NASA may tap SpaceX to rescue ISS 'nauts in Soyuz leak NASA is considering using SpaceX to bring three astronauts back to Earth from the International Space Station after the Russian spacecraft due to return the crew suffered a significant coolant leak. On December 14, the Russian MS-22 Soyuz capsule, which is right now docked to the ISS, started spraying droplets of coolant into …
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Seems a reasonable idea. But notice how this story has to be put into some weird context. Its got to involve "Elon Musk" and "Russia" as if these are imperative to make the story readable.
SpaceX might be a closely held company with Muxk listed as "CEO and CTO" but I don't think he's involved in day to day operations. The company's main claim to fame is that its cracked the nut that was promised with the Space Shuttle but never achieved.
Russia's in everyone's Bad Books of course. So we have an obligation to paint anything and everything about it in a negative light regardless of what it is. (Its been like this for decades....)
(ts interesting to see that in the US press at least the only important news reported about Tesla is its share price. This is how we do business these days -- its not an organization for making and supplying things, its a share price generator. Makes you wonder what the entire financial world is for.)
Well, yeah, but it's an El Reg subhead, which are for humor, not information, and he's only mentioned there.
SpaceX day-to-day operations are mostly run by Gwynne Shotwell, who seems to keep her head down nowadays.
The truly funny part is remembering when Elon went to Russia to buy rockets to send seeds to Mars, and they laughed him out of the country.
This made him start SpaceX, and now he's going to have to rescue the very same Russians because their rocket crapped out.
Who's laughing now?
This is how we do business these days -- its not an organization for making and supplying things, its a share price generator
Which is exactly why Elon refuses to make SpaceX public, because then the investors call the shots, not the engineers.
(I didn't downvote you)
Edit: and speaking of Russia, Ukraine needs to take a second try at Dmitry Rogozin
https://www.space.com/former-russian-space-agency-chief-rogozin-ukraine-injured
At this point, I think nobody is laughing, and Elon does not have to have to rescue anybody. He's not even been asked to do it, only if it would be possible. And from the article itself, it requires special suits that aren't available, so we're still quite far from it happening.
Not that if that was the only option they wouldn't try it, NASA and space projects in general heavily weight risk. NASA tapping SpaceX on the shoulder is a formality designed to hedge those risks. Plan A is for the crew to return via Soyuz, not SpaceX.
I don't know the capsules anatomy well enough to know how bad the engineers are crapping their pants over the dead cooling loop, but I expect the lowest risk would be to move up launch for a new capsule from Russia. So that's what I expect will happen, but due to the complexities of this, both political and logistical, I expect that they will be ensuring they have alternatives, and any of those would need a huge amount of lead time, so I suspect they will be working on a few of them at the same time, in case Roscosmos has a slip or a change of political position.
Rumour has it that Roscosmos is out of rockets, and is unlikely to get more in the near future because "there's a war going on"!
An American (even if it's private American) rescue mission would be the end for the Russian space effort. The embarrassment would be terminal!
Incidentally, the Soyuz would cook its passengers on re-entry without the cooling system - the Russian angle of attack isn't like the American approach (which goes for minimal heating) - they trust their cooling system...... Oops!
That's easy. The entire financial world is for pointing out the Next Big Opportunity for the Big Guys to make even more trillions of dollars.
You forgot to include a slice of frozen bread in the capsule.
Given it's a coolant leak, the bread must make it down still moist for it to be considered safe. If it ends up looking like it does after my mum has put it in the microwave and tried to "defrost it" on full power for 30 minutes, then it's probably not safe.
All humor aside, perhaps a couple of ideas...
* some kind of universal one-size-fits-all space suit for our Cosmonaut crew members, even if it looks like an oversized balloon with shoelaces (tied to fit like a shoe), plus hoses and wires;
* send up an empty 'human passenger' dragon instead of the 'cargo' dragon for the next supply run and fly back on THAT one
OK what's the time window now, 2-3 months? "Hop to it, Elon!"
The first problem with anything in space is heat. On Earth, anything hot heats the atmosphere. Air near the hot part expands so reduces density and gravity convects it away. Take away the atmosphere and the gravity and you have to switch to plan B: conduct the heat into the nearest sea, river or lake. Time for plan C: hot things emit microwaves/infra-red/light. Use a heat pump to move heat from inside the capsule to the side that is in shadow (and not facing the Earth). All well and good until something makes a hole in the heat transfer fluid pipes and all the coolant leaks into space.
