NASA Watch

A few random comments:

There's a video of the Soyuz explosion mentioned above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyFF4cpMVag&noredirect=1 that shows the escape system saving the crew.

The use of solid rocket boosters for human space flight (as was planned for Ares I) is hugely controversial because they can't just be shut down in the event of a problem, as regular engines can, making survivability more difficult.

Personally, I think NASA is overly risk-adverse, to the point that nothing gets accomplished (see Constellation / Ares I). An interesting article on this is http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/news/4330356

On the topic of aircraft turbine failures, there's the interesting case of a DC-10 engine that disintegrated in flight due to a pilot experiment, killing a passenger. For details see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_27

Finally, if you're interested in SpaceX, NASA budgeting, and so forth, I recommend http://nasawatch.com

I used to work in ISS mission control, this is not an emergency return but an early return

Also coming down on the Soyuz is pretty routine and only takes a few hours- I’d say it was overall a far less risky situation than being in Antarctic on a deep ocean vessel with appendicitis etc

We have dozens and (hundreds behind them) of men and women monitoring those folks from a global network of control centers 24 hrs a day- The station is mostly commanded from the ground and plans and procedures exist for everything

- if anything its all over orchestrated and over-planned in my opinion, owing to national politics, corporate contracts and international bureaucracy

Is it risky- yes obviously-but I’d argue its less risky then being out at the south pole in winter

See: https://nasawatch.com/iss-news/crew-medical-telecon-summary/

From an internal e-mail ('someone'@smd.nasa.gov):

"Today Alan Stern announced that he had resigned his position as AA. In his talk to the Science Mission Directorate he said that the management issues were about cost control and that he did not see a way for him to do what needs to be done. He didn't go into details. Evidently there are extremely strong opinions about all this. ... Staff reaction to the resignation was I think a bit of a shock and a great sense of loss. Alan brought a breath of fresh air and a new spirit to the organization that was a lot of fun for me to share."

I pinched that from http://www.nasawatch.com/ , where this and a few other touchy topics are discussed as they unfold.

“Now before every flight I always send out an email company-wide saying, ‘If anyone can think of any possible reason to hold off on launching, they should call me immediately on my cell phone or send me an email, whether their manager agrees with it or not.’ But thats sort of something I’ve always sent before every flight, but the 20th time I send that email it just seems like… you know, ’There’s Elon being paranoid again’, so maybe it doesn’t resonate with the same force. But I think now everyone at the company appreciates just how difficult it is to get rockets to orbit successfully and I think we’ll be stronger for it.”

Elon at 36:15

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2015/07/spacex-releases.html

NASA Watch has a copy of the "resume work" order.

https://nasawatch.com/transition/omb-memo-about-payment-freeze-retracted/

The State Department has issued the following guidance

https://www.state.gov/emergency-humanitarian-waiver-to-foreign-assistance-pause/

However, someone in charge is interpreting programs like PEPFAR as not "life saving" so all data systems needed by medical personnel and researchers are still down.

https://data.pepfar.gov/

https://www.datim.org/