ISS expedition 11 will return early due to medical issue
Though NASA officials provided no new details on what the medical issue is on ISS nor who it occurred to, in a briefing this afternoon they announced that they have decided to bring the crew home early, and are also looking at launching the next crew earlier than its presently scheduled February launch.
They did say that the medical issue had nothing to do with space operations or the spacewalk the astronauts were getting ready to do. Though NASA’s chief medical officer James Polk was amazingly vague in his comments, he did suggest it was related to the environment of micogravity.
The one comment that struck me during the press briefing was the repeated insistence by all three officials, including NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, that NASA “never compromises safety”. Considering my own op-ed today and the unreasonable risks the agency is taken for the upcoming Artemis-2 mission, as well as its failures with Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia, NASA has compromised on safety many times in the past, and is doing it right now.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Though NASA officials provided no new details on what the medical issue is on ISS nor who it occurred to, in a briefing this afternoon they announced that they have decided to bring the crew home early, and are also looking at launching the next crew earlier than its presently scheduled February launch.
They did say that the medical issue had nothing to do with space operations or the spacewalk the astronauts were getting ready to do. Though NASA’s chief medical officer James Polk was amazingly vague in his comments, he did suggest it was related to the environment of micogravity.
The one comment that struck me during the press briefing was the repeated insistence by all three officials, including NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, that NASA “never compromises safety”. Considering my own op-ed today and the unreasonable risks the agency is taken for the upcoming Artemis-2 mission, as well as its failures with Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia, NASA has compromised on safety many times in the past, and is doing it right now.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
This seems to be a line that is formally part of NASA public discourse, and I assume that to the extent that Jared would a) disagree, or b) stick an asterisk on it, right now he has little choice politically but to repeat the mantra — even if he wanted to do so, he hasn’t been on the job long enough to force a reevaluation of that discourse. I assume that Trump would only permit that even so only to the extent that any blame or blowback could be fully redirected back onto Joe Biden. Obviously, we all know the history of NASA (Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia, and various lesser episodes in between) on this point.
As for Orion, I take what encouragement I can from what I shared here earlier about what he wrote on this point in his ATHENA document. I feel like a lot of constraints have been stuck on him as the price of being given this job, and the political pressure (including from the White House) to launch Artemis II with crew on board ASAP is powerful. But we will just have to see what he ends up doing.
They should have a good Dragon to come home on.
The only trouble could be if NASA wants to wait until the next Dragon is ready to go up because they want a full load for both trips, up and down.
They could leave behind one guy and send up the next full crew, if they do not want to leave the station with no Americans..
Unless they mess around deciding what tea cups they want to send up next the sick astronaut should be safe if he comes down as soon as possible.
1. The 4 person expedition 11 crew came up on a Dragon, and it remains docked to the station until they return, always acting as the lifeboat. This is standard practice, and has been for a century of space station operations.
2. The station presently has one American crewman who came up on a Soyuz. He will maintain the American half of the station after expedition 11 leaves early.
3. They will never split up the crew of a mission if at all possible. If one goes home, all will go home, because when the Dragon leaves it takes their lifeboat away.
“The only trouble could be if NASA wants to wait until the next Dragon is ready to go up because they want a full load for both trips, up and down.”
Crew-12 right now is scheduled to launch on February 15 NET. At the presser this evening, Jared Isaacman and Amit Kshatriya said they were looking at trying to move that up — but at this point, I think we must assume that any acceleration in schedule would be modest.
In any event, they made it clear that Crew-11 is returning shortly — in the next few days. They are not going to wait for Crew-12. But given how close Crew-12’s current schedule is, it looks like Chris Williams won’t have to wait long for the reinforcements to arrive. He’ll be by himself on the US side of the station for just a few weeks.
Bob is right that NASA is unwilling to leave any astronauts on the ISS without a “lifeboat” crew capsule, short of some very extreme scenario. Whatever their faults in other respects, that is just not a risk that NASA’s HSF directorate is willing to take, and Isaacman is certainly not going to change that.