What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he’s not coming back?
January 22, 2024 9:38 PM Subscribe
"Space is a harsh, incredibly forbidding domain. It can play with the mind" Not everyone on a space mission is subject to the same rigorous tests as others - this assymetry between professional astronutters and mad scientists was once put to the test when one of the latter, Taylor Gun-Jin Wang, couldn't get his experiment to work - and spiralled into a deep funk... especially when the boss told him to not waste time trying to fix it...
Thought same. Nope, this involves real people.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:03 PM on January 22
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:03 PM on January 22
While I'm not Asian, I am a first-generation immigrant to the United States, and I can understand somewhat in my own way the cultural pressure he believes he had faced to succeed. Beyond the facile "horror sci-fi" angle to the story is something deeper and more important about what it means to come here to this country and be expected to perform to everyone's expectations and beyond, and the kind of mental and emotional stress that can put you under.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:05 PM on January 22 [13 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:05 PM on January 22 [13 favorites]
This thread needs some Bowie background music...
posted by uncle harold at 2:00 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
posted by uncle harold at 2:00 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
Is anyone else very discomfited by the approach and content of this article? By the author's own admission it is almost entirely speculation about what, if the author is right, would be a medical incident involving a person who is still alive and has not consented to the details being discussed in public.
posted by Major Clanger at 2:46 AM on January 23 [16 favorites]
posted by Major Clanger at 2:46 AM on January 23 [16 favorites]
I was just reading about this incident in the excellent A City on Mars. If you aren’t familiar with this book it is a long hard look at all the difficulties involved with establishing a long-term human presence in outer space. The Wang incident isn’t discussed in a lot of detail (It is in a chapter about psychology in space and how even with all of the screening that astronauts go through there have been some awkward incidents. If you were trying to get thousands of people to Mars to start a colony the issue would certainly come up and it would not be easy to deal with in outer space unless provisions for state of the art mental health care are included in the plans.) but does include this quote of his from a book on the space shuttle program: “I was relieved, because I hadn’t really figured out how not to come back if they had called my bluff. The Asian tradition of honorable suicide, seppuku, would have failed, since everything on the shuttle is designed for safety. The knife on board can’t even cut the bread. You could put your head in the oven, but it’s really just a food warmer. You wouldn’t even burn yourself. And if you tried to hang yourself with no gravity you’d just dangle there and look like an idiot.”
posted by TedW at 6:43 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
posted by TedW at 6:43 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
Did the radio communications between the shuttles and the ground broadcast in the clear? Is there actually a record of Wang saying this?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:23 AM on January 23
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:23 AM on January 23
This is the citation in the notes: “Taylor Wang, “I’m Not Going Back,” in Space Shuttle: The First 20 Years—The Astronauts’ Experiences in Their Own Words, ed. Tony Reichhardt (London: DK Publishing, Inc., 2002): 232–33.” I don’t have that book, but presumably those are Wang’s own words to someone.
posted by TedW at 7:38 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
posted by TedW at 7:38 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
Anyone else think it’s weirdly racist to claim that Asian culture is to blame here? That Wang felt so much pressure from his family that the vast emptiness of space was somehow preferable to admitting an experiment didn’t work right? We ALL experience pressure to make our families proud of us. It’s what got me through boot camp. But to claim it’s somehow different or greater with ‘Asian’ kids (or in this case GROWN-ASS MEN) seems absurd.
We all have middle fingers, and we can all raise them.
posted by chronkite at 8:30 AM on January 23 [5 favorites]
We all have middle fingers, and we can all raise them.
posted by chronkite at 8:30 AM on January 23 [5 favorites]
I think there's an important distinction that the author overlooked when assuming it was OK to directly name Taylor Wang. Unless there's more to Wang's quote in the source material, he only acknowledges that he experienced an incident while on the shuttle where he contemplated self-harm over the potential loss of his experiment. It's the author of this article who is including the details about the duct tape on the hatch and the implication that the safety of the entire crew was in danger.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:09 AM on January 23
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:09 AM on January 23
He noted that the problem is not limited to spaceflight, citing an incident involving Joseph David Emerson last year, in which the off-duty pilot attempted to shut down the engines on an Alaska Airlines plane. Emerson, who was sitting on the flight deck jump seat in the cockpit, attempted to grab and pull two red fire handles that would have activated the plane's emergency fire suppression system and cut off fuel to its engines. He claimed to be having a panic attack
They forgot to mention that this guy was tripping on mushrooms. This omission to what factually happened and was widely reported is strange. As someone who has ample experience with psilocybin, trips can be terrifying and the negative effects can last for days (or not).
posted by waving at 9:41 AM on January 23 [4 favorites]
They forgot to mention that this guy was tripping on mushrooms. This omission to what factually happened and was widely reported is strange. As someone who has ample experience with psilocybin, trips can be terrifying and the negative effects can last for days (or not).
posted by waving at 9:41 AM on January 23 [4 favorites]
See any season of For All Mankind, where this topic has been explored by various cast members, but especially "Ed Baldwin," in seasons 3 and 4.
posted by Lynsey at 9:56 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
posted by Lynsey at 9:56 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
Fascinating article and it touches on something that has been floating in the back of my mind as we want more and more civilians head into space. The question becomes "are they ready, can they handle it?"
