Further Details From Soyuz Mishap

fyc brings us some information from Universe Today about what happened to Soyuz TMA-11 when it re-entered the atmosphere late last week. Reports indicate that a failure of explosive bolts to separate the Soyuz modules delayed the re-entry and oriented the capsule so the hatch was taking most of the heat, rather than the heat shields. CNN reports that the crew was in 'severe danger.' They experienced forces of up to 8.2 gravities. NASA officials have voiced their approval of how Russia handled the crisis. They expect to rely heavily on Soyuz spacecraft once the shuttles are retired in 2010.

GAO Report

[stoolpigeon]

It is interesting that the GAO has concerns about the ability of Soyuz to take the shuttle's place. [orlandosentinel.com] And anything else with capabilities that approach the shuttle's are basically vaporware at this point. I think that it is not out of line to ask if the ISS is going to make it. I'm not saying that because I think it wont, I just don't think it is to difficult to imagine very realistic scenarios where it does not.

We won't always be so lucky

[timeOday]

It will be interesting to see public outcry when one of the Russian craft craters with Americans onboard. This will inevitably happen, even if the Soyuz is safer than anything America has (which it probably is). Then we'll all have to be dragged through a lot of media-driven "soul-searching" about whether it was smart to "outsource NASA" (you heard it here first).

Re:We won't always be so lucky

[moderatorrater]

And everyone with a brain will point out that more americans have died in american shuttle mishaps than have died in russian shuttle mishaps. Space is inherently dangerous, everyone knows it, and the public outcry against the shuttle disasters up to this point hasn't been that severe; I doubt it'll be too severe when an American dies on a foreign craft.

Russian hardware

[Bombula]

Give me Russian-built aerospace hardware any day. Their stuff is built brick-shithouse tough. Re-entry without the heatshield? Astonishing. I've heard lots of stuff over the years about how tough the old Migs and SUs were as well, and I think the attitude would translate well to space exploration. I think NASA's approach of building craft out of gold foil and tissue paper in clean rooms, trying to turn every last ounce of the payload into instrumentation is misguided. How much does a Soyuz laucnh cost compared to a shuttle launch? Fuel and other materials are the cheapest part of the overall cost of spaceflight, so the logical thing would seem to be to build simple, cheap, super-tough craft and just launch dozens of them rather than investing heavily in individual craft. And why not launch missions with a fleet of craft, rather than just a single vehicle? When we do launch more than one vehicle, it is months apart as in the case of the Mars rovers. Doesn't make much sense.

There's a moral that applies here... how does it go again? Something about not putting all your eggs in one basket, if I recall correctly...

Re:We won't always be so lucky

[ceoyoyo]

Maybe they'll decide not to outsource NASA then.

I expect the attitude might change somewhat when China and India start putting people on the moon too. Then we'll find out whether the United States is in inevitable decline or whether there's some life left in the old empire.

Re:You are being held by a force of two gravities!

[ch-chuck]

People have willingly endured 46.2g [damninteresting.com] 's.

Re:Russian hardware

[Colonel Korn]

Having spoken with two ex-Mig flight trainers who had also flown F-16s, my impression of their impression was that they loved the potential of the Migs, but were always nervous that the electronics would get them killed. American aircraft have had system crashes that have endangered (and probably in cases I don't know about, killed) pilots, but in India it was considered common for Mig pilots to die because instruments went glitchy at a bad time (like in low visibility situations). Maybe this was somewhat specific to Indian Migs, though. One of the pilots told me that his dream plane would be a Mig design built in the US.

There's another way...

[bigfootindy]

There's an alternative to waiting 5 years after the final shuttle launch - check out http://www.directlauncher.com./ [www.directlauncher.com] It'd be ready 2 years after the final shuttle launch and it would cost a heck of a lot less than Ares...

Re:We won't always be so lucky

[moosesocks]

The safety differences between Soyuz and Shuttle are statistically insignificant. Unless you engage in shady practices like not counting Soyuz-1 and Soyuz-10 "because they were a long time ago", etc... By that that metric one should be able to discard Challenger as well - at which point Shuttle's safety is still equal to or better than any other booster excepting only Soyuz. Even so, the difference is still statistically insignificant because neither vehicle has a enough flights to create valid statistics.

