That's why you always pack more underwear than you think you will need.
Come to think of it, how do astronauts do laundry?
Edit: I looked it up. They don't. Dirty laundry is ejected into space to burn up on re-entry. So these poor travelers probably did not pack for an 8 month trip.
This is a great idea for a porn plot: several young, fit people in an enclosed space with nothing to do, cause they finished their assigned tasks weeks ago. Lots of positions that aren't physically possible in earths gravity.
And they just ejected their last set of clothes.
Now I just need funding to film it in zero G.
Vague memory from years ago, but I think that The Uranus Experiment 2 has a zero-g moneyshot.
Porn is going to do to commercial space flight what it did for the Internet and VHS.
Now I just need funding to film it in zero G.
I don’t wanna spoil things, but if you’re looking for floating strange liquids, maybe check out the new Alien movie.
Unfortunately, erections probably don’t work that well in zero G, although NASA has been neglectful in testing this thoroughly.
That makes zero sense
There’s been one movie that had part of an anal scene in zero G lol.
I think it was a czech porno or something. Don’t ask me how I know.
No, sorry, I am going to ask you how you know.
"This meant Wilmore and Williams were forced to ration their clean clothes. Thankfully, a resupply mission earlier this month gave them a few extra pairs of scrubs." Source
Imagine how worried their families must be this whole time. I can't imagine "my family member has been stuck in space for months" is a type of stress that many people would relate to.
They probably shouldn't worry so much. Way more people have died in Boeing airplanes than in Boeing spaceships.
I actually was sitting here thinking about it from the astronauts' perspective.... I'm sure their mental fortitude is more robust than the average human, but could you imagine being indefinitely stranded in a Pringles can whipping around the planet once every 90 minutes with zero ability to do anything to extricate yourself from the situation? The thought makes my skin crawl... but I don't fly for the same reasons lol
And people want to colonize mars
I think the astronauts should decide.
What is gained by taking the responsibility away from them, and handing it to some other person? I could maybe see it if I trusted that other person to be more qualified, but if they are NASA administration, then I don’t.
They should certainly have an input, but their desire to get home quickly might really bias them into taking unnecessary risks. I'm not sure I agree with giving them the final call.
It may sound callous, but the downsides also aren't completely theirs. The death of two astronauts would impact NASA as a whole, and to an extent even the whole US. For NASA it may very well be worth making two people wait another 6 months if it means showing the public that safety comes first.
And what if the two astronauts don't agree? Can they allow 1 to descend solo while the other waits?
I mean I won't say you're wrong in the abstract or don't have a point, but NASA management's consistent history of making dogshit decisions as regards safety is also a highly relevant factor here.
Generally in civilian aviation, if you're on the one on the plane, you get to make the decisions, because ultimately it's your ass on the line. In emergency situations nobody gets to override you and say you have to do it this other way instead even if you don't like it. Even if NASA management makes a perfect decision based on the information available to them at the time, and something goes wrong and the astronauts die, that's still a bothersome outcome to me. Like, it's their life. Let them have the responsibility. Hopefully there's one overall probably-right answer, and management and the astronauts would both evaluate the same information and come to the same conclusion anyway, but even so I still feel like it'd be a better situation if it was the astronauts deciding about their own life and death. Then if something does go wrong, everyone's hands are clean and there's no second guessing.
Yeah but they're not on the plane. They're at the airport, the plane is grounded, and they're waiting for authorization to get on the plane from the FAA after it's cleared to fly.
Your whole analogy is flawed because they're not in flight.
Yeah, but they can’t leave the airport. The precise definition of an emergency is when you can’t say “You know what? This is too dangerous, let’s not fuck with it.” They’re still up there precisely because if that was the scenario, with them on the ground at the airport, they would clearly choose not to fuck with it, because a key component is busted.
Better analogy if you wanted to be precise about it would be: There’s some serious problem with the plane which prevents safe landing. Broken landing gear or similar. They’ve got plenty of time, plenty of fuel, they can fly around and figure things out for as long as they need. But, they need to land, and the safety of the landing is not assured once they commit to whatever best plan they can come up with.