The inside of the capsule is at the top end of what the control systems can survive. Astronauts are about 100 Watts of heat each (assuming they remain calm during the ride home). Adding three is not going to make things any better. Putting them in thermally insulating bags protects the capsule's systems but 100 Watts of astronaut in each bag is going to increase the temperature inside the bag until the astronaut is dead. You can protect the capsule's control systems without needing the bags by just killing the astronauts before starting the journey home. Good news: Soyuz capsules are already equipped with a gun for shooting bears - which leads to the next possible plan - find out how the bears get to space and back.
Russia has always claimed it would oppose the West as the other axis of power. Obvious Putin has been the next Evil Guy (tm) for the longest time probably since first appearing as a notetaking Lackey of Gorbachev or Kurushchev or some Russian head of state. Crazy then, crazy now.
"There's another issue, too: all astronauts traveling in a Dragon spacecraft have to wear tailored SpaceX spacesuits, and the crew that arrived at the space station in the Soyuz don't have that fancy clobber."
Didn't we learn from the Apollo missions (i.e. #13) that having incompatible kit is a very bad idea. OK back then it was different US companies, and not an international programme, but even so, an ISS should have a single standard for all fixtures and fittings, so too for space suites etc.
cue the obligatory xkcd link: https://xkcd.com/927
"Didn't we learn from the Apollo missions (i.e. #13) that having incompatible kit is a very bad idea."
No as that is missing half the story.
The capsule had to use flat rectangular cartridges that fitted against the wall due to space constraints.
The space suits they used on the moon needed round tube shaped cartridges to fit in the backpack.
The decision was made that the Lunar Lander would use the same cartridges as the space suits so that if anything went wrong when they were on the moon they had spares.
That xkcd cartoon on standards reminds me of the time, back in the 1990's, when the central engineering team of a company I was working for decided to withdraw most of its technical standards and adopt equivalent international (or BSI) ones. There was a drive to cut unnecessary requirements and adopt standard equipment whenever possible. It made sense for most cases, though there was a bit of corporate amnesia where the reasons some of the corporate standards were forgotten (i.e. to plug a gap in the "public" standards that had previously led to accidents), and supplementary standards were later developed (that is, specifications became ISOnnnn + X) as corporate memory was jogged...
In one particular case, the corporate standard was so much better than the "public" one that it had become a sector-wide requirement; when it was withdrawn, it continued to be specified by competitors (and was the default for the manufacturers/suppliers); even the regulatory authorities continued to expect it, though the message that it was no longer being maintained current eventually got through. For a couple of years, we were the only company in the sector NOT requiring it.
Standards is a two-way street.
Yes some standardisation is a good thing.
But if the standard is dodgy, like the PCI-SIG 12V power cable standard appeared to be, or you've got a faulty batch, you then don't have anything else to fall back on. And it might be months before a resupply mission can be launched.
As for rhe space suits. It's all relative risk. For a return journey they're there in case of cabin depressurisation or life support failure. Most other failures on reentry would be fatal space suits or not.
The great thing about standards is that there are so many of them. The Russians have standards, NASA has standards, ESA has standards, the Chinese have standards, the Japanese have standards, etc. Take your choice. To paraphrase Clint Eastwood, a man has to have a standard.
>But if the standard is dodgy
This article seems to suggest the USB-C specification is trying to be too clever and thus permits some dodgy configurations.
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/all-about-usb-c-illegal-adapters/
Another article in the series notes there used to be 8 types of USB-C to USB-C cables, now there are 12 and no labelling requirement...
The Soyuz-compatible suits are essentially a 50 year old design and very bulky. The SpaceX suits are much more modern.
You can only take compatibility so far - if you want everything to be completely interchangeable then you just end up with a carbon copy of the existing gear, so you're forever stuck with the vintage kit.
Also worth noting that the 'nauts are trained on the vehicle and would probably need a 6 week training course to be certified on the Dragon - most likely wouldn't actually need to do anything, but it's comforting to know what to do if something goes wrong.
No, the simple solution is to send up another Soyuz (probably filled with cargo), then use the leaky one as a trash can and let it burn up in the atmosphere.
With regard to training I would think they could split the two crews so each return vehicle had someone trained for return in a SpaceX capsule.
I would hope the original design and training allowed for a situation where a lone survivor could operate the return capsule if necessary.
