NASA's Orion Mock-Up Fails Parachute Test 163
leetrout writes "Fox News has the story on a parachute test failing on a mock up of the new Orion spacecraft. 'This is the most complicated parachute test NASA has run since the '60s,' said Carol Evans, test manager for the parachute system at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. 'We are taking a close look at what caused the set-up chutes to malfunction. A failure of set-up parachutes is actually one of the most common occurrences in this sort of test.' Space.com has the video."
Common occurances... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Common occurances... (Score:4, Interesting)
At this stage of development? Quite possible. If you read up on the history of the X- series and our early space launches, it's quite scary.
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Yes, except it really is kind of a disappointment that they have to "relearn" what they did with Apollo. One would have hoped they would have kept the documents and engineering notes to allow them to basically duplicate the earlier effort, but apparently they did not.
Re:Common occurances... (Score:5, Insightful)
The documents and egineering notes from Apollo are both available and useless. I really wish the urban legend would die. Do you seriously imagine that we need to "relearn" how to make parachutes for fucks sake? Please stop parroting this BS.
We're not doing things the way we did in the 60s for the simple reason that we know much better ways of doing things. Any large-scale engineering effort will run into significant problems here or there, and the problems are rarely tied to the underlying technology. Sometimes a supplier tries to get away with being cheap, and fails. Sometimes the written procedures are ambiguous in ways only obvious in hindsight. Sometime shit just goes wrong! There are always corner cases specific to a given complicated assemby of complicated pieces that you only find by testing.
That's why engineers do testing. To find these problems.
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Nasa no doubt has any special love for the shuttle fleet. They were built under a promise that everyone realized was not achievable for a government institution to do, which is to function cheaply and efficiently..
Now, after 3 decades, and having their chairman admit that the shuttle program was a mistake, they are going back to their roots and re-building Apollo and Saturn 5.
So yes... The Shuttle was a very expensive mistake and even Nasa admits this... If the Saturn 5 would have ever been produced in vo
Re:Common occurances... (Score:5, Insightful)
You should, instead, lament the fact that The Reagan administration got rid of practically all of the corporate knowledge base as NASA in hopes of reducing the number of civil servants in favor of contractors they felt they could simply scale up and down as needed. The actual effect was to push out anyone capable of holding their own in the private marketplace. Some stayed at contractors for a while, while others simply left for other lines of work. Those at contractors stayed until the work dried up, and were then laid off by said contractors. At that point, they went to find jobs elsewhere.
When NASA needed to staff up for anything, the contractors were paid to go hire people. The problem is that they went and hired younger, cheaper engineers with no experience in spaceflight. The kind of work NASA does is, for the most part, pretty specialized. Many NASA engineers can find work in other industries and be productive fairly quickly because they (a) have core competency in very custom work and (b) industry has an old guard to give them the specific training in the new specialty. Conversely, bringing in an average engineer with "pick it out of a book" mentality is going to take forever to relearn the advanced basics (I call them that - it's the 4000/5000/6000 level stuff you learn in college; not hard, per say, but complex and _not_ part of a typical engineer's day to day life). Couple that with practically _no_ old guard to teach them the intricacies and anomalies of spaceflight work and you've destined to have a slow, painful, and failure-rich engineering process.
While the "how" is written down many places, the "why" isn't as apparent from a stack of prints. And though there are huge books of "lessons learned" on many projects, it's not easy to capture decades of experience and apply them real time given the capacity of individual human brains. What they need is continuity, not librarians.
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But that's OK, 'cause younger, cheaper engineers with no experience had computers and software instead of sliderules, pencils and paper! Problem solved.
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I presume you're being sarcastic, in which case I agree. A computer is fantastic at solving complex problems to a very high precision - far higher than possible by humans. The problem is that computers - and many who operate them - don't know whether the answer is correct, just that the answer has forty significant figures. You need pencil and paper (and a sliderule or a calculator) to find out of the answer is correct. The more complex a problem you set out to solve, the more important is is to know approx
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In many ways it makes things more complicated and enables less qualified people to get into the industry.
