back to article Roskosmos admits that Soyuz 'meteorite' hole had more earthly origins

The boss of Russian space agency Roskosmos has confirmed that last week's air leak aboard the International Space Station (ISS) was the result of engineers getting handy with a drill. Dimitry Rogozin, who famously suggested NASA transport its astronauts to the ISS using a trampoline, said that the hole had been caused by a …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Should have turned off the SDS hammer action

    ...he said, speaking from unfortunate experience.

    1. MyffyW Silver badge

      Re: Should have turned off the SDS hammer action

      My Significant Other still believes you need a drill to hang a picture, so maybe this is just a result of somebody mounting an inspirational poster to "motivate" the cosmonauts?

      1. Korev Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: Should have turned off the SDS hammer action

        Stop, Hammer time

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Should have turned off the SDS hammer action

        My ex-SO once managed to put the SDS drill into chisel (hammer only) mode when trying to put up curtains, or something. She managed to 'drill' a near 1 cm deep hole into a brick before the drill bent so badly even she finally realised something was wrong! Took half an hour though.

  2. Tigra 07
    Pint

    Has anyone considered that maybe it's a DIY ventilation hole to stop the ISS getting all stuffy?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Smoking area

      Maybe it's for sticking your cigarette out of, since there's no smoking inside.

  3. AS1
    Alien

    Interstellar metal worms

    We all know it was really an alien infestation and the trampolining is just a cover story for kinetic impulses needed to stir the critters' internals into dust.

    (From vague memories of a mid-20th century SF short story. Any one remember it? Couple of astronauts go up to investigate why satellites are failing, and discover tiny cosmos-drifting creatures that feed on refined metal. They're very delicate and the astronauts end up kicking the satellite to shake them apart. It's a take on an unexpected first contact story.)

    1. Giles C Silver badge

      Re: Interstellar metal worms

      that is an Isaac Asimov short story, I can remember the plot but not the title

      Don’t think it was one of the robot series and not sure what else’s still in print.

      1. Sgt_Oddball

        Re: Interstellar metal worms

        Must recheck that short story collection I've got of his then. It's probably in there...

        1. Vince 1

          Re: Interstellar metal worms

          The story is called "Found!"

      2. michael cadoux

        Re: Interstellar metal worms

        Is that the one where somebody has to put a bumcheek against the hole because the depressurisation is so rapid?

  4. AlexGreyhead
    Coat

    Wot, no TITSUP?

    Total Inability To Support Usual Pressure?

    (Sorry - mine's the one with the Crap Dad Jokes book in the pocket...)

    1. m0rt

      Re: Wot, no TITSUP?

      Total Inability To Stop Unplanned Penetration?

      1. Rich 11

        Re: Wot, no TITSUP?

        Said the actress to the bishop.

  5. TRT Silver badge

    Buzzdroids...

    You always have it easy, Snips.

  6. Alistair
    Windows

    Please dear lord DO NOT put this one on DJT's desk. Find *SOMEONE* saying something untoward about Melania for him to read.....

    1. Rich 11

      You seriously think Trump would blame Russia, short of a hammer-drill being held to his head by his own Chief of Staff?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        > "You seriously think Trump would blame Russia...?"

        I think the idea was to suggest any accident occurring in a high-profile location is liable to make Trump irrationally assign blame, because "Trump," I guess. Meh.

  7. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

    Measure twice

    Cut once.

    Or in this case, drill?

  8. Not Enough Coffee

    Time for a new Reg series about Russian hardware cockups - Why I'm In Siberia.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My theory is that it was a case of bad translation and when NASA asked the Russians to perform a depressurization driil!

  10. EveryTime

    Did it occur on the ground or in space?

    People in pressurized houses don't drill holes. Certainly not near their pressure skin.

    Even if they did, they would instantly recognized what they did.

    1. cray74

      Did it occur on the ground or in space?

      The picture seems to include some drill marks in the surrounding paint, which implies it happened after assembly of the Soyuz's orbital module.

      The whole "drilled and filled with adhesive" sounds a lot like some of the repairs I've specified for bad castings** used in aerospace applications, so I could believe it happened on the ground. Then again, that sort of repair usually happens long before painting. If the repair is decided after painting, we strip the paint, patch the hole (Loctite ea9394 is awesome), sand down to tolerance, and repaint. You wouldn't have those drill skip marks around the hole.

      **The stainless steel castings are expected to hold some pressure because the sensors and electronics behind them are air-cooled, but a) there are no lives depending on the pressure seal, and b) the strength margin is ludicrous, so some high strength epoxy in a casting porosity is safe. One of them came back to the factory missing one of its sapphire window panels, paint half blistered off, and packed with mud and fire retardant - it turned out to have been under the wing of a British Harrier that had a bad landing in Afghanistan. We were able to use the casting to train factory operators in window installation because it was still within its dimensional tolerances of +/- tiny.

  11. Mike 16

    Not only Russians

    Back in the 1960s I read a book from the 50s or earlier about the U.S. Navy's submarine program, including a disturbing story from the early days. A naval inspector noticed a small pit on the pressure hull of a sub under construction. As a bureaucrat, he of course had a paperclip handy, and was astonished to find that the "pit" was a hole, all the way through. Rushing to the shipyard management to report it, he was confidently assured that since the hole was "above the waterline" and would be covered by paint, there was no problem.

