“Wait a minute.”
Two of the SpaceX vehicle inspection team members groaned, looking at the third with undisguised annoyance. “Dammit, Mickey,” one said, “ what is it now?”
Michael Hong hated his nickname. As a kid his ears had stuck out perpendicular to the sides of his head, and for this reason his classmates had begun calling him Mickey. When he’d gone to college, he’d made the mistake of staying in-state. By the end of his first semester his high school classmates had spread “Mickey” around his new friends. Ever since then the name seemed unshakable, since even his best references, his favorite professors and bosses, everyone would say, “Michael Hong? Oh, you mean Mickey!” And the name would stick.
This wasn’t the main reason he’d fallen into a job which would keep him both solitary and unloved at his workplace, but in the two years he’d worked as an inspection camera operator at SpaceX he’d learned that he liked being called “that nitpicky bastard Hong” much better than “Mickey.”
Nobody had yet called him his new nickname, “Nitpicky Mouse,” to his face.
And if he leaned a little towards the cautious side sometimes, well, it meant safer flights, and whose business was it if his inner six-year-old jumped up and down cheering revenge against the kids who kept offering him cheese or asking for Donald Duck’s autograph?
“Look at oxygen tank #2,” Hong said, working the camera controls to bring the spot in view. The camera probe had been snaked far, far up into the insides of the Red Falcon first stage slated for the Sleipnir 3 resupply mission to Mars. Now its little light and its little camera focused on the manifold coupling which connected the central oxygen tank to several rocket motors below.
“I looked,” his coworker replied. “It’s fine. No sign of failure.”
“But you see that discoloration just above the coupling?” Hong insisted.
The third inspector groaned again. “Hong,” he said, “Mark Watney and his alien buddies are farming their own shit and eating nothing but potatoes and hay to survive. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, but-“
“They need this supply mission to survive until Ares 3B shows up to rescue them,” the third inspector continued. “Ideally, they should be there yesterday, and we should be sending twice as much.”
“And every day we hold this mission back,” the second inspector added, “is a day Watney and friends wait for their take-out, get me, Mickey?”
“Better that than it not get there at all,” Hong snapped.
“Hong, we have ten days, counting today, to hand this booster and its second stage off to NASA for inspections and final assembly,” the third inspector continued. “We’ve found four issues already which will take six days to correct.”
SpaceX had enjoyed many surprising triumphs over expectations over the years, but their ambitions of routine 24-hour turnover of their reusable first stage rockets had shattered against the unyielding concrete wall of facts. There was only so much good engineering and good materials could do against the extreme forces of rocket exhaust heat, atmospheric compression and friction, acceleration forces, vibration forces, etc. etc. etc. And Red Falcon, the literal BFR, SpaceX’s most complex creation except for the Hermes habitat section, just had that much more that could go wrong.
“But… well, this shouldn’t be like this,” Hong insisted. “Have you ever seen anything like this in inspections before?”
“Nope,” the second inspector said. “Not even in training. It’s not a leak, it's not a thin patch in the pipes or tanks, so it’s not a problem.”
“It’s on the oxygen tank,” Hong insisted. “The main feed line, anyway. This isn’t like the fuel tank. If RP-1 leaks, you might have a fire or you might not. But a compressed LOX leak will ruin your day five times over. We do not mess around with the oxygen tanks, guys!”
“How long,” the third inspector said, “will it take to disassemble the rocket, replace the feed stem and the manifold coupling-“
“Probably the manifold, too, to be thorough,” the second inspector added.
“-and put it all back together again?”
Hong shrugged. “Nine days,” he said. “But the other repairs could be done at the same time, so that would save three days again.”
“It still puts us two days behind,” the second inspector grumbled. “And that’s only if we find nothing else wrong. Really wrong,” he added emphatically.
“And all of NASA, from Teddy Sanders on down, is breathing down our necks,” the third inspector added. “They all think Watney’s farm is going to explode or something and that he’ll run out of food if we don’t get it to him right now. Maybe they’re right, Hong.”
“Look, Mickey,” the second inspector said, trying to adopt the role of voice of reason, “if you can tell us what that particular discoloration is, and how it might lead to a failure in flight, we’ll flag it for remediation. Otherwise, it’s a non-issue and we move on. How about it?”
The other two inspectors stopped and waited for Hong to think it over. They had a point-NASA wanted this booster in on time, after the delays with the booster for Sleipnir 2. And- Hong reminded himself- there wasn’t any definitive sign of a leak or imminent failure. It could be tarnishing from some pre-assembly contact, or it could be thread lubricant used to get the connections tight. He’d passed the booster for the Ares IV MAV, and it had launched without a hitch with three questionable spots more questionable than this.
But again… this was the central oxygen tank.
Hong didn’t want to fail it, but he just didn’t feel right about passing it, either.
