You have a second person in the facility that also has a key. It takes two
keys to launch.

"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" <mooregr_deleteth1s@greenms.com> wrote in message
news:cOPyh.22216$w91.12994@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...

"robert casey" <wa2ise@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:yKLyh.22142$w91.10955@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...

Syringes (or any other weapon) would quite easily end up in the hands
of an intelligent psycho before anyone else knew they'd gone over the
edge.


The commander would have the only key to the storage cabinet, but what if
it's the commander is the one who loses it?


How do you keep the commander of a nuclear missile facility from
launching?

You have a second person in the facility that also has a key.

It takes two
keys to launch.

Danny Deger

You have a second person in the facility that also has a key. It takes
two keys to launch.


That's what they did up in an Air Force base in North Dakota. Two guys
who have to turn their keys within some fraction of a second of each
other, and of course the locations of the key-switches is about 20 feet
apart. Way past arm's length.

Syringes (or any other weapon) would quite easily end up in the hands
of an intelligent psycho before anyone else knew they'd gone over the
edge.


The commander would have the only key to the storage cabinet, but what
if it's the commander is the one who loses it?

Query: doesn't a U.S. sub actually have three launch keys (Commander, XO and
a weapons officer), any one of whom can launch? Or am I totally
misremembering that?

This exact thing happened to William Shatner on at least two occaisions.
In Star Trek episodes 105 and 210 he was divided into a good Kirk and an
evil anti-Kirk. I believe this happens in space and we just have to look
on the Enterprise for the good Nowak and recombobulate her with the evil
anti-Nowak... easy

When you launch an astronaut into space wearing diapers you are asking
for trouble. What were they thinking.

Syringes (or any other weapon) would quite easily end up in the hands
of an intelligent psycho before anyone else knew they'd gone over the
edge.


The commander would have the only key to the storage cabinet, but what if
it's the commander is the one who loses it?

You have a second person in the facility that also has a key. It takes
two keys to launch.


That's what they did up in an Air Force base in North Dakota. Two guys
who have to turn their keys within some fraction of a second of each
other, and of course the locations of the key-switches is about 20 feet
apart. Way past arm's length.

Yes. In my opinion the Russians take mental health more seriously than we
do. Read the book "Dragon Fly". The Russians told us a perticular
astronaut was not mentally OK to fly in their station. In training he was
showing signs of not getting allong with his crew mates. We flew him
anyway and he had MAJOR problems with his crew. This is a documented case
of NASA not taking mental health seriously. Keep in mind the Russians had
a LOT more experience with long stays by a crew in space.

Long-duration spaceflights with large crews (e.g., trips lasting several
years to the outer planets) are still a big unknown. We don't know if a
large, mixed-gender crew will degenerate over several years like "Mutiny
on the Bounty" or "Lord of the Flies" or "The Caine Mutiny" or any of the
other scenarios we're already familiar with.

You're only thinking about an individual astronaut freaking out. What
about a "love triangle," complete with jealous rages, forming *among*
three or more members of a mixed-gender spaceflight crew *during* a
long-duration mission?

I've changed my mind about building a lunar base. I'm now thinking it
really is the only way to test out really long-duration spaceflight

On 2007-02-08 10:45:23 -0800, fairwater@gmail.com (Derek Lyons) said:

...Highly competitive,
overachieving, individualistic alpha types are precisely the *wrong*
type to send on a long duration mission - but that's precisely the
kind of people the ASCAN selection process is designed to find.

Yeah, that's a valuable point. Can you imagine sticking the original
Mercury 7 into some tight litle interplanetary ship and boosting it off to
Mars in a multi-month coast trajectory? Someone would have strangled
Glenn within weeks, I bet.

There's actually a really good James Tiptree short story that revolves
around exactly this premise. Can't recall the title but it's in one of
her collections.

Not even going to speculate on the Navy. They are weird to begin with,
especially anyone who volunteers to go on a boat that intentionally sinks
(subs). Seems logical that sub commanders would have the ability to become
far more independent though as a sub can get cut off the rest of the
world....

"Esaz" <none@none.none.nnn> wrote:

Not even going to speculate on the Navy. They are weird to begin with,
especially anyone who volunteers to go on a boat that intentionally sinks
(subs). Seems logical that sub commanders would have the ability to
become
far more independent though as a sub can get cut off the rest of the
world....

Yes, the [ballistic missile] sub can be far more independent than a
hole in the ground in North Dakota. Yes, there are measures in place
to prevent that from happening (fairly strong ones).

D.

"Dale" <drdale_com@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:S2Hyh.15$li6.0@newsfe04.lga...
This exact thing happened to William Shatner on at least two occaisions.
In Star Trek episodes 105 and 210 he was divided into a good Kirk and an
evil anti-Kirk. I believe this happens in space and we just have to look
on the Enterprise for the good Nowak and recombobulate her with the evil
anti-Nowak... easy

When you launch an astronaut into space wearing diapers you are asking
for trouble. What were they thinking.

They were likely thinking that the alternative wasn't too pretty.