Sure, the flights are automated and no passenger has to do anything. But people are gonna people and, yes, what happens when someone is having a bad day or is ill prepared and freaks out? Are there procedures in place to prevent that person from hurting themselves and/or each other?
Yes and no is the answer. It's been considered, but it's difficult to stop anyone who's set on doing something, especially if they're having a breakdown. Best that can do is testing and preparations, but to what level?
Fun fact about the flight Wang was on: Don Lind was also it and he waited 19 years (since the Apollo missions) to actually get to go into space.
Add in the problem with Space Adaptation Syndrome, where perfectly healthy and in excellent condition people who didn't get sick during testing become violently ill when actually in space, and there's an ugly recipe for problems.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:59 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
Sure, the flights are automated and no passenger has to do anything. But people are gonna people and, yes, what happens when someone is having a bad day or is ill prepared and freaks out? Are there procedures in place to prevent that person from hurting themselves and/or each other?
Yes and no is the answer. It's been considered, but it's difficult to stop anyone who's set on doing something, especially if they're having a breakdown. Best that can do is testing and preparations, but to what level?
Fun fact about the flight Wang was on: Don Lind was also it and he waited 19 years (since the Apollo missions) to actually get to go into space.
Add in the problem with Space Adaptation Syndrome, where perfectly healthy and in excellent condition people who didn't get sick during testing become violently ill when actually in space, and there's an ugly recipe for problems.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:59 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
Anyone else think it’s weirdly racist to claim that Asian culture is to blame here?
Cultures exist and it's okay for people, particularly people who share a culture, to comment when they see major attributes of that culture displayed. They're talking about how they personally connect with the incident, whether it really is the explanation or not.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:05 AM on January 23
Cultures exist and it's okay for people, particularly people who share a culture, to comment when they see major attributes of that culture displayed. They're talking about how they personally connect with the incident, whether it really is the explanation or not.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:05 AM on January 23
The cultural comments aren't initiated from the author but direct attributed quotes to Mr Wang, as identified in the article.
posted by chasles at 11:21 AM on January 23 [7 favorites]
posted by chasles at 11:21 AM on January 23 [7 favorites]
this guy was tripping on mushrooms
That's a bit simplistic / newspaper headline way of putting it.
He had suffered a psychotic break after taking mushrooms (for the first time, as you can tell from his reaction to them) with his friends, two nights before the event, on a memorial getaway for his dead best friend. This is absolutely against regulations (but then it's just plain illegal to begin with), but he had given himself six days to clear the drugs before he would have had to go back on duty.
He was a passenger on the Alaska flight, but ended up inside the cockpit because that's the way most pilots choose to travel (they're cleared for cockpit access anyway, and the jumpseat beats coach). He wasn't working. He was not going to touch any flight controls. He was also, to use a technical term, going crazy and suffering the entire time, trying his best to seem normal.
In the end he sortof tried to crash the plane in a last-ditch effort to "wake up". "Sortof" because it takes two quick motions to kill an engine: pull out the engine fire lever to shut everything off, then turn it to irreversibly ruin the engine by flooding it with fire retardant. He pulled out both engine fire levers. He turned neither of them before he was subdued by the flight crew. Even having lost touch with reality, he stopped shy of causing irreversible damage. The crew pushed the handles back in, and the engines picked up where they had left off (they hadn't had time to spin down).
Guy tried mushrooms for the first time, like a lot of people do. He went insane, like a vanishingly small percentage of first-timers do. The authorities decided to make an example of him.
posted by tigrrrlily at 11:27 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
That's a bit simplistic / newspaper headline way of putting it.
He had suffered a psychotic break after taking mushrooms (for the first time, as you can tell from his reaction to them) with his friends, two nights before the event, on a memorial getaway for his dead best friend. This is absolutely against regulations (but then it's just plain illegal to begin with), but he had given himself six days to clear the drugs before he would have had to go back on duty.
He was a passenger on the Alaska flight, but ended up inside the cockpit because that's the way most pilots choose to travel (they're cleared for cockpit access anyway, and the jumpseat beats coach). He wasn't working. He was not going to touch any flight controls. He was also, to use a technical term, going crazy and suffering the entire time, trying his best to seem normal.