But… but the other two were right. He couldn’t pinpoint a known flaw. He could just say, “That metal’s the wrong color.” And it wasn’t a wrong color that matched any known warning signs of oxidization or other issues.
Hong shrugged. “I just have a bad feeling,” he said.
“Bad feeling isn’t good enough,” the third inspector said. “It looks just fine to us.”
Hong sighed. “Okay, if you say so,” he said. “Let’s move on.”
And the other two members of the inspection crew breathed a sigh of relief, congratulated themselves on getting one past Nitpicky Mouse, and moved on. Seriously, each of them thought, with the huge stick up his butt he had, you’d think he worked for NASA.
Not good...... Either that or we are being trolled.
It's gonna fail.
...Really?
Well, SpaceX should have three new job openings in a couple weeks...
Well shit.
..... REALLY!!?!?!?! look as much i love to speed things along with space and all that but there's a fine line where you don't cross, if this happens in real life i will flip a table with all the rares teacups!
if that happen when something like this happen am with the mob on this one you should never skip the most basic things
8827256
Yes, if it's a chekov's gun. They'll be fine if it's a red herring
yay an upda-
bleh. foreshadow NASA filler.
I never read the book (on the account that I didn't know it existed), and I never saw the movie (trying to rectify that), and I can only hope things dirt-side go okay.
Didn't Buzz Aldrin or somebody mention the same sort of thing before Apollo 13, with the same justifications as to why he didn't report it? Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
8827256
8827267
Sorry to disappoint, but this is common. Alarmingly so, even in the space industry. This is (almost unnervingly) exactly what we've been studying in my engineering ethics course. If it wasn't ponies, I'd send this to my professor to share with the class.
From our outside perspective, of course it looks worrisome. It's a literary trope, Chekov's gun. But we didn't see him give similar warnings on countless other "minor" issues like his partners did. To them this is just "that one weird screw left over after you finish building the IKEA furniture".
Look at Alan Rocha, just before the Columbia disaster in 2003. He thought he saw a problem, but it was new and too vague to guarantee it being worth investigating. A few others shot down his idea, and he did't bring it up again. And then disaster famously struck.
In fact, I would wager that this scene might have been inspired by that (if it wasn't in the book already, which I'll admit I've never read).
The great question here is "how big is the boom going to be?" when the noted but ignored unknown returns.
Of course, that does require the hanging 'if' being said discoloration is a symptom of what is to come, rather than a huge tease.
Either way, it is entirely reasonable to pass over the matter based upon the lack of identifiable problems.
Personally, I'm on the side of 'not red herring' down the road. Groceries arriving pre-cooked?
8827250
Yep... this is a frustrating sort of chapter. It can't possibly be good. Plus I mean, they're arguing with with a disney character. How often does that end well?
Two words:
Apollo 13
8827283
I have no idea. But the liquid oxygen tank blew due to exposed wiring no one could detect
This... really doesn't sound like SpaceX. They have been pretty big sticklers for fixing even minor issues before flight... like if a secondary sensor stops working, they delay the launch in order to replace it. The companies standing policy is that if anyone spots something that they think needs fixed, they can hold the launch by contacting Elon and Shotwell directly.
8827303
Yeah but then again, you got 10 days to launch with 6 lives on the line? Things will be overlooked
MICKEY! YOU'RE RIGHT! DON'T LET IT GO! DRAW THE STICK OUT OF YOUR ASS AND BEAT SENSE INTO THESE MOFOS!
8827286
We had basically this, and why not to do it, in my engineering ethics class too. And at the same time, you can see why it happens.
I'd submit it as an example anyway, just this chapter even. It's really instructive.
8827286
very true and its shameful if you ask me
8827303
This. This is not SpaceX. For one, they'd have hundreds of the damn things by this point, and two they're already deep into reuse and the things are built to massively overspec compared ULA and other rockets. They're designed to be reused without rebuilds for at least a hundred times. It's been a consistent issue with your depiction of them in this fic, but this is just the top of it. They'd already have the damn rocket built, and it would have already flown at least a dozen times at this point.
ok at this ponit am going to say it they should put more then one usb drive for each rocket
8827256
Could be SpaceX will be out of government contracts within few months. This was absolutely unacceptable breach of safety culture, human factors as they stand are present there but they do not matter. Any company which has people who think in this way in positions of this level of responsibility should not be done business with. There were living people on that MAV and it had 'questionable' spots?
8827299
Two men:
Bob Ebeling and Roger Boisjoly
8827286
Groupthink is an ugly monster that shows up everywhere.
8827330
Just to have it be melted in the LOX explosion?
8827334
hey they say they got 4 rockets, so we hope atlaset one of them make it up there
The correct response to "I've never seen that before" is "tear it apart, not just the unknown but everything upstream of it until you have a clue what caused it" even if it's harmless unknowns are the number 1 killer in aerospace and astronautics.