    Pressure differentials work either way, but construction by the lowest (or best connected) bidder is a constant.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: Not only Russians

      A sub with a hole 'above the water line' so it's ok... uh, huh.

      well I don't think sub builders [in this case, probably Electric Boat, or perhaps Mare Island] would be so brain-dead stupid as to actually do that. My guess is it's just a funny urban legend... or it may have been a hole that was drilled for some other reason (to attach sonar gear via a cable that penetrates the hull?), and someone was funnin' with the civilian. [yeah maybe the cable stuffing box hadn't been attached yet]

      In reality sub hulls are thoroughly x-rayed and re-welded if any flaws are found. I was semi-involved in that process once, a long time ago. Standard practice for Navy ships at any rate.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not only Russians

      The two pressures are wildly different, since one is a single standard atmosphere internally, and the other is way, way more than 1atm externally. The Soyuz leak will hiss a bit, but the pinhole in the sub will be a little bit louder at any significant depth.

  12. Velv
    Pint

    “You realize we're sitting on 45,000 pounds of fuel, one nuclear warhead and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder?”

    Rockhound, Armageddon (1998)

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      The original:

      It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.

      Alan Shepard

  13. This post has been deleted by its author

  14. DropBear

    In the original source it's mentioned that "there was metal visible" behind the hole, which suggests that albeit this may well have been a pressure-critical wall separating pressure-tight and not pressure-tight parts, the distinction may not have been immediately clear to whoever drilled that hole. I'd even go further and assume that the "outer" part might have been kinda-sorta-nearly-almost pressure tight, considering I find it really hard to imagine a 2mm hole draining even a full ISS worth of volume of air at a rate "barely above normal leakage values" as quoted. None of which justifies the fabrication cock-up of course, if that's what this was, but it might explain why the perpetrator might not have had that "oh crap, I just punctured this spacecraft" moment at the time...

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Coat

      ok this is why you might drill a hole and seal it with goo

      Let's say you do testing, and you discover a leak. you know it's "around here". The drawings say there shouldn't be a leak, but you have one anyway. So, to access the leaky zone, you drill a hole. THEN you inject some sealant goop into the hole, and the leak stops. YAY, you FIXED it! But it doesn't hold, and so now your hole is in a photograph blaming you.

      less funny than the other explanations. I'll get my coat anyway for the buzz-kill effect.

  15. Dwarf

    Stick a pop-rivet into it, that'll seal up most of it.

    If it won't go in, then you might have to drill the hole a little deeper to get it in.

  16. Mike Moyle

    So far, 27 Roscosmos employees have confessed to drilling the hole.

    More confessions are expected shortly.

  17. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    B&Q Projects

    So that explains the cosmonaut with the shower cubicle at B&Q checkout the other day.

    Wonder if an outdoor project will be next.

  18. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Makes me wonder

    What would happen if a similar hole was drilled in the Bigelow module

    1. cray74

      Re: Makes me wonder

      What would happen if a similar hole was drilled in the Bigelow module

      The Bigelow modules, like Transhab before them, are 50cm of layered ceramic cloth, foam, and fiber-reinforced pressure films. The hole wouldn't grow because of the rip-stop nature of the armor and strength layers.

      Repair would be interesting. You'd be filling a 50cm-long bore and trying to get an adhesive to stick to polymers that sometimes don't play well together. However, given the small diameter of the hole and low stress (a few pounds of air pressure at the most), a long plug of epoxy injected in there would probably stick and hold in place.

  19. Winkypop Silver badge
    Coat

    If you look through the hole

    IT'S FULL OF STARS!

  20. JohnG
    Coat

    "contract expiring in April 2019" = Brexit

    "Russia has warned that its days of being a glorified (and pricey) Uber for NASA's astronaut corps are coming to an end, with the current contract expiring in April 2019 and no new seats on the horizon."

    Will the fallout from Brexit never end?

  21. JohnG

    Bung

    Presumably, the ISS has a tin of assorted bungs, to fill such holes. However, I guess it could be tricky procuring bungs - When a ROSCOSMOS or NASA procurement guy says "I need some bungs", the suppliers might get the wrong idea.

  22. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

    An unnamed source reckoned that the employee responsible likely tried to cover up the mistake with sealant, which finally gave way last week.

    Rookie error - should have used duct tape.

  23. Crisp
    Coat

    All in all, it's just another hole in a wall

    We don't need no ventilation...

  24. Wedge2

    Rookie error - should have used duct tape.

    Half the worlds navy and air force are held together with duct tape.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Rookie error - should have used duct tape.

      "Half the worlds navy and air force are held together with duct tape."

      Yay! the flying boat lives again!

  25. I&I

    Vacuum Cleaner

    Just add hose & attachment

  26. A. Coatsworth Silver badge
    Happy

    These are clearly speedholes. They make the craft go faster (probably to its doom, but still, faster)

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In space...

    No-one can hear you scream "NNNNYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEETTTT"...

    Apologies to our Russian comrades.

    But seriously, how the $Deity did this get through quality control?

    I once saw a (allegedly true) story about a drive from an overseas location that mysteriously failed about a year in, when dismantled the cause was so horrible that the *entire* batch was pulled and replaced.

    Turns out that hard drives grow bugs, and over that year the bug in question grew to nearly 9mm long and was "quite lively" when removed.

    Alas it didn't survive. But imagine the horror of that poor tech when they opened up a drive to find a creepy crawly thing ON THE PLATTER!

    Creepypasta material!

  28. Gustavo Fring
    Black Helicopters

    AHHH THIS

    iS WHERE the humble potato , cut to appropriate size would come in handy. Havent they seen the martian?

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like