Details on the spacewalk yesterday
William Harwood of CBS News and Spaceflight Now provides a very detailed and clearly written description of the problems experienced during Saturday’s spacewalk, as well as the options faced by NASA to overcome them.
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William Harwood of CBS News and Spaceflight Now provides a very detailed and clearly written description of the problems experienced during Saturday’s spacewalk, as well as the options faced by NASA to overcome them.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I watched this spacewalk. First, there was no problem with the ammonia leak. They expected it and the standard procedure is to check for ammonia on the suit near the neckline and the hands before pressurizing the airlock – that is, it’s only a hazard inside the station. It’s not like the stuff eats through suits and they had to scramble back inside, and no-one who watched the spacewalk could get that impression.
Now, I understand why no-one watched this spacewalk before writing their articles, it was the usual incredibly boring NASA tv. Have you ever asked yourself why this stuff is so boring? Some people have trouble pinning it down, others, typically those who have never seen a spacewalk before, notice it right away: the astronauts don’t make any decisions. They get told what to do continuously – they might as well be robots. Around the point my wife went to bed ground control was telling Wheelock to get that stupid special purpose tool out of his toolbag, when it didn’t work they told him to put it back in his toolbag, then they told him to try hammering the button on the valve, then they told him to get the tool out of the toolbag, then they told him how to apply the tool to the levers, then they told him to put the tool back in the toolbag. OMG just use your hands!!
Compare this to a Russian spacewalk. They go out the airlock with a particular schedule in mind which is more like a laundry list of tasks. *They decide* which to do first and how to do it. You see them pull out a regular $100 socket set and remove a bunch of bolts that they just leave floating in front of themselves. All of this is through a zoom lens from a fixed camera and yet you can see everything that is going on just fine. Ground control radios up *garble* *garble* *garble*, the cosmonauts have a couple of laughs over how terrible the comms are. Then you hear “you are 15 minutes behind schedule” and the cosmonauts reply “do you want to come up here and do it?” more laughs. The work gets done and the cosmonauts go back to the airlock.
It’s all those years of experience right? Perhaps, but the Russian spacewalk last month was one rookie and one “veteran” of a single other spacewalk. Yes, they’re trained but more importantly, they’re in control so they are free to do a good job.
NASA could learn a lot from the Russian space program. We’ve been saying this for 40+ years now. If humanity is to ever go beyond Earth orbit on long duration missions, ground control needs to start trusting astronauts to make the right decisions.