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Let me tell you a little story about a project an airforce undertook to modernise their maritime patrol aircraft. Instead of brand new aircraft, it was decided that to reduce costs, the fuselage of the old aircraft would be refurbished and reused, al
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Eh, what can you expect from an aircraft called "Nimrod?"
Good story, though, about partially updating old old tech. (Anyone who's had to maintain large bodies of legacy software is probably already familiar with the effect, though.)
Oooh, ooh, this discussion suddenly became even more on-topic. The US counterpart to the BAE MRA4 Nimrod is the Lockheed P-3C Orion. Eerie, isn't it?
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Except that particular Orion works and is pretty easily modified. :\
Apollo/Saturn WORKED! (Score:3, Insightful)
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The Apollo program consisted of 17 manned missions on the Saturn V. Much of the success of the Apollo program can probably be attributed to dumb luck - the Saturn launch vehicle was by no means perfect and had many significant flaws including the well known pogo oscillations in multiple stages that might have cut Apollo 6 and Apollo 13 short before it had even left Earth orbit.
I have no idea why people call the Shuttle Transportation system a disaster - the Shuttle program has had 123 flights, two of which
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No, he is right. They need to start with the old design and look at how technology can improve it instead of re-inventing the wheel all over again.
Just like Ferrari should look at a '72 Fiat and try to learn from it?
You might be surprised, but those NASA engineers working on that parachute do have a clue how parachutes work, even the Apollo ones. They are making _better_ parachutes, and if you've ever engineered anything you'd know that the first design is never the final design. Neither is the second.
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Ferrari DOES look back at its previous generations cars to improve upon the new ones. They don't look that far back though when they have learned so much since then. NASA hasn't lear
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1) TFA says that this system IS Apollo-based
2) In the test, it was not the 'chute that failed under design conditions, but rather the test was outside design bounds. In other words, just like the title of this page says, the mock-up was a failure, the parachute being mocked up did not fail.
3) The test was a success: data was learned from it.
Wrongo; it's based on the launch abort chutes (Score:2)
Wrongo; it's based on the launch abort chutes from the Apollo program. Those chutes didn't have a lot of testing, and never in launch abort conditions.
I am rather thinking that the parent poster thinks they should have started with chutes that were known to work, not chutes designed in the Apollo era, but never used on real missions. Those would be things like the three capsule chutes that anyone who saw the earth-returns of the Apollo capsules remembers from immediately preceeding splashdown.
If you have
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You seem to have some involvement with the company making the parachutes, so I suggest you take tlambert's comment seriously. It was apparent to me, too, that the large chute never had a chance to open because the shroud lines were pulling with too much force, keeping the chute closed.
Remember this, NASA (Score:5, Funny)
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It drives me nuts when movie/television superheroes (Smallville, Hancock, etc) catch a falling victim. Lois Lane falls from the top of the the Daily Planet building. Superman is busy battling foes. We see a shot of Lois Lane still falling. Back to Clark Kent, who suddenly see's Lois' peril. He rushes over and catches her... and her brains splatter all over his arms! She was falling at terminal velocity, and landing on Superman's forearms isn't going to be any softer than landing on concrete. Clark needs to
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You just don't know enough about Superman.
Super Catching, allowing him to safely decelerate objects he catches, is just one of his lesser-known powers, along with Super Ventriloquism [superdickery.com] and Super Hunches [superdickery.com].
He has an unrelated power which is also called Super Catching, but we won't talk about that.
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One of Superman's special abilities is to locally modify the universal gravity constant... hence the reason he is able to "fly", pick up incredibly heavy things, and to catch stuff like our sweet little damsel in distress (read Lois Lane).
Kryptonite, unfortunately, has some properties that counter this gravitational distortion and makes space "normal" for Superman, sort of like another physical property like electrical charge that has a polar opposite in Superman's blood vs. Kryptonite.