In that scenario, it is never the engineers on the ground or the controllers who dictate the solution and the plan. There’s a book of procedures to follow, there’s input from the engineers which carries a ton of weight, but at the end of the day the crew is responsible for making decisions, because they’re the ones who will be dead if it doesn’t work out right.
The company doesn’t have a meeting of top directors and then radio the pilots what to do. Because, even if the directors of this theoretical company didn’t have a history of blowing up airplanes through their negligence, they’re just not the ones who are supposed to make those decisions, honestly. NASA management getting “input” from the engineers and then escorting them out of the room so they can meet and make decisions has killed quite a few astronauts at this point.
There are many astronauts in the ground in nasa too, and people who actually design and build spaceships
How many of them were involved in overriding the engineers as regarded launching the Challenger?
(I would recommend "Riding Rockets" as a pretty good book to read for a general overview of the safety culture in NASA management and the reasons I don't trust them to make this decision. Honestly, for all I know, things have changed radically since then -- but given that NASA management were the ones that sent them up on a Boeing spacecraft in the first place when years ago I was already able to see that Boeing was no longer capable of doing safe engineering of even civilian commercial air travel, I kind of doubt it.)
Good thing the article specifies "engineers" then
Incorrect
Administrator Bill Nelson and other top officials will meet Saturday. An announcement is expected from Houston once the meeting ends.
Engineers are evaluating a new computer model for the Starliner thrusters and how they might perform as the capsule descends out of orbit for a touchdown in the U.S. Western desert. The results, including updated risk analyses, will factor into the final decision, NASA said.
The article makes a specific point about “top officials” being the ones at the meeting, and makes a distinction between those engineers and “NASA” who is the one making the decision.
Why would NASA burn its credibility like this to keep Boeing warm?
They won't. I think that's why this is happening on a Saturday- stock markets are closed so it won't instantly tank Boeing's stock price.
Look back at the last few space disasters that killed people- Challenger and Columbia. In both cases it was the same- someone in NASA tried to sound the alarm but they didn't listen because of organizational culture or whatever. Thus the people at the top of NASA could say with a straight face 'we didn't know, we will change culture to listen to the little guy who thinks there's a problem'. And so, we all forgave them for making us watch heroes die on live TV.
This is different. The alarm has been sounded and it's been sounding for months. Everyone at all levels of NASA, Boeing, and for that matter the general public know that Starliner has a very serious thruster problem. There's no excuses here, no 'promise to fix culture' or new procedure that could forgive an accident. If Butch and Suni blow up on live TV there'll be no excuses anyone for anyone to make because the decision is being made with everyone fully informed. The public at large will know it happened because NASA trusted 'don't bolt the doors on Boeing' with the lives of American heroes. The American people will demand that heads roll at both NASA and Boeing and it may well happen too. We don't like watching real heroes die on live TV.
So look at Starliner right now. The thrusters have problems that make them overheat and shut off when commanded to fire and, as of when I last checked, Boeing isn't even sure what's wrong.
Point is- if Starliner crashes with Americans on board, NASA won't just be burning credibility. They'll be burning themselves, Boeing, and the entire manned space program.
So I predict the flight readiness review before the press conference is just a formality, that the decision has already been made to bring our people back on Crew Dragon. And I'm sure someone from Boeing will be all thumbs up over an 'overabundance of caution'.
Because ultimately, NASA was supposed to oversee these projects and ensure safety for their astronauts.
Because NASA has been through similar shit, ie: 1986 Challenger and 2003 Columbia disasters.
So do the astronauts even get a say in this? I'm not sure I'd WANT to fly home in that thing.
Yes of course they do. You can't force them, obviously.
Ah, I'm not the only one who pushed some Friday work to the indeterminate "weekend"
Well, of course, but there can be some serious pressure put on them. Staying on board literally causes changes to future missions and a host of other things NASA had plans for.
Associated Press - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for Associated Press:
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
Wikipedia about this source
Media Bias Fact Check | bot supportSearch topics on Ground.News
https://apnews.com/article/boeing-starliner-nasa-astronauts-space-3e5d649dc6c68063835beae25d27ba18
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.