Roscosmos knows but will not disclose cause of Soyuz drilled hole
According to a statement by Dmitri Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, the Russians now know what or who caused the drillhole in a Soyuz capsule, found when air began to leak from ISS in August 2018, but they will not reveal that information.
What happened is clear to us, but we won’t tell you anything”, Rogozin said at a meeting with the participants of a scientific youth conference. … We may have some secrets”, he said.
I wonder if NASA will accept this decision. I also wonder why this doesn’t raise the hackles of NASA’s safety panel, which seems so willing to stall the launch of American manned capsules for far less worrisome safety reasons, thus forcing us to use Russia’s Soyuz capsule instead.
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According to a statement by Dmitri Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, the Russians now know what or who caused the drillhole in a Soyuz capsule, found when air began to leak from ISS in August 2018, but they will not reveal that information.
What happened is clear to us, but we won’t tell you anything”, Rogozin said at a meeting with the participants of a scientific youth conference. … We may have some secrets”, he said.
I wonder if NASA will accept this decision. I also wonder why this doesn’t raise the hackles of NASA’s safety panel, which seems so willing to stall the launch of American manned capsules for far less worrisome safety reasons, thus forcing us to use Russia’s Soyuz capsule instead.
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
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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.
“What happened is clear to us, but we won’t tell you anything. … We may have some secrets.”
That is unsettling in so many ways. They want to keep secrets that effect the health and safety of crews? It seems unlikely that it is a military secret. They didn’t even say whether they were taking corrective actions to make sure that things like this hole never happen again. I’ve never been impressed with the Russians’ efforts at safety, and this reinforces my skepticism.
I certainly hope that they have talked to NASA in private about this, because this public statement is terrible.
Please tell me, again, why we partnered with these guys on ISS. I keep forgetting the advantages we were supposed to be getting from this partnership.
If Roscosmos told NASA what happened, then in my opinion NASA has a duty to disclose that information to the public. We pay for NASA’s services, and if there’s a serious safety issue we have the right to know about it. I would think that a deliberately-drilled hole in a spacecraft counts as a serious issue.
I can’t help but contrast this with the very public investigations into what happened with Challenger and Columbia. Admittedly, nobody died on board the ISS, but how can NASA be sure that the problem is fixed? How can they know that the next Soyuz going up won’t have more oopsie-holes?
I’m guessing that the Russians finally figured out who was responsible and that that person is now occupying a shallow excavation in some birch forest in the middle of nowhere, courtesy of the FSB. The reason there will be no public explanation is because the Russians do not wish to have to walk back any of their early smack talk about the problem being covert U.S. “sabotage.”