In the end he sortof tried to crash the plane in a last-ditch effort to "wake up". "Sortof" because it takes two quick motions to kill an engine: pull out the engine fire lever to shut everything off, then turn it to irreversibly ruin the engine by flooding it with fire retardant. He pulled out both engine fire levers. He turned neither of them before he was subdued by the flight crew. Even having lost touch with reality, he stopped shy of causing irreversible damage. The crew pushed the handles back in, and the engines picked up where they had left off (they hadn't had time to spin down).
Guy tried mushrooms for the first time, like a lot of people do. He went insane, like a vanishingly small percentage of first-timers do. The authorities decided to make an example of him.
posted by tigrrrlily at 11:27 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
The upside to a strong safety culture is that if something bad happens it will be studied and actionable steps will be taken to try and prevent another bad thing. The downside is that if the bad thing is you when you are having a moment then you won't just turned into an example - you'll likely end up in the handbook. Like after your experiment fails in outer space and now the space door has a lock. Trying to crash a plane shortly after a weekend bender on mushrooms is sensational news, but these aren't private moments- any significant safety incident like this ought and should be public (in some fashion).
Worst than being made a public example of was getting your own line on a checklist. Flight students at UND can borrow planes, provided they are certified for the airframe, have the cash for fuel, and fill out the paperwork. And checklists. The school added a check for several planes to clearly convey that putting four people onboard, gas and all their gear significantly reduces the maximum altitude these plane could operate at. Of course students would otherwise be expected to know this, but four kids had crashed in Colorado.
posted by zenon at 12:15 PM on January 23 [2 favorites]
Worst than being made a public example of was getting your own line on a checklist. Flight students at UND can borrow planes, provided they are certified for the airframe, have the cash for fuel, and fill out the paperwork. And checklists. The school added a check for several planes to clearly convey that putting four people onboard, gas and all their gear significantly reduces the maximum altitude these plane could operate at. Of course students would otherwise be expected to know this, but four kids had crashed in Colorado.
posted by zenon at 12:15 PM on January 23 [2 favorites]
Sounds like it could be the plot of a JG Ballard story.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 12:50 PM on January 23
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 12:50 PM on January 23
It's the Flight school at the University of North Dakota (UND).
posted by seasparrow at 1:26 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]
posted by seasparrow at 1:26 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]
Chilling comment about the O-ring having been a fraction of a second from failure. This flight was months before the Challenger disaster, when both America's astronauts and vehicles were advertised as perfect and incapable of error.
Taylor Wang's own words. Sounds like he and the crew were very stressed out. And there's another less-documented incident in the Ars article that mentions a crew member being physically restrained. Maybe a good idea to stow some kind bud on those Mars missions.
posted by credulous at 2:56 PM on January 23 [3 favorites]
Taylor Wang's own words. Sounds like he and the crew were very stressed out. And there's another less-documented incident in the Ars article that mentions a crew member being physically restrained. Maybe a good idea to stow some kind bud on those Mars missions.
posted by credulous at 2:56 PM on January 23 [3 favorites]
Well I never: UND is the pride of the north - its the University of North Dakota, as seasparrow noted. They have the largest fleet of training aircraft in the US that they love to low key show off.
It's a big flight school and as such has had its share of safety incidents despite all the effort made to try and avoid catastrophe. The students knew that most every incident was public. So even minor situations like a diversion or 'emergency' landing where a pilot safely did everything right would result in flight suspension for an a full investigation. That could derail their semester, and if the investigation found pilot fault or error, could end their career. And it would all be in the news.
posted by zenon at 9:42 PM on January 24
It's a big flight school and as such has had its share of safety incidents despite all the effort made to try and avoid catastrophe. The students knew that most every incident was public. So even minor situations like a diversion or 'emergency' landing where a pilot safely did everything right would result in flight suspension for an a full investigation. That could derail their semester, and if the investigation found pilot fault or error, could end their career. And it would all be in the news.
posted by zenon at 9:42 PM on January 24
Coming to this article as an electrician that's often working on big projects where there are often complicated chains of lock-outs for safety - the idea that a lock on the hatch is somehow a sign of a lack of trust in the crew is the sign of clearly *bad* safety culture reliant on esprit-de-corps. Which I guess checks out given how many astronauts are from the military world.
Locking out access to start something that will irrevocably kill you, with multiple locks for everyone there so that each crew member needs to take part in the unlocking, is really not a failure in trust.
posted by syscom at 8:05 AM on January 25 [3 favorites]
Locking out access to start something that will irrevocably kill you, with multiple locks for everyone there so that each crew member needs to take part in the unlocking, is really not a failure in trust.
posted by syscom at 8:05 AM on January 25 [3 favorites]
As if on cue, a seemingly suicidal pilot's last words were captured by an ATC recorder: Ominous/Suicidal Call and Fatal Crash in Texas
posted by tigrrrlily at 10:23 PM on January 25
posted by tigrrrlily at 10:23 PM on January 25
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posted by chronkite at 10:00 PM on January 22 [6 favorites]