Current Time: Wed Oct 1 11:47:05 EDT 1997
MsgId: *infinities(1)
Date: Sun Sep 28 20:57:16 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 168.100.204.58

OMNI: Stay tuned for our chat with astronaut Walt Cunningham, to begin in a few minutes. If you have questions, feel free to post them.
MsgId: *infinities(2)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:03:06 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 168.100.204.58

OMNI: Walt Cunningham is here, and is just getting set up. This will be an in-studio interview, with the OMNI Moderator typing for both parties.
MsgId: *infinities(3)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:06:46 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 168.100.204.58

OMNI: The first thing I'd like to do is ask Walt what it was like during his record-breaking Apollo mission. Walt, can you please recall for us exactly what it was like during that period?
MsgId: *infinities(4)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:07:50 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: I guess the first thing I recall is that it was an eleven day mission for the first flight of a manned Apollo space craft. It was very unusual --even the first shuttle went just two days.
MsgId: *infinities(5)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:08:17 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 168.100.204.58

OMNI: Why was the decision made to do it that way?
MsgId: *infinities(6)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:09:52 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: We campaigned to do it that way. We wanted to demonstrate the capability of the hardware as soon as possible. In the preceding mission, the craft had burned up and three people were killed. We wanted to demonstrate the hardware in terms of its readiness for a lunar mission, and to sustain three men for the full duration of that.
MsgId: *infinities(7)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:10:49 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 209.12.94.51

dont you believe that going out into the solar system would be more beneficial than cruising around in low earth orbit on the ISS? Wouldn't we learn much more and challenge our technology more by doing so?
MsgId: *infinities(8)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:11:25 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 168.100.204.58

OMNI: How did it feel to move forward after your colleagues had been killed?Cunningham: We were the backup crew for that mission. We felt we had fixed anything that could have caused the problem. The spacecraft we flew was much more capable than the one we had before.
MsgId: *infinities(9)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:12:05 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: I was responsible for almost all the systems, and I felt I understood the craft extremely well. We could handle whatever came up.
MsgId: *infinities(10)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:13:04 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 168.100.204.58

OMNI: What have you been doing since?
MsgId: *infinities(11)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:15:38 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: With Apollo 7, we felt we had a good understanding of the risks involved. We knew there to be risk --and we knew where the risks were, due to our thorough assessment of the spacecraft systems and operations-- but we felt the benefits to be derived greatly exceded the risks.
MsgId: *infinities(12)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:16:20 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: I want to contrast that with what is going on with the Mir Space Station today.
MsgId: *infinities(13)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:18:11 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Today, we have NASA operating in conjunction with the Mir space station, where we have never established a baseline assessment of system safety and reliability, in an objective, analytical way.
MsgId: *infinities(14)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:19:14 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: What NASA did back when the started this was they accepted the historical record for the Mir operations. They made no rigorous safety or risk analysis. OMNI: Why
MsgId: *infinities(15)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:21:16 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: Because politics, and not technology, drove our actions. And the Russions were not completely candid about their system failures. For instance, they denied ever having a fire aboard, when they actually had.In fact, people in the highest levels of NASA decided that any formal safety analysis for the Mir-Shuttle program would be conducted only for new operations --new hardware, for instance, new experiments.
MsgId: *infinities(16)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:21:54 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

OMNI: In other words, Dr. Wolf is going up. They won't investigate safety for him?
MsgId: *infinities(17)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:22:39 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: This is a different issue, which we'll come to.
MsgId: *infinities(18)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:24:22 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: The ramifications are this --we do not have a solid basis for this program, which we are continuing to participate in. We did not evaluate it as we do our own programs, and consequently, we are accepting a lower standard for safety and mission assurance with the Mir program than we have in the past. If you accept lower standards, then you have a higher level of risk for human safety.
MsgId: *infinities(19)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:27:10 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