Of course this abili
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The villain asked for a kryptonite gun when he meant he wanted kryptonite bullets.
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Why is it that Superman just stands there and lets you shoot at him, but he ducks when you throw the empty gun at him?
Maybe because getting hit with a thrown gun hurts?
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Why is it that Superman just stands there and lets you shoot at him, but he ducks when you throw the empty gun at him?
He doesn't. Come on, cite an example. Even in the old George Reeves TV series he didn't.
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(and the person who was falling isn't killed by the sudden deceleration of being caught by the superhero)
Yeah, that drives me and my friend Gwen Stacy nuts too!
That said, maybe you didn't get the memo. It turns out superhero movies and TV shows are not documentaries.
Click here [wikipedia.org] for a little background if who don't know why I mentioned my friend Gwen Stacy.
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She was falling at terminal velocity, and landing on Superman's forearms isn't going to be any softer than landing on concrete. Clark needs to jump up, grab Lois, and *decelerate* her.
It's been hypothesized, in the comics, that Superman's powers are somewhat psychokinetic in nature. For example, Superman can carry more weight in flight than he can standing. So in your example Superman is unconsciously using his psychokinesis to slow Lois down before he catches her.
Wrong Orion! (Score:2)
I read the article and thought...
Ohh they are doing Nuclear powered spacecraft tests!!
Bummer...
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Me too, old boom boom, AKA "Project orion" http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/orion3.gif [projectrho.com], is just too much of an "OMFG they want to do WHAT!" to be forgotten.
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/orion.htm [astronautix.com]
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I always thought the Orion project was a really elegant solution to interstellar travel considering the thechnology!
Well There's Your Problem Right There (Score:5, Funny)
What went wrong: (Score:5, Funny)
Well, Lou, first that thing fell off. And then that thing fell off. And then that thing fell off. And before all those things fell off, they didn't slow the damn thing down enough to keep the brains of the passengers from splattering through their Dr. Scholl's on that otherwise gentle landing.
That, Lou, is what went wrong.
Complicated? (Score:2)
'This is the most complicated parachute test NASA has run since the '60s'
Is any parachute test really that complicated? I RTFA (really) and it doesn't sound so bad. Can someone explain why this is the most complicated one in 40 years?
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Is any parachute test really that complicated? I RTFA (really) and it doesn't sound so bad. Can someone explain why this is the most complicated one in 40 years?
Yea! I mean come on folks, this is a PARACHUTE test. It's not like it's rocket sci... Oh. Wait. Never mind...
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Because they haven't done any (or almost any) in 40 years thus it is by definition the most complicated.
Re:Complicated? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's simple: NASA hasn't designed a space capsule in 40 years. They've been flying refrigerators^W gliders instead. They need to get back into the groove of landing large objects with parachutes before these tests become routine again.
And then there was the Genesis probe [wikipedia.org]. That had to be the weirdest recovery scheme I've heard of yet. And on top of everything, the contractor installed the accelerometer backwards! Which tells you about how much experience NASA and its contractors has had with parachutes since the 60's.
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Then whos been doing the testing for all the mars landers with parachutes? I know some of them used the "airbag method" but unless my memory is faulty, NASA has been using parachutes for a while. Perhaps not in a manned application, which Im sure adds a lot of complexity to the project.
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"Falling Refrigerator" is the old NASA joke about the Shuttle's ability to glide. It is so heavy and its descent rate is so fast that the pilots often think of it more as controlled falling than gliding. No ill will intended by that remark.
As for NASA not parachuting a craft of this size since the 60's, I stand by that statement. NASA's spokesperson said as much. I dare you to prove otherwise.
As for the anti-criticism about experience with parachutes, I'll take that criticism. I was not aware that the CIA h
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Maybe because they did it wrong before?
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Is any parachute test really that complicated? I RTFA (really) and it doesn't sound so bad. Can someone explain why this is the most complicated one in 40 years?
Yes. It's huge.
Hugeness, as it turns out, creates complexity.
