On the second day of the mission, Wang floated over to his experiment and sought to activate the Drop Dynamics Module. But it didn’t work. He asked the NASA flight controllers on the ground if he could take some time to try to troubleshoot the problem and maybe fix the experiment. But on any Shuttle mission, time is precious. Every crew member has a detailed timeline, with a long list of tasks during waking hours. The flight controllers were reluctant.
After initially being told no, Wang pressed a bit further. “Listen, I know my system very well,” he said. “Give me a shot.” Still, the flight controllers demurred. Wang grew desperate. So he said something that chilled the nerves of those in Houston watching over the safety of the crew and the Shuttle mission.
“Hey, if you guys don’t give me a chance to repair my instrument, I’m not going back,” Wang said.
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So in the immediate aftermath, someone at NASA, probably within the crew office, initiated the capability of a commander to lock the hatch if he or she felt uncomfortable about a crew member. It was used frequently in subsequent missions involving payload specialists.
This is the lock picking lawyer and today we have a padlock on an airlock. Now, this is extremely difficult due to its location, but the lock itself is nothing more than a master lock that you can just bang on the side here, and it’s open. To show that it wasn’t a fluke…
In all seriousness, you can’t be completely certain that anyone isn’t going to suddenly lose their shit, whether in space or on the ground. Nobody is “immune” to mental health difficulties, and in especially risky conditions, there should always be some barriers between “normal operations” and “catastrophic shit-losing.”
It was used frequently in subsequent missions involving payload specialists.
I would like to know more.
The article was in depth, but absolutely fit the bill of “interesting as fuck”.
“Payload specialists” were essentially passengers. They had basic training but were not professional astronauts. Their main job was to perform experiments, not operate the spacecraft.
After Wang nearly lost his shit commanders on the next few missions locked the hatch. After the complicated Apollo hatch led to … problems NASA started making hatches that were easy to open, perhaps too easy. One astronaut described it as flipping a switch, turning a wheel once, and letting all the air out. Those commanders didn’t want someone going apeshit and killing everyone. Ironically the payload specialists weren’t the biggest threat.
They don’t make it super clear in the article but astronauts at the time we’re getting basically every drug and medicine that wouldn’t impair their work to test their effects in microgravity. On a later mission a professional astronaut had a bad reaction to one of the drugs he’d been given and had to be restrained by his crew mates from taking “drastic action”.
TL;DR: Space is scary, yo.
Great read
He doesn’t seem to understand the gravity of this situation.