Comments on: The Hunter, the station, and the southern lights http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/15/the-hunter-the-station-and-the-southern-lights/ Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:12:45 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: gogblog http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/15/the-hunter-the-station-and-the-southern-lights/#comment-307475 gogblog Wed, 21 Sep 2011 14:11:20 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=37774#comment-307475 Yes, these are troubling times. Kids are already getting sick and maybe dying out there because of these irresponsible antivax people. Let's see what the Lord has to say at the gates of heaven when Michelle Bachman comes knocking. Maybe he'll say, "Oh, sorry, you don't have the right vaccinations. Please step to the end of the line..." Yes, these are troubling times. Kids are already getting sick and maybe dying out there because of these irresponsible antivax people.

Let’s see what the Lord has to say at the gates of heaven when Michelle Bachman comes knocking. Maybe he’ll say, “Oh, sorry, you don’t have the right vaccinations. Please step to the end of the line…”

]]> By: dave mundt http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/15/the-hunter-the-station-and-the-southern-lights/#comment-307474 dave mundt Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:57:00 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=37774#comment-307474 Now, there is a scene in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey where, as I recall, Dave Bowman, the remaining living crewman on the ship is required to transfer from a shuttle to the main ship by manually opening the outer airlock door and getting blown across from the shuttle. By the by....IMHO perhaps the best SF flick EVER done.... Now, there is a scene in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey where, as I recall, Dave Bowman, the remaining living crewman on the ship is required to transfer from a shuttle to the main ship by manually opening the outer airlock door and getting blown across from the shuttle.
By the by….IMHO perhaps the best SF flick EVER done….

]]> By: Joseph G http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/15/the-hunter-the-station-and-the-southern-lights/#comment-307473 Joseph G Sat, 17 Sep 2011 21:27:38 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=37774#comment-307473 @icemith: Sorry about that, didn't mean to butcher your name earlier. But shoot, Ray Bradbury is still my favorite author, and I can't really see that changing :) @icemith: Sorry about that, didn’t mean to butcher your name earlier.

But shoot, Ray Bradbury is still my favorite author, and I can’t really see that changing :)

]]> By: icemith http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/15/the-hunter-the-station-and-the-southern-lights/#comment-307472 icemith Sat, 17 Sep 2011 19:42:40 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=37774#comment-307472 Thanks Joseph, for your recall of old Sci Fi novels. No, I did not catch your remembered (?) story, with at least more detail than I could remember of the novel, among others borrowed from the local Library, in the mid 50s. Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Edger Rice Burroughs, (hmmm, I wonder...), even Arthur C. Clarke, though I think he was not really popular till later, so I could be mistaken there, are some of the authors I respected at that time in my life, and education. Those books, and Popular Mechanics, and Popular Science were favorites. It will be interesting to be able to compare my recollections with the actual plots, etc, over 55 years ago and different attitudes and developments, to those as are present today. Ivan. Thanks Joseph, for your recall of old Sci Fi novels.

No, I did not catch your remembered (?) story, with at least more detail than I could remember of the novel, among others borrowed from the local Library, in the mid 50s.

Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Edger Rice Burroughs, (hmmm, I wonder…), even Arthur C. Clarke, though I think he was not really popular till later, so I could be mistaken there, are some of the authors I respected at that time in my life, and education. Those books, and Popular Mechanics, and Popular Science were favorites.

It will be interesting to be able to compare my recollections with the actual plots, etc, over 55 years ago and different attitudes and developments, to those as are present today.

Ivan.