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The technology can get complicated. Much of today's parachute technology was originally developed in the 1950s to help deliver nuclear weapons by aircraft. The parachute slowed the descent of the weapon from supersonic speeds and could be used to gently (relatively) lay the weapon on the ground, where it would sit until detonated by a timer. Conventional parachutes were useless. They would just disintegrate when opened.
Surprising news (Score:2, Funny)
So, a parachute failure in a parachute test is "one the most common occurrences in this sort of test"? I'm shocked I tell you, shocked!
Of course it didn't work! (Score:2, Funny)
This is not even news... (Score:5, Insightful)
...parachute tests fail all the time. That's why they are tested. These aren't parachutes from Lucky's Parachute and Bait Shop for chrissake. They are custom designed and often cutting edge.
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That's why they are tested.
Exactly, be thankful it broke during testing and not with people in it.
Where I work, we do a lot of durability testing. Whenever something breaks during a durability test, somebody is always upset. We have to remind them that the whole point of the test is to break it.
Granted, this wasn't a durability test, and breaking it wasn't the goal. The mock-up may have failed to perform as designed, but as long as they obtain enough information to figure out why it didn't perform as designed, the test was suc
Re:This is not even news... (Score:5, Informative)
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Well, duh. The set-up parachutes are one of the first things to happen in the parachute deployment path. Consider path A --> B --> C ---> D.
Assuming equal probability of failure at any point, then of course failure at point A will be the most common; one cannot proceed to B (or C or D) unless A has happened successfully.
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Wobble. (Score:2)
Wow, look at the capsule oscillate. That can't be helpful -- or comfortable (even without the sudden stop).
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True enough. Just so long as they don't add moveable weights to counter that vibration mode.
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A Successful Test! (Score:4, Insightful)
They found a bug! It was a good test.
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They found a bug! It was a good test.
This project's got more bugs than a Taco Bell, they can't swing a dead cat without finding one.
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they can't swing a dead cat without finding one.
I suggest storing the cat in a freezer next time - it will get rid of the bugs.
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Well, I'm never eating at Taco Bell again after reading that. I hope you're happy...
Your GI tract will thank you.
The last time I ate at Taco Bell? Ten years ago, had it for lunch. Driving home from work later I'm feeling kind of eh, then suddenly from out of nowhere I get a case of the technocolor yawns, projectile-style. Usually you have a bit of warning with food poisoning, you get the ill feeling in the back of your throat and you're like "Dude, I'm not going to vomit," your mouth starts to water in that horrible way you know means something is coming up right now and you're like "dude,
Re:A Successful Test! (Score:5, Informative)
True as well as witty.
If you read TFA, you will see that the capsule was falling faster than the intended deployment speed, causing the drogue chutes to cut away before the main chute could be deployed.
So this clearly a bug in the test procedure. The test procedure was testing outside the intended speed range. Whether this was at a speed the system should ultimately work at or not, we don't know from the information given.
In other words, the test failure doesn't necessarily show the parachute design, fabrication or installation was faulty. Of course this must be sobering for anybody who's on the short list to be on the first team that relies on the system.
Incompetent andaerodynamically unstable to boot... (Score:2, Insightful)
Bring back the geezers who designed Apollo's chutes, and give them a slide rule and million dollars each just to stuff it to the Orion Program Managers who are clearly more politically skilled than technical.
In the long run this will be hundreds
Re:Incompetent andaerodynamically unstable to boot (Score:2, Informative)
You are aware that, per TFA, this IS basically the same parachute system as on Apollo.
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Not to mention that the grandparent never seems to have studied the Apollo project and seen the varied and sundry test rigs they used back then.
Confucius say (Score:5, Funny)
Confucius say "Parachute like girls legs. Best when open."
How do I add a "thud" tag to this? (Score:4, Funny)
still unclear but (Score:2)
It sounded like one of the 3 (or 10 depending on how you read it) chutes added to clear the airplane failed. It takes a chute to clear the plane if you drop it out the back door?!? I don't really get that part and besides shouldn't you design a drop that doesn't add components that aren't going to be on the real deal?
