Re: NASA HONORS LEGENDARY ASTRONAUT VANCE BRAND

Pat Flannery <flanner@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:11se92peeqnt40e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

> Jorge R. Frank wrote:
>
>>We are also way ahead of Russia in person-trips to space, 763 to 236
>>respectively. Which, not surprisingly, works out to about the same
>>fatality rate.
>
> If you go by that standard and not total flights flown.

Yes, I do go by that standard. You compare accidents to total flights
flown, and fatalities to number of people flown. Mixing them is
dishonest.

> Does anyone have figures on the total man-hours in space for both the
> US and Russian programs?

Not relevant, since the highest-risk periods are ascent and entry.
Therefore the relevant metric is accidents per trip (or fatalities per
person-trip), not per man-hour.

>>>As for life threatening situations on Mir, they had the fire, a near
>>>collision with a Progress, an actual collision with another Progress,
>>>The Soyuz thermal blanket shedding, and the big glycol leak. They had
>>>a lot of trouble with the orientation system and the air recycling
>>>system, but if worst came to worst, they could have always abandoned
>>>the station via the Soyuz, so those weren't life threatening.
>>
>>Not in the case of the fire - it blocked the escape route to one of
>>the two Soyuzes, stranding half the crew if the fire had been more
>>serious.
>
> I listed the fire as a life-threatening situation. Things like the
> computer quitting and the station losing sun-lock and power aren't
> life threatening. The fire and the collision were the two ones that
> the crew were lucky to survive.

Sorry - that wasn't clear to me the way the paragraph was worded.

>>>After the ISS debacle, I'm fairly sure we won't be getting too cozy
>>>with Russia for some time to come.
>>>Assuming we had gone it alone and built the Freedom station, I still
>>>think we would be trying to figure out what exactly to do with it as
>>>the whole thing was a reaction by Reagan to the Russians launching
>>>Mir,
>>
>>Incorrect. The space station program was initiated in 1984, two years
>>before the launch of Mir.
>
> We knew full well the Soviets were going to build a multimodule
> station as their next step in space, as they were dropping hints to
> that effect all over the place, and a painting of a huge multimodule
> Soviet station was portrayed on page 46 of that that most Reaganesque
> of all books, "Soviet Military Power-1984":

And NASA had wanted a space station as a followon to the shuttle program
ever since it was deleted from the 1969 Space Task Group plan, and was
biding its time until the space shuttle was up and flying. They most
likely would have gotten it regardless of what the Soviets did.

--
JRF

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