Re: report: ISS minor debris strike

> >
> Few things would put me quite on edge as much as a noise on my spaceship 
> that I can't find any explanation of. 
> 
> Pat

No kidding. I was stationed on an older nuclear submarine for three
years, and during that time, it was the main method of knowing about
an equipment casualty, well before any alarms sounded. I'd be sitting
eating in the wardroom, and either the lights would flicker or you'd
hear a big shudder/thump. The captain was usually out of his seat and
on the way to Control before 'what was that?' could get out of my
mouth.

Occasionally it was nothing--but usually it indicated some kind of
engineering casualty. The bigger the noise, the bigger the problem.
Electrical (breaker)problems were always the noisiest, the hardest to
find the cause of, and took the longest to fix.

Living in a tube for several months, you get very used to 'normal'
noises, and a different one occuring--different and loud enough to
notice--is usually a bad sign. If I were Houston I would give the
astronauts the benefit of the doubt on judgement and look very hard
for an actual problem.

Tom Merkle