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I wonder if they considered the effect of the deploying plane's jetwash on the opening of the first chutes.
I know, it sounds silly, but just remember the aircraft windshield tests that failed until someone remembered to thaw the turkeys that they were shooting at the mockups. Sometimes the obvious does get overlooked.
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The capsule has same the horizontal momentum as the plane as it's leaving. It's like dropping a bomb. It's definitely leaving the plane vertically but not so much horizontally. The plane will likely outpace the capsule because the plane has engines running and the capsule is likely less aero' than the plane. But likely not by enough to get the whole thing clear of the engine wash and to get the bevy of observers closer to it. So you drop its velocity (both H and V) with a small chute.
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I'd think a big-assed weather balloon type drop would make more sense, be more predictable. They didn't ask me though for some reason.
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It's like LAPSE (Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System) if you've ever seen them do that: they can jerk a tank (well, OK, an APC) out the back of a flying C-5 at low level (REALLY low level--like 5-10 ft) by attaching a chute to the armor and throwing it out the back of the aircraft while it's flying.
The plane is flying straight and level at altitude, they open the tail section and deploy the chutes which are supposed to pull the mock-up out of the cargo compartment. It's not completely clear to me from
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LAPES is a fine comparison, but they also use drogues to extract very heavy items in airdrops, like hummers and light tanks. The C-17 has a motorized track that can extract payloads, but for something as weighty as a hummer, they cannot afford to have it hanging or hung at the end of the ramp. That kind of center of gravity displacement means big trouble for the aircraft if they can't get rid of it.
Well... (Score:2)
...that sucked.
Back to the drawing board.
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Interesting you should use that phrase.
Here's a link that shows the origin of the phrase. [phrases.org.uk]
The included graphic seems particularly apt.
Whatever (Score:2)
Parachutes are for wimps.
Apollo chute test failed too (Score:5, Informative)
A Parachute Test Vehicle (PTV) test failed at El Centro, Calif. The PTV was released from a B-52 aircraft at 15,240 meters and the drogue chute programmer was actuated by a static line connected to the aircraft. One drogue chute appeared to fail upon deployment, followed by failure of the second drogue seven seconds later. Disreefing of these drogues normally occurred at 8 seconds after deployment with disconnect at deployment at plus 18 seconds. The main chute programmer deployed and was effective for only 14 out of the expected 40 seconds' duration. This action was followed by normal deployment of one main parachute, which failed, followed by the second main parachute as programmed after four-tenths of a second, which also failed. The main chute failure was observed from the ground and the emergency parachute system deployment was commanded but also failed because of high dynamic pressure, allowing the PTV to impact and be destroyed. Investigation was under way and MSC personnel were en route to El Centro and Northrop-Ventura to determine the cause and to effect a solution. TWX, George M. Low, MSC, to NASA Hq., Attn: Apollo Program Director, Jan. 11, 1968.
Source: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4009/v4p2h.htm [nasa.gov]
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Direct video link (Score:5, Informative)
For those that hate space.com:
http://mfile.akamai.com/18566/wmv/etouchsyst2.download.akamai.com/18355/wm.nasa-global/Constellation/CDT2_256.asx [akamai.com]
See also:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/orion/pa_chute_test.html [nasa.gov]
Not much like skydiving, except Walter Hudson (Score:4, Informative)
This is Your Captain Speaking: (Score:4, Funny)
We might experience some turbulence, then explode.
Did they bother wind tunnel testing that thing? (Score:4, Informative)
From my comfortable armchair, it looked like at least one bunch of chutes might have been severed by the capsule rolling over the lines. I think they have to fix their CG and aeroshell problems before they try another drop test.
why parachutes and not something simpler? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not an aeronautical engineer, so this is probably a really naive question that someone with more education and brains can answer:
Why, under conditions when you need extreme reliability, do we use parachutes? I can imagine that a simpler design that has lower chance of failure (like just a long streamer) would be preferable. Is it a weight-to-performance issue?