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It seems somewhat remiss that the idea of a capsule failure, and what to do about it, was not considered earlier. After all, if the ISS can be hit by micrometeorites, so can the attached Soyuz capsules. NASA has just sent an unmanned* Orion capsule around the Moon, and landed it safely back on Earth (well, splashdown on planet Earth).
All they need to do is get the crew measured up for the required bespoke space suits, send them up in an Orion capsule and dock with the ISS to bring the 'nauts home.
Here's keeping my fingers crossed / hopes up for a happy resolution of this issue in 2023.
*Sorry, Shaun the Sheep and Snoopy toys do not actually count as a crew in this circumstance, and the omission of a playmonaut on the round the Moon trip was clearly a major oversight.
The much lamented Lester Haines launched a paper aircraft into space as part of the Register's 'Special projects' operations:
https://www.theregister.com/2016/12/27/the_life_and_times_of_lester_haines/
It was piloted by a Plamobil Astronaut or 'Playmonaut' https://www.hamleys.com/playmobil-space-astronaut-and-robot-duo-pack
Sadly the intrepid playmonaut was lost during a test flight of the later attempt for a rocket launch.
Feeling quite sad now as Mr Haines was definitely one of the characters from the Register who is greatly missed.
I was the other ground crew member with Lester attempting rescue and recovery of the playmonaut lost at sea. It turns out that the English Channel has its moments of uneasiness, particularly in a small boat, but Lester never lost his enthusiasm for the task, nor his sense of humour.
As above: Lester remains greatly missed. He would greatly have appreciated one of these.
Thanks for the history aside.
Having been restricted to the garden office/shed, whilst teenagers hold a New Year party, been able to do a little Googling...
Flag-waving Lego Canuck soars to 80,000ft
For some strange reason, I associated this with circa 2019 when the Vulture was into Lego ISS and Apollo...
Reminds me of the report into a "spotting" autogyro designed to be towed by a WWI U-boat. The report noted that in an emergency the U-boat crew would cut the towing cable and crash dive.
"The autogyro would then descend into the water and the observer would drown in the usual manner."
Charming.
There was a time when I worked* for a company that made railways, trains stations etc. I was told about a train where the locomotive requirement to provide a specified amount of 'cushioning' (think 'crumple zone') in the event of a head on collision was questioned. There is a minimum, but the design did not quite reach it. The designers had reduced weight by factoring into their calculations the added effect of the driver's body.
I don't think the unions were happy about that one.
*OK 'was employed by' would be more accurate.
The OP was probably referring to the Focke Achgelis Fa-330 Bachstelze. And you're right - WWII rather than 1.
In addition to gently gliding to the surface if it lost its tow, the pilot could also eject the rotor hub in an emergency, with the pilot using a parachute to descend. If the submarine had gone under the outcome would be similarly unfortunate for the hapless pilot.
Interestingly, just learned that they were mostly used by U-boats in the Indian Ocean and, less commonly, the Southern Atlantic.
...that there was always a "spare" Soyuz docked to the ISS, that could be used as a "lifeboat" in the event of some life-threatening issue.
So, at present, there should be a Crew Dragon and 2x Soyuz craft attached?
The Dragon took up the 3 astronauts (as Crew-5 on 5-6th October), and the MS-22 Soyuz took up another 3 "cosmonauts" on 21st September).
But there should still be a "lifeboat" Soyuz docked there as well?
Where is Musk - just when he's needed for provide "out of the box" thinking to come up with a solution. May be he'll be able to come up with a design along the lines of the submersible capsule that he came up with for rescuing those kids from that cave in Thailand. A sort of "life-capsule"?
Just don't mention the "P" word
Just wondering what the worst-case effect on a crew member would be if they came back to earth in a Dragon capsule without the tailored SpaceX suit. Possibly:
-Pressure sores
-Risk of deep vein thrombosis and strokes if the astronaut's circulation is restricted
- Reduction of protection from fire
- Reduction of astronaut temperature regulation
But those are just my guesses, and I'd like to know more. If a cloud of space debris on a collision course with the ISS was detected tomorrow and all the 'nauts has to evacuate the ISS, would they risk a Dragon reentry without the suits?
Hypothetical. ISS is struck by some space junk while the Soyuz is in questionable state.
Do you think those astronauts and cosmonauts respectively are going to "play nice" to head for their designated escape vehicle; or go for the one that is known-good? When there isn't enough space to go round for all of them?
It would be utterly professional of them to do so of course, but in survival situations people can, and will do anything, no matter how much the "cream" of humanity they may be.
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