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Comment by irjustin | Hacker News Reader

In principle I agree, but there's a lot riding against a proper, non-nasa investigation.

1. No one died, unlike Columbia, there won't be a Congressional committee put together on this.

2. Even if there was a congress committee/investigation done, what changes can actually be instituted? Block any more Russian modules?

That's requiring putting pressure on a foreign country to make changes where the relationship runs a knife edge balancing act of frenemy.

The Russian space program is a shell of its former self since ~2010.

The most realistic course of action (at this moment) of any corrective recommendation is to remove them from the ISS. They've been threatening pulling out for a few years now, so let them?

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> No one died

In areas with a strong and proactive safety culture, "near miss" incidents are investigated and mitigated. These "near misses" are cases where "no one died" - the accident did not happen, but if one more thing had gone wrong, it would have.

The manta is "for every _x_ near misses, there will be an actual accident". Where x could be e.g. 10; and accident in this case could mean "total loss of the ISS and everyone on board"

This is IMHO a strong argument for a thorough investigation, in some form. Congressional committee or not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_miss_(safety)

https://etraintoday.com/blog/near-miss-vs-an-accident/

Clearly there will be an internal investigation with NASA (too much happened outside of protocol) but we'll never hear the full details nor know of the corrective recommendations or lack there of.

If you want to guarantee public knowledge it's got to be Congressional and I just don't see that being realistic because again... No one died.

> but we'll never hear the full detail

This is a pity, good safety cultures are also more open.

There should be an internal investigation at NASA, but they’ve dropped the ball on that several times in living memory. It’s a question of how much has changed culturally since Columbia.

Another issue - they've been doing things like having all their folks shelter in their modules when SpaceX docks - but not doing that for this type of stuff.

Also the somewhat odd cracks at SpaceX

Rogozin told Russian media that he doesn’t believe SpaceX can build better rocket engines than Russia can. “Musk is not a technical expert in this matter,” Rogozin said. “He just doesn’t understand what this is about.”

Will be interesting to see how Raptor 2 competes (and yes, Russia has had amazing engines).

SpaceX destroyed the main funding for their space agency.

Raptor 1 is already better then any Russian engine along most metrics.

And Rogozin is a journalist made oligarch, he doesn't know shit. Accusing Elon of not being an expert is quite funny coming from him.

I don't think he was speaking to an international audience when he said that, even though it may appear to be like that. Russia is internally quite fragile and to admit that they lost their edge is something that comes with a pretty high price so - just like it always was - they engage in weak PR.

I am curious as to how you would remove us from the ISS. A third of the pressurized modules on the ISS are Russian [1]. Do we just take them with us when we leave? How do we achieve that?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_of_the_International_...

"""

The ISS is made up of 16 pressurized modules: five Russian modules ( Zarya, Pirs, Zvezda, Poisk and Rassvet), eight US modules (BEAM, Leonardo, Harmony, Quest, Tranquility, Unity, Cupola, and Destiny), two Japanese modules (the JEM-ELM-PS and JEM-PM) and one European module (Columbus).

"""

*Pirs was undocked to make place for Nauka.

Probably US would pay Russia for keeping them in place.

Russia wouldn’t let the US operate them.

If we imagine an offer to buy out 1/3 of a space station, how much would it be? The amount should be colossal.

It would not be any more expensive than what Russia spent to build that portion. Moreover, accounting for depreciation, it’s not at all colossal.

If it were reasonably easy to just replace the existing modules, they coukd have been replaced.

But if you want these specific modules, already integrated into the station, which are an opposite of a commodity, the price includes a significant premium.

I suppose in theory the US could just starve Roscosmos of funding by cutting back on implicit subsidies. That would require having a contingency in place to keep the station viable without Russian involvement. The problem is that would be massively expensive. As you say, that’s a third of the station. In practice you’re quite right, that plan is completely unviable.

Well it's doable, the problem is that it would kill the ISS as a station. If other parties are ok with it then sure, but I somehow doubt they are.

Removing the Russian segment from the ISS isn't feasible, as it has the only module capable of GNC, and Progress is the only currently flying craft that can raise the ISS's orbit (which, being in LEO, slowly decays).

Russians also can't remove Zarya anyway because they don't own it. The US purchased the module decades ago when Russians had no money. (They still have no money, but they used to have no money, too.)

> 2. Even if there was a congress committee/investigation done, what changes can actually be instituted? Block any more Russian modules?

There are certainly less dramatic measures that could have prevented this incident.

To quote the article:

> the Nauka module's autopilot apparently decided it was supposed to fly away from the station.

Having such decisions protected by a physical switch comes to mind.

A joint committee by all the nations involved in the ISS could require such measures before any module or spacecraft is allowed to dock.

Establishing emergency overrides for firing thrusters to all ground control stations could have greatly reduced the impact.

Why was the unexpected firing of thrusters detected so late? Better telemetry and their analysis could help.

And so on. Lots of things that could be done if there was the will do to do them.

Many more things could be done in response to a through root-cause analysis.

> The most realistic course of action (at this moment) of any corrective recommendation is to remove them from the ISS. They've been threatening pulling out for a few years now, so let them?

From my experience of life in Russia, I'd say this is one of the most effective ways dealing with people habitually resorting to the "do ... or we will sink together!" blackmail.

Let the saboteur succeed, and exceed.

You can swim, and the blackmailer likely cannot (and choosing the threat exactly for them fearing such outcome.)

If somebody brings a stick of a dynamite on the ship, shouting, and swinging it around, give them 10 more, and say good luck.

Such demeanour is wholly dependent on the other party's assumptions that they are harmed more than if they did nothing, which is the reverse in reality.

> remove them from the ISS

Space Station Freedom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Station_Freedom

What happened in 2010? Is that when the Falcon 9 started launching?

We've already called out the Russians and pressured them for sending up anti-satellite weaponry in 2017 and 2020. Why trust them here.

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