If you don't know what something is than you don't know what it will do or affect. In rocketry that precision increases even more.
8827326
Have to admit I agree, I don't see SpaceX failing to achieve their 24-hour turnaround for that long, either. There's no particularly good reason given, just "Space is mean". It feels pretty thin to anyone familiar with their achievements.
8827343
Their whole goddamn business model relies on turning spaceflight into something as routine as air travel, with everything they've done coming up to that point with the F9 B5. Their answer to 'this looks questionable' is 'pull the other booster out of the back, and throw this on the deep maintenance pile to see what's fucky'. Hell, they're building the full completed prototype for the BFR next year to start suborbital tests, they wouldn't be having these problems a decade and a half from now.
Why take the time to be thorough about the whole process. After all, it's only the supply mission to ensure the survival of the first confirmed proof of alien life, actual alien life.
8827358 Because a sufficiently nasty accident on Mars could mean that everyone will be dead if they delay by even one day. It's not a good decision or a trained one, but it is understandable. The guys in charge will be polite about firing these guys when the thing goes boom instead of black listing them.
8827366
Sarcasm
God damn it all, SpaceX! Did we learn NOTHING of what happens when you neglect ANYTHING to do with the O2 systems after Apollo XIII? No?
Well, enjoy the fireworks from your handiwork, then. Just remember that this will follow you EVERYWHERE, even when you try to ignore it on your CV
8827332
Was just about to mention Boisjoly and the horrors of people being asked to "think with their manager hat instead of their engineer hat" when making launch decisions.
If Hong's the top guy in his area...well, when your top guy gets a gut feeling that something's wrong, that's a signal to the others that it's something they should check out even if he can't explicitly say what's wrong.
8827286
This is a very important point.
In industries like this, as a safety inspector, making calls that force massive projects to literally grind to a halt (and cost the shareholders millions in delays) is a very limited resource. If you pull out that card too often and don't successfully find fatal flaws each time, your ass is probably due for a firing even if you were doing it in the name of safety. Unfortunate but true.
Granted, the considerations are different in this scenario, but they also don't want to be the guys responsible for causing a fatal delay. If Watney and gang starve to death and investigations reveal that the discolouration was nothing after all, and "I just have a bad feeling" was the only justification they could give, well... I can see why they'd give it the green light.
well this will certainly come back t bite them in the ass
I live in oregon. Why oregon tonight?
One of the things that just grinds my gears overall is just how absurd the problems overall seem to be. Not Chris' fault either, but the problems that seem to be inherent in The Martian that Chris draws upon.
It's not that problems don't crop up, but that problems keep cropping up that have no right to get past any engineer worth his base salary. Shatterproof helmets and damage resistant suits would be expected and TESTED before they ever hit orbit, let alone martian soil. ("Have you tried testing whether or not these things can survive a guy tripping and falling face first on a sharp rock? Because I would expect someone to trip and fall at least ONCE during an EVA, and RNJesus would just happen to put a sharp rock there...")
The considerations on the cave would have been fielded to both a geologist AND a structural engineer who would have immediately fielded concerns for pressurization cycles before the sentences describing the location even got finished. ("If it's holding, it's holding. Don't disturb it more!")
The canvas for the hab, or even the whole structure, would be built with a failure mode in mind that prevents a catastrophic blowout even if it wasn't built to last more than a few weeks. OR at the very least, concern for extended duration use would have been top of everyone's list the moment anyone knew Watney was alive.
I can understand one catastrophic failure, or a failure chain centered on one critical problem that snuck by observing eyes. But the number of little 'oopsies' that permeate so many facets of Mark's plight are beyond a simple streak of rolling natural ones. The problems hit the point of making the engineers look incompetent. Especially with how high-profile and critical the mission really is combined with the nature of the field itself.
This latest problem isn't really Chris' fault in the writing either. Just understanding how deadly serious people take the 'might be nothings' really requires you to live the culture and get away from all the expediency-for-convenience mindsets that permeate society. (Every single person reading this post knows someone like that. The corner cutter who's gotten away with it over and over. The guy who looks at something and goes 'I'll be fine', and relies on his long streak of natural 20s to pass over a potential problem. The pressure to just roll with it.)
But there are only a few ways metal can end up 'discolored' in a well known and documented process, and any engineer, welder, or worker on the line would probably spot that and go "That's a weld that was cooled too slow/fast" or "that's exposure to [X]". If an inspector takes a look at something and goes 'I don't know what that is, and I don't like that'. The other inspectors don't argue to push a deadline. Pushing the deadline isn't what they get paid for. They look at what the first inspector said and goes 'Huh, I don't know what that is either. And I don't like not knowing what that is. Stop Work.'
