[HN Gopher] Gus Grissom taught NASA a hard lesson: "You can hurt...
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Gus Grissom taught NASA a hard lesson: "You can hurt yourself in
the ocean" (2016)
Author : ColinWright
Score : 98 points
Date : 2021-07-21 08:26 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| billfruit wrote:
| Why did NASA prefer landing in sea rather than over landmasses
| like Soviets did? I think there could be factors that makes
| landing on dry land safer than on water.
| vikingerik wrote:
| Well, the splashdown was only a temporary stage of NASA's space
| flight history. They switched to land landings with the
| Shuttle. Only a couple dozen Mercury/Gemini/Apollo missions
| splashed down, compared to a hundred-plus Shuttle missions on
| land.
| VLM wrote:
| Earths surface is 70% water so if there's an incident then
| there's a 70% chance you'll be landing in water.
|
| Its possible to build a land lander that would not survive an
| ocean landing. So if for safety reasons you have to modify the
| design for water landing, may as well just make a water lander.
|
| (edited to add, speed at splashdown for Apollo capsules was
| about 15 MPH, so accidentally crashing an Apollo into a flat
| cornfield would feel about like falling off a bicycle... there
| would be some damage but its rather unlikely to kill the
| astronauts, so most water landers can safely-ish land on land
| with an extremely high odds of survival)
|
| Also helps that with the implosion of the English Empire the
| USA ruled the seas. Yes we had/have air force bases everywhere
| also, but there's just more surface area controlled.
|
| If the Soviets had tried ocean recovery it would have been
| extremely awkward. Very handwavy the Soviets had an enormous
| number of low quality attack subs and extremely limited surface
| ships, whereas the USA had/has a huge dominating surface fleet.
| For better or worse the USA has enormous experience fishing
| aerospace vehicles out of the water, the USSR simply could not
| do ocean recovery like we did.
| dogorman wrote:
| The Soviet system injured a number of people quite seriously.
| It gave Sigmund Jahn a permanent spinal injury in 1978, and in
| 1969 it broke Boris Voylnov's teeth. Water landings weren't
| without incident, but I don't think there were ever any
| injuries as severe as those.
| busterarm wrote:
| More equipment is involved in a land landing. That's more that
| can fail. you also have to consider where they're going to have
| an abort landing.
|
| The Soviet's launch locations weren't exactly surrounded by
| oceans. I'm sure landing in the Caspian Sea was undesirable to
| them for other reasons.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| A few of the pros:
|
| * It's a big, flat surface (relative to uneven dry land)
|
| * Safe to land a heavier craft with only parachutes (no retro-
| rockets required to soften landing)
|
| * There's a lot of ocean all around the US, so lots of possible
| landing zones
|
| * Large margin for error that still has a safe touchdown
| jtbayly wrote:
| It would be a more interesting article if it delved into the
| question of whether his claim can be believed. For example, did
| they ever verify a fault with the mechanism such that the hatch
| could blow without pressing the plunger?
| whartung wrote:
| It's a shame that the most prolific public view of Grissom is
| how he was portrayed in "The Right Stuff". His exasperation
| trying to describe it as a "glitch, a technical malfunction" in
| front of the unbelieving review board.
|
| Apparently, they did, indeed, later learn that the bolts "just
| blew". And, at least in part, because of that, the door on
| Apollo 1 did NOT have explosive bolts. If the bolts had worked
| properly on Mercury, then the bolts may have been in place on
| Apollo 1, and the crew and Gus Grissom may well still be alive
| today because of them.
|
| As the engineer said in "From the Earth to the Moon", where
| this was dramatized, "I've never been a fan of irony."
| leereeves wrote:
| > Apparently, they did, indeed, later learn that the bolts
| "just blew".
|
| When the capsule was recovered in 1999, they found no burn
| marks on the remains of the bolts, suggesting, according to
| some, that "perhaps the explosive cord never detonated". I
| don't know, but it is interesting.
|
| 1: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
| xpm-1999-dec-12-mn-43115...
| jtbayly wrote:
| I've never even heard of the guy. I'm not criticizing him.
| I'm just criticizing the article. It raised a fascinating
| question and then gave 0 info about it. Just a short quote by
| the guy in question to close the article. I was listening to
| it on my phone and I thought the rest of the article had been
| skipped somehow when it ended there.
| hinkley wrote:
| It's worse than that. Because of that incident with his
| module, he was shifted in the astronaut rotation. If I
| understand that history properly, without the roster change,
| he would not have been on the Apollo 1 test crew at all,
| bolts or no bolts.
|
| Poor guy could not catch a break from NASA.
|
| (Also Fred Ward has not gotten anywhere near enough screen
| time)
| DonaldPShimoda wrote:
| > If we die we want people to accept it. We are in a risky
| business, and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not
| delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of
| life.
|
| --- Gus Grissom
|
| I always find this quote relevant in any thread about Grissom's
| accomplishments because he was involved in this incident 6-7
| years prior to saying it. He honestly believed that the risks
| were worthwhile, and he wasn't afraid to be the guinea pig to
| stand by that belief.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Other discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27869450
| macksd wrote:
| >> More than half a century later, Grissom's name has faded from
| memory... Grissom deserves recognition not as an unlucky footnote
| but as a genuine hero.
|
| He was also very personally involved in the design for Project
| Gemini, which certainly had its flaws but is underappreciated
| IMO. It ends up being seen as simply a stepping stone toward
| Apollo, but it had actually had a bunch of very interesting
| design goals of it's own: very precise and controllable landings
| (including, in earlier plans, a fold-out glider with the pilot's
| windows facing forward for landing), the beginnings of space
| stations, much faster turn-around time and more modular design
| than Mercury, etc.
| one_off_comment wrote:
| It's always funny to me when people talk about Gus Grissom being
| an obscure figure. I'll always remember the name because my
| family would take me to the Grissom Air Force Base in Indiana to
| see air shows almost yearly when I was a child.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| Eric Berger is quite prolific. I wonder how he got started.
| [deleted]
| doodlebugging wrote:
| I'm old enough to remember most of the early space program. Our
| small TV gave us a window to the world colored in black and white
| with shades of grey.
|
| It was so exciting as a kid to watch these rocket launches, ocean
| recoveries, and television updates that used crude models of the
| activities to give viewers an idea of how things were supposed to
| be working.
|
| I remember when Apollo 1 burned up and have never forgotten
| Grissom, Chaffee, and White. When Armstrong and Aldrin landed on
| the moon I was glued to the TV.
|
| Space is hard though to a casual observer it may look easy.
| Success does that to your perception.
|
| Thanks for this article as I didn't know some of the details
| behind Grissom's contributions to our efforts.
| jccooper wrote:
| There's recent thought (as in: published today) that static
| electricity, triggered by the helicopter recovery process, was
| responsible for activating the hatch:
|
| https://astronomy.com/news/2021/07/did-static-electricity-bl...
| macintux wrote:
| That's a compelling explanation, thanks. Quite detailed.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| A similar phenomenon was implicated in triggering the
| Hindenburg explosion on a recent PBS documentary.
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