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...Bruce McCandless performed the first ever untethered EVA and we got this iconic image...

Whilst the most beautiful of images, at a personal level the thought of doing such a feat is possibly the most terrifying that I can imagine.

Cahoonas to B McC !!!

It certainly beats flying over water in a SEP for risk!

Or does it? They spent years getting the experience and doing the engineering and training to make that EVA as safe as it could be.

Under water!

Did he book the flight on Wingly?

Nope, he did it from a vehicle with a 2% fatal accident dispatch rate......

Puts the EVA risk into perspective.

lobstaboy wrote:It certainly beats flying over water in a SEP for risk!

Or does it?

Not if you use the stats to assess risk; %age lost flying over water vs %age lost space walking.

Absolutely fantastic pic.

Difficult to get statistics from small samples; how many untethered space 'walks' have there been? AIUI most of the ISS space walks are tethered most of the time. The lunar EVAs were untethered and really walks.

There was an ISS EVA where the cooling water sprung a leak and the astronaught only just made it back before he drowned. Water behaves strangely in microgravity.

Wouldn't it be great to do that though!

ChrisRowland wrote:Difficult to get statistics from small samples

Exactly, so we are left with perception and the tendency to consider the location brings greater risk.

ChrisRowland wrote:...and the astronaught only just made it back before he drowned.

What's one of them, then? Someone who is not an astronaut?

ChrisRowland wrote:Wouldn't it be great to do that though!

Absolutely.

I watched First Man the other night and found it incredible that they put themselves in the position they did. How do you do a risk assessment for landing on the Moon when it's never been done and more critically, in face of all the mishaps there had been?

There could only be one conclusion to such an assessment, so best not to do it.

Talk about being as safe as one can be.

Miscellaneous wrote:I watched First Man the other night and found it incredible that they put themselves in the position they did. How do you do a risk assessment for landing on the Moon when it's never been done and more critically, in face of all the mishaps there had been?

There could only be one conclusion to such an assessment, so best not to do it.

Talk about being as safe as one can be.

Then, on Apollo 11, discovering that the top of Ascent Engine Arm CB had been knocked off...
Still the end of a pen did the job and apparently there was a backup.

I remember Apollo 13 (the event, not the film) and it was riveting. They were so lucky, it could easily have been just sudden silence

As an example of problem solving it was brilliant, no ranting, no guessing, no assumptions, just reporting what they saw and what was happening as clearly as they could. Then working with the people on the ground. to get a series of solutions.

Truth is I think a hell of a lot of it was seat of the pants stuff.

The notion of risk assessment etc was still some way off. There seemed to be an acceptance of collateral damage, including by those likely to be that collateral damage. Almost an expectation.

I recall my father waking me and getting me up to watch the historic moment. My mother was in hospital pregnant with my twin sisters. I'm glad she was or I'd probably have been left sleeping.

I'd go in a second, trouble is the upcoming flights are pretty limited and to the edge of space. I'm holding off for when the locos are doing a week in the ISS.

That image really is mesmerising.

Apollo 13?

The cartoonist Rigby had it nailed.

Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins is the best account of Apollo that I've read. It is good on how they felt about risk, what they did about it and so on.
Bear in mind this was the 1960s. Lots of WW2. Korea and Vietnam veterans around. Attitudes were different then.