OMNI: Why, then, do NASA and also the Russians say there's real danger is sending up additional crew members to Mir?
MsgId: *infinities(20)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:29:53 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: There is no such thing as a manned space flight without danger. OMNI: They say, though, that Mir is not especially dangerous.Cunningham: Each mission we take to Mir is more dangerous than the last, because the systems continue to deteriorate. However, we cannot say exactly how dangerous, because we never did the analytical risk assessment in the first place.
MsgId: *infinities(21)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:32:06 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: I would like to separate what the Russians think of and are doing about Mir from what we think of and are doing about Mir.Let's talk about the Russians first. I do not blame them for anything they are doing to try to salvage Mir, because it is the only space program they have. They will try to keep it going as long as possible, especially when the US is picking up most of the cost. It offers the Russians prestige, some technology gains, and is one of their few legitimate qualificatiosn for a major role in the International Space Station.
MsgId: *infinities(22)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:33:14 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: I say it as an overvalued claim for a role in the International Space Station. They are no longer a major player in this arena, but I do not blame them for salvaging whatever they can.
MsgId: *infinities(23)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:35:04 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

As for the US, we have to answer the original questions: Do the benefits to be arrived from having an American aboard Mir exceed the growing risks of his being there? There are only about three rationales to be put forth to justify our participation:
MsgId: *infinities(24)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:37:15 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

The first rationale is that we can use this to develop operational procedures for the ISS. We have had five successful dockings, which I think have little significance to the ISS, because the hardware evolved out of what we gave them in Apollo/Soyuz. We have experience already, and we could have tested it on the ground. Now we have had five successful dockings, and thousands of real time hours of experience in working with Russians. Therefore, that first rationale has already been satisfied.
MsgId: *infinities(25)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:39:13 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

The second state reason was life sciences research, and there can be very little such research while the crew is dealing with in flight emergencies almost all the time. In any manned space mission, there are activities in which you must engage just to sustain the crew. And that is called overhead. And then you have the productive time you spend doing science and other things. With Mir, I believe there is little time left after overhead.
MsgId: *infinities(26)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:39:55 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

There is no life sciences research left to do that is essential for the ISS.
MsgId: *infinities(27)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:43:00 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Now for the third rationale: foreign policy interests. Considering the increasing human risk, I think there are probably other ways of addressing foreign policy, in my opinion. We should go on to other programs rather than suffering further untimely and perhaps disastrous failures. Does anyone thing David Wolf will spend the next four months without some computer problem, some oxygen problem, some leak? These people are qualified to handle these emergencies, but what's the point of a mission whose sole purpose is to keep yourself alive. We went beyond that thirty years ago.
MsgId: *infinities(28)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:43:55 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

OMNI: What you're saying, on its face, seems obvious. Why haven't more people spoken out?
MsgId: *infinities(29)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:46:07 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: A number of former astronauts have spoken out. It's not that we think David Wolf is likely to die up there, but rather, that what he's doing up there should not be the job of the astronaut. Our job is not just to go up there and spend our time staying alive. It is a perversion of the whole rationale to go into space to do some good for humanity --as well as to further human knowledge for its own sake.
MsgId: *infinities(30)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:48:11 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

OMNI: How have we gotten into this fix?Cunningham: We have allowed top management and politicians to make these decisions based on politics and not based on operations and technology.
MsgId: *infinities(31)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:49:09 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: Flatly, there's no reason we need the Russians on the International Space Station beyond politics. Politics is being played with our national space program.
MsgId: *infinities(32)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:51:41 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

OMNI: How will the path we have taken with Mir impact the ISS?
MsgId: *infinities(33)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:53:43 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: We have been turning the ISS program into a foreign policy program. And the decisions that are made for that program, if we stay on this path, are not going to be the same ones we would make if we were conducting our own, independent program.
MsgId: *infinities(34)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:55:56 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: It is the international equivalent of diversity when we look at making up ISS crews. This is the politically correct thing to do --it sounds good, it makes you feel good. But I believe in a program that is based on merit --the best technology irregardless of where in the world it comes from; the best crew members regardless of their nationality; and every participant (government) paying its own way.But going back to the Mir, we have affirmative action for manned space programs.
MsgId: *infinities(35)
Date: Sun Sep 28 21:58:29 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: We are attempting to hold together a crippled spacecraft that doesn't warrant it from our side.
MsgId: *infinities(36)
Date: Sun Sep 28 22:01:24 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

OMNI: What advice do you have for those who are developing the space program in the future?
MsgId: *infinities(37)
Date: Sun Sep 28 22:04:50 EDT 1997
From: OMNI_and_Walt_Cunningham At: 168.100.204.58

Cunningham: When operational and technical considerations are divorced from political decision-making, then we will have a return to the kind of successes and programs we had in the days of Apollo, the golden age of manned space flight. OMNI: Thank you, Walt Cunningham, for a thought-provoking hour of chat. I hope we'll be able to do it again.


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