]]> By: Joseph G http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/15/the-hunter-the-station-and-the-southern-lights/#comment-307471 Joseph G Sat, 17 Sep 2011 18:53:08 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=37774#comment-307471 @22 Icesmith: Sorry, that one doesn't ring a bell, but I love reading old sci-fi and would be interested in the author if you ever figure it out. The closest thing I can recall is a book from the early 70s (I think) about an accident with the (at that point still unbuilt) space shuttle. In it, the shuttle was to be carried to near-orbit by a hypersonic mothership - sort of an SR-71 on steroids. The story has an explosion aboard the mothership which would cause it to be destroyed if it descended back into the atmospere, so the shuttle hauls it up into a low earth orbit insteadof detaching. The book involves all sorts of Apollo 13-ish engineering kludges that are used to keep the pilots of the launch plane alive and get them transferred to the shuttle. No breath-holding, though :) It's strange, isnt it - I remember some details of some books that I read like 20 years ago, and I can't remember the plot of a book I read two months ago :-P @22 Icesmith: Sorry, that one doesn’t ring a bell, but I love reading old sci-fi and would be interested in the author if you ever figure it out.
The closest thing I can recall is a book from the early 70s (I think) about an accident with the (at that point still unbuilt) space shuttle. In it, the shuttle was to be carried to near-orbit by a hypersonic mothership – sort of an SR-71 on steroids. The story has an explosion aboard the mothership which would cause it to be destroyed if it descended back into the atmospere, so the shuttle hauls it up into a low earth orbit insteadof detaching. The book involves all sorts of Apollo 13-ish engineering kludges that are used to keep the pilots of the launch plane alive and get them transferred to the shuttle. No breath-holding, though :)

It’s strange, isnt it – I remember some details of some books that I read like 20 years ago, and I can’t remember the plot of a book I read two months ago :-P

]]> By: icemith http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/15/the-hunter-the-station-and-the-southern-lights/#comment-307470 icemith Sat, 17 Sep 2011 17:19:49 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=37774#comment-307470 Does anybody remember a Sci Fi novel, probably 1950s vintage, (cannot recall name, author or other details - didn't leave much to go on, did I?), where the inhabitants of one space craft, due to some emergency, had to transfer to another craft, sans space suits! The powers that be at the time, declared that if one could float over through space to that very close spaceship, whilst holding a breath, all would be OK. Obviously this was the understanding of the author reflecting the then current thinking, and made it a point in the novel. That it involved civilians, and mixed at that, indicated an advanced space technology. It seems to have been in the vicinity of Mars, as I'm sure a later scene involved another mixed group who had to suffer the cold night in the open on the surface of Mars, and they survived by going "underground", ie, covering themselves with a layer of soil, after removing certain apparel and staying warm by very close contact! I think the author was rather advanced at the time, and a movie would have been problematic if it had been considered. How things have changed! Ivan. PS, as an impressionable young teenager, (before the term was invented), I wonder why I remember at least those details! Does anybody remember a Sci Fi novel, probably 1950s vintage, (cannot recall name, author or other details – didn’t leave much to go on, did I?), where the inhabitants of one space craft, due to some emergency, had to transfer to another craft, sans space suits! The powers that be at the time, declared that if one could float over through space to that very close spaceship, whilst holding a breath, all would be OK. Obviously this was the understanding of the author reflecting the then current thinking, and made it a point in the novel. That it involved civilians, and mixed at that, indicated an advanced space technology.

It seems to have been in the vicinity of Mars, as I’m sure a later scene involved another mixed group who had to suffer the cold night in the open on the surface of Mars, and they survived by going “underground”, ie, covering themselves with a layer of soil, after removing certain apparel and staying warm by very close contact!

I think the author was rather advanced at the time, and a movie would have been problematic if it had been considered. How things have changed!

Ivan.

PS, as an impressionable young teenager, (before the term was invented), I wonder why I remember at least those details!

]]> By: Joseph G http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/15/the-hunter-the-station-and-the-southern-lights/#comment-307469 Joseph G Sat, 17 Sep 2011 03:23:42 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=37774#comment-307469 @20 vince charles: Dang, you're not kidding! I started reading about other early Soyuz missions, and came across Soyuz 5. It's incredible the cosmonaut survived. It reads like something out of a movie. Whatever the Russian equivalent of "The Right Stuff" is :) @20 vince charles: Dang, you’re not kidding!
I started reading about other early Soyuz missions, and came across Soyuz 5. It’s incredible the cosmonaut survived. It reads like something out of a movie. Whatever the Russian equivalent of “The Right Stuff” is :)