No, we discount Soyuz-1 and Soyuz-10, because they were completely different craft than the capsules that are flying today.

And, yes. I think you actually might be able to discount Challenger, because the fundamental design "bug" that caused it to happen was fixed.

However, one of the chief "safety" features of Soyuz is the robustness of the basic capsule itself, which has allowed it to protect the crew, even in the event of the catastrophic failure of several of its systems (one of them exploded on the launchpad, and the crew survived). As long as the retro-rockets and parachutes are intact, a free-fall to earth is usually survivable.

The shuttle, on the other hand, does not have many favorable abort modes. If any part of the craft fails, the integrity of the entire craft is compromised, and the crew are almost certainly doomed. Had a challenger-type incident occurred during a Soyuz, it is likely that the crew would have survived. Similarly, the fact that the crew entered literally upside-down during this past mission demonstrates that a Columbia-type failure isn't all that likely either.

The Space Shuttle has literally millions of parts and components, the failure of any one of which can spell doom for the mission and crew. The Soyuz engineers were not nearly as optimistic regarding their own manufacturing and quality-control abilities, and made something that was idiot-proof.

Ironically, NASA's next-generation craft design [wikipedia.org] resembles the Soyuz more closely than anything else. The Russian [wikipedia.org] and ESA [wikipedia.org] designs all opted for something that most closely resembles a hybrid between a capsule design and shuttle design (but on a much smaller and less extravagant scale).

Re:Recent NASA announcement on ISS resupply

[FleaPlus]

I also just came across some interesting related commentary here:

http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=5989&catid=49 [hobbyspace.com]

NASA needs the Falcon 9 [spacex.com]/Dragon [spacex.com] combo to attain crew service capability if the agency is to have a US based option for sending astronauts to the ISS sometime during the period between the end of the Shuttle program in 2010 and the start of Ares I/Orion operations in 2015. So far, all the designs reviews (e.g. here [spacex.com], here [spacex.com], and here [spacex.com]) have found no fundamental flaws in either the Falcon 9 or Dragon designs. Assuming aerospace engineering does not involve black magic, this should mean something. Currently COTS is funding F9/Dragon (and also the Orbital Taurus II [orbital.com]) only for cargo services. Increasing COTS funding to accelerate development of the Dragon [aviationweek.com] for crew transport would seem a reasonable gamble, especially considering it would cost a fraction of what is going into the Ares/Orion program.

On the other hand, if Falcon 9/Dragon succeeds there will most likely arise overwhelming pressure to kill Ares I/Orion to save billions dollars in further development and operational costs. (NASA could alter its lunar exploration architecture to use the Dragon instead of Orion, e.g. see this powerful option [blogspot.com].) Jeff Foust and Rand Simberg comment on recent statements from Mike Griffin as he tries to deal with this situation:
/-- COTS contradictions? - Space Politics [spacepolitics.com]
/-- Griffin's COTS Contradictions - Transterrestrial Musings [transterrestrial.com]

[Update: Jon Goff also discusses the gap and COTS issues: Gap Math - Selenian Boondocks - Apr.8.08 [blogspot.com].]

Re:Russian hardware

[phliar]

By "electronics would get them killed" do you mean in combat?

My brother is a MiG-29 (and Su-27) pilot. (He has also flown F-16s on a USAF detachment.) On a landing approach in the MiG-29, he hit a truck that was parked a little too close to the runway. They had to replace the wheels and tires but otherwise the aircraft was fine. The truck was totalled.

Re:GAO Report

[Dun Malg]

Makes you wonder what it would take to put the old Saturn V back in service/

Well, despite the rumors, the plans for the Saturn V have not been lost... but that's not the real issue anyway. All the tooling used to make the Saturn V is long gone. If you have to start from scratch building the manufacturing capacity, then you really might as well start from scratch on the design. Of course, there's nothing wrong with saying "we'll start with the same basic configuration as the Saturn V" and then re-creating the specifics with modern materials and techniques. The manned Mars mission craft is a derivative of the Apollo.