parts are "off-the-shelf," which not only makes them cheaper, but means the engineers can become familiar with their failure history and plan ahead. Even the newest designs are based on one that worked well before.

    In the space program, however, everything is new. The oxygen generator was built specifically for the space station. It was tested in the lab where it was built. At best, it was designed and built by applying lessons learned from a handful of similar devices before it.

    Remember, NASA is about developing technology. In a way, the space program now is sort of like a software program in its alpha test stage. A lot of lessons will be learned and a lot of bugs will be identified. In the next few decades, companies like Scaled Composites will produce vehicles that better fit the description of Beta releases. Maybe it won't be too long before we're asking if interstellar travel is really that much more difficult than flying to Mars.
    • Maybe it won't be too long before we're asking if interstellar travel is really that much more difficult than flying to Mars.

      ummm. i don't think we'll ever ask that. developing a faster than light spacecraft, OR a method to suspended biological process in humans for tens, hundreds, or thousands of years will be many orders of magnitude more complex than spending a few months in an intra stellar spacecraft destined for mars. not that we are in the ballpark in on that one either. "simply" going to the moon
    • In the space program, however, everything is new. The oxygen generator was built specifically for the space station.

      The generator may have been built specifically for the ISS, but it's a design that served many years aboard MIR. It's not new, it's not untested, and it is a field proven system, but, even aboard mir, it was one of the more problematic devices.

  • Exploding Bolts (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BlueTooth ( 102363 ) on Thursday September 16, 2004 @08:40AM (#10264771) Homepage
    I'm no rocket scientist, but exploding bolts have always seemed like an engineering cop out to me.

    Engineer A: "Lets see...we have these two parts that need to be held together really tightly and then released very quickly"

    Engineer B: "I have an idea, let's just build the whole damn thing out of plastique or some shit, that'll work great"

    A: "Good show ol' chap. That will work fine and dandy indeed."

    jokes aside, what are the compelling (practical?) reasons that exploding bolts seem to be so common in spacecraft?
    • As explained above...they don't actually explode, per se. They're not a "bomb" or whatever that you could use to "blow something up".

      Nor are most of them "bolts" as we would think of them...as in, they're not (usually) threaded steel rods with hex heads. They're probably actually closer to what we'd think of as rivits.

      Given the forces involved during various portions of ascent or descent, SOMETHING has to hold "parts" (2 stages, the hatch covering a chute, an external fuel tank, whatever) together quite
      • Yeah. That's cool. I've always liked the idea of exploding bolts, it just seems so sketchy...a structural component that fails on command...it might just be a point of semantics, but having something that is intended to fail so completely seems weird...oh well. Crazy engineers...
        • Look at it this way, if they build a 'mechanism' to pull the locking bolt out instead of exploding the bolt, then that mechanism could fail and you'd be seriously screwed.

          From a simplicity stand point, the exploding bolts make sense. You only have the wire(?) (and control method to send the signal) to the explosive charge in the bolt; that's all that can fail. As opposed to a mechanical moving mechanism that would pull a bolt out of it's hole while under the heavy stresses of ascent. Now factor that mu
          • You also hit on the key reason such a mechanism was never used...the forces involved. Think about it...BY DEFINITION, the bolt (retaining pin, whatever) MUST be EXTREMELY difficult to seperate/remove. If not, it wouldn't withstand the forces involved. Of course, we have a situation where, at a precise moment in time, we want to "remove" the bolt...suddenly. Catch-22. Bolt needs to withstand incredible forces without budging, but at time X, needs to be easily and quickly removable. Simply put...the mec
    • Do you have an alternative?
  • I did NOT do anything wrong. The hatch just BLEW. It was a GLITCH. It was a- a TECHNICAL MALFUNCTION. Why in hell won't anyone believe me?
  • They should have used self-sealing stem bolts.

  • So, yuz plannin' on launchin' that capsule inter space, wuz ya? Well yer'd best check them bolts fust... I had one 'splode and blow one o' my best wrenches slap into! I wouldn' trust 'em, nosuh.
    -
    Y'all please pardon the spelling; I'm an old Southern hillbilly turner of wrenches.

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