]]> By: vince charles http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/15/the-hunter-the-station-and-the-southern-lights/#comment-307468 vince charles Sat, 17 Sep 2011 02:26:49 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=37774#comment-307468 Ooops, the Soyuz actually pressurizes to 14.7 psi as standard. I was recalling the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project when I posted above. There, the Soyuz was running lower pressures as a mission modification, but later flights returned to 1 atm. Still, enough incidents have happened on Soyuz separation and reentry that they don't take chances. These include Cold War incidents that weren't admitted until the '90s and are still obscure today. Some of the weirder anomalies are almost comical as long as they aren't happening to you. Ooops, the Soyuz actually pressurizes to 14.7 psi as standard. I was recalling the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project when I posted above. There, the Soyuz was running lower pressures as a mission modification, but later flights returned to 1 atm.

Still, enough incidents have happened on Soyuz separation and reentry that they don’t take chances. These include Cold War incidents that weren’t admitted until the ’90s and are still obscure today. Some of the weirder anomalies are almost comical as long as they aren’t happening to you.

]]> By: Joseph G http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/15/the-hunter-the-station-and-the-southern-lights/#comment-307467 Joseph G Sat, 17 Sep 2011 00:39:55 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=37774#comment-307467 Grr effing tablet browser! Half a dozen browsers out there for Android devices, and all of 'em suck in one way or another. Anyway, I have tried to read up on this stuff, as when I was a kid I loved space but was terrified of sci-fi movies portraying people exploding like microwaved sausages in a vacuum. I still wouldn't want to try taking a walk out an airlock without a suit, but thankfully the reality isn't quite that bad (apparently it's even survivable if you can get pressure back within about 30 seconds, and you've got medical help waiting). Grr effing tablet browser! Half a dozen browsers out there for Android devices, and all of ‘em suck in one way or another.
Anyway, I have tried to read up on this stuff, as when I was a kid I loved space but was terrified of sci-fi movies portraying people exploding like microwaved sausages in a vacuum.
I still wouldn’t want to try taking a walk out an airlock without a suit, but thankfully the reality isn’t quite that bad (apparently it’s even survivable if you can get pressure back within about 30 seconds, and you’ve got medical help waiting).

]]> By: Joseph G http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/15/the-hunter-the-station-and-the-southern-lights/#comment-307466 Joseph G Sat, 17 Sep 2011 00:32:22 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=37774#comment-307466 @14 Vince: Ahh, thanks for the answer. I forgot all about Soyuz 11, and about depressurizing before an EVA (though this isn't like an EVA, I'm guessing) That makes sense, though I'm trying to figure out how they avoid pressurizing the Soyuz to 14.7 if it's not built for it, and they're depressurizing inside it? Regarding Soyuz 11, they didn't have room inside for 3 cosmonauts in pressure suits, so they went without. IIRC, they went to two cosmonauts per mission (with suits) after that, until a redesign in the 80s which made room for three people in suits. Ooh, maybe it's for the pressure suits? In case of a catastrophic pressure loss, it's less traumatic to go from, say, half a standard atmosphere to zero (apparently there's still a pressure drop inside the suit due to stretching and inflation, hence the problem with 'the bends'). That's one reason why astronauts on the shuttle had a period of depressurization prior to an EVA (well, that and the fact that lower pressures make the EVA suits more flexible). @14 Vince: Ahh, thanks for the answer. I forgot all about Soyuz 11, and about depressurizing before an EVA (though this isn’t like an EVA, I’m guessing) That makes sense, though I’m trying to figure out how they avoid pressurizing the Soyuz to 14.7 if it’s not built for it, and they’re depressurizing inside it?
Regarding Soyuz 11, they didn’t have room inside for 3 cosmonauts in pressure suits, so they went without. IIRC, they went to two cosmonauts per mission (with suits) after that, until a redesign in the 80s which made room for three people in suits.

Ooh, maybe it’s for the pressure suits? In case of a catastrophic pressure loss, it’s less traumatic to go from, say, half a standard atmosphere to zero (apparently there’s still a pressure drop inside the suit due to stretching and inflation, hence the problem with ‘the bends’). That’s one reason why astronauts on the shuttle had a period of depressurization prior to an EVA (well, that and the fact that lower pressures make the EVA suits more flexible).

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