Comments on: Oberg on the Soyuz near-disaster

By: Don Wiseman

Don Wiseman — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:07:44 +0000

Most of us who are still alive after the “Old Days” are amazed and grateful that there were not more people killed. Back then, every flight was experimental and something always happened no one thought could happen.

We have graduated by virtue of time to the early days. Now things are much more complex. A reentering a spacecraft returning from the moon at 25,000 mph is still a big problem – a lot faster than a returning orbital vehicle. So, it looks like we’re going “back to the future.”

By: Buzz Parsec

Buzz Parsec — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:39:12 +0000

Chris -

Gemini and Apollo also used lift to alter (control) their courses and to reduce g forces. I think Gemini capsules could have survived reentry without it, but Apollo really needed this when returning from the moon.

By: Funkopolis

Funkopolis — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:51:34 +0000

Now THAT is a Volvo

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:34:46 +0000

Thanks for the Oberg article Phil. I had no idea the re-entry module could make aerodynamic lift. I thought all re-entries of wingless craft were “ballistic”!

By: Cusp

Cusp — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:16:54 +0000

Any landing you walk away from -

I, personally, am amazed people are so freaked out about this.

By: franKnarf’s bloGolb » Blog Archive » Disaster narrowly avoided

franKnarf’s bloGolb » Blog Archive » Disaster narrowly avoided — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:57:01 +0000

[...] narrowly avoided: IEEE Spectrum: Internal NASA Documents Give Clues to Scary Soyuz Return Flight. (Pointage from [...]

By: Michael Lonergan

Michael Lonergan — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:49:03 +0000

Yes, and it seems like they had sensible managers overseeing their Space Program that actually listened to their sensible engineers. Something NASA could have learned from in January of 1986 and again in February of 2003.