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Simple - because parachutes are extremely reliable.
In the real world, a long streamer isn't going to be 'simple'. You need to be able to eject it from the craft, which is going to require a deployment bag for clean separation. Now you have to get the streamer out of the bag and cleanly deployed witho
Did they cut the video short? (Score:4, Funny)
I was waiting for an anvil to fall on what was left of the spacecraft followed by a roadrunner zooming past in the foreground.
Not surpising (Score:3, Insightful)
From an organization that always goes with the low bidder - this is not surprising....
THE REAL QUESTION (Score:3, Insightful)
WHY, with NASA having so much larger budget than before (even accounting for inflation), and so much better engineering than before, and so much better design and simulation tools than before, and VASTLY more experience than before...
WHY are we seeing so much more FAILURE than before???
NASA of the 1960s kicked the current NASA's ass for success rate.
So COME ON, folks! What is wrong???
My suggestion: bureaucracy.
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Two reasons; First, today we have the internet, allowing failure to widely broadcast. Second because virtually of the books on Apollo skim over the millions of hours of tedious component and system research tests, d
Re:Why the parachute? (Score:5, Informative)
Not really; parachutes are actually pretty finicky pieces of equipment. Parachutes for people are something we've been doing for about 80 years now, they are produced and packed with incredibly exacting care, and every parachutist actually carries two parachutes, just in case. And you *still* occasionally hear about parachute accidents where the parachute didn't work right. The main problem is that it is very easy for the rigging to get tangled, and when that happens the parachute doesn't open correctly and the whole deal drops like a rock.
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Ain't it the truth.
When I was in the 82nd Airborne, we'd get a jump or two every month. In big operations (where a full regiment jumps together) you'd pretty much see at least one mae west and sundry other "minor" screw-ups.
When you have a trained parachutist on the end of the risers who can tweak them or decide to pull his reserve, it's a lot less dicey than when some "mock up" that's unable to respond to the situation drills in from 20,000 ft.
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I had a 16 yr old pack my main once and the damn pilot chute monkey fisted on me at pull time. Took a couple seconds to free it and then had one hell of a teeth shattering opening.
Wow, you make skydiving sound so exciting. I just love sports where I wonder for "a couple of seconds" whether I'm going home in a bus or a bag. ever try open warfare?
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First rule of chute packing: Pack your own.
Corollary to First Rule: Nobody else gets blamed for the fuckup if it malfunctions.
SB
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, there were no reserve chutes; after the "setup" chutes cut away, two chutes are supposed to open to orient the craft, and then after they cut away three deployment chutes pop which pull out and deploy the three main chutes. Due to the craft not having been set up correctly (where "correctly" is in reference to the conditions that the craft should be flying under at that point in the descent), the craft's landing chutes could not do their job, and the test is essentially void.
They mention that Orion uses the same basic chute system configuration as the Apollo craft did.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Good summary, I was wondering why so many chutes deployed and failed. I was waiting for spare tires and pinatas to start streaming out...
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Good summary, I was wondering why so many chutes deployed and failed.
If you like that kind of stuff, you might want to try reading TFA every now and then. Just a thought.
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you might want to try reading TFA every now and then. Just a thought.
You're really new here, aren't you?
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From the video it looks like the orientation("setup") chute shrouds got caught on something on the main body of the craft as it left it's delivery sled, and never fully deployed. The oscillations that produced ensured that none of the rest of the chutes deployed correctly, by the time the mains deployed the craft was in a tumble.
I wonder if it isn't the way it was sledded out? It's orientation to the airflow from that sled is very very different than what it would be on a reentry (sideways t
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According to Douglas Adams, the secret to flying is to aim at the ground and miss, but you have to be distracted to miss. I guess they weren't distracted enough.
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As the pilot used to say to the passengers on take-off
"Do not worry, everything that goes up will come down."
And please think of the future crew members of Orion having to watch that video.
Ouch. Monday morning meeting.