Overall, the problems that key getting thrown at Mark OTL are problems that are not simply solvable, but SOLVED already, and their failure modes known. Not designing equipment acknowledging said failure modes is like deciding you're not going to install a fire suppression system over a deep fryer in a restaurant. I can see idiots not doing so, and getting reamed by code enforcement when it's discovered. But NASA and its contractors would have NO BUSINESS screwing up like that.
Again, not Chris' fault. And really, not the fault of the original author either. When you get technical with your writing, you quickly run into the 'I don't know how this shit works' barrier and have to fudge your way around it. But all too often, that gets laid on WAY too thick.
Honestly, this part would work better if 'Micky' was interrupted before he could voice his concern and the inspection team missed it by virtue of outside interruption. That's a believable human error that doesn't require engineers to suddenly derp out and go "I dunno wut it iz, must be nothin'!". When there is NO SUCH THING in their line of work.
As much as everyone is up in arms about SpaceX and their depiction, well, if this doesn't happen instead of a science the fuck out of this situation you have a boring journal about ponies and a dude in a box.
SpaceX gets thrown under the drama bus because that's what the story needs.
I wish this wasn't explicitly BFR, since for some reason an unknown fault in a mature (at least six years old, so ten years behind schedule) reuseable system shows up in exactly the worst time while there aren't any backups in the pipeline. And that system seems to be far under spec compared to F9H (140,000 lbs LEO, and nobody's ACES style tug can grab it and push? ULA and BO can't shake loose one Vulcan/New Astronaut?) And refurb is the delay, not building probes?
There are lots of nitpicks, but to fit the archetecture of The Martian, compromises had to be made and us SpaceX fans are going to have to live with 'em.
And rocket goes boom.
I find this statement incredibly ironic, give how much NASA's gross negligence and deadline rushing has bitten them in the ass in the past. A13, Challenger, Columbia...I could go on.
Seems like NASA's up to their old tricks again.
I heavily agree with 8827303 & 8827326 in doubting that SpaceX would be similarly negligent...even under this sort of time crunch. How willfully stupid do you have to be to blatantly ignore historical trends that are that spectacularly disastrous? Sure there aren't any people on this one, but it's still one of the most important rockets in human history...
Whats teh chance its not a problem and its going to get there. whats teh chance its a problem, we dont do anything and it cuases various forms of fail, including destrying the Cape and preventing Any more attempts at help. Whats the chances that the delay means only the Dragon survives, because everyone else decided Someone had to survive? And the Dragon can eat Everything?
8827250
meanwhile, in some bunker an evil man smile as he makes his evil....
https://youtu.be/fyiO8xQU-20?t=2m31s
8827474
Ignoring anything in inspection is crazy nonsense, but critical safety things get overlooked all the time simply because it's hard to predict everything. The hab blowout is stated as a result of slightly incorrect assembly, something engineers can only mitigate so far, for example. A certain helicopter gearbox has planetary gears manufactured by two different manufacturers that are interchangeable, or at least they were until it was (via 13 fatalities) discovered one type can explode the gearbox and detach the rotor from the aircraft. Not saying safety glass is excusable, but risk factor analysis can only do so much.
8827256
Two, with one under serious review.
8827486
It's not entirely unrealistic. Given the circumstances, they're under a truly astronomical amount of pressure from both civilian agencies and government to Get The Job Done. Like, yesterday or sooner, and fuck the laws of physics. By this point, pretty much every man, woman, child, animal and brighter-than-average root vegetable on Earth (and probably everything in Equestria with a rudimentary language and table manners) knows that Mark and his alien roomies are under a really pressing time limit, even if they don't know the actual specifics (i.e., Cave Farm Go Boom Boom Any Day Now), and the ball's in NASA and SpaceX's court. And unless I've missed something crucial, the ESA doesn't have more than the vaguest hint which universe they're in yet, so they're still getting their shit together. Therefore, they're going to be expected to do whatever it takes to get their take-out wagon out soonest.
If the risk of booms is "small," they'll be expected to swallow it and soldier on, since not getting Mark's support out to him on time is unacceptable.
Of course, if it goes wrong--and it will, otherwise this passage wouldn't exist--they're still going to be on the hook, even under the time limit they're working under. They're still going to be crucified in the court of public opinion. And Mark and his newfound buddies are going to have to wait a lot longer for their takeaway.
Honestly, this rocket failing would just be very unsatisfying. It's the exact same thing as happens in the book/movie and here they don't even have the excuse of the hideous time crunch they have in canon because of the cave farm.
I think the fact that it's THE CENTRAL GODDAMN OXYGEN TANK should raise eyebrows and have the inspectors shitting themselves. This is supposed to be set in the 2030s; I'd like to imagine that nobody has forgotten Challenger, Apollo 13, or Columbia that quickly...