Post on 13-Dec-2015
Wikipedia’s Definition
In the Pokémon franchise, Bulbasaur are small, squat, vaguely reptilian Pokémon that move on all four legs, and have light blue-green bodies with darker blue-green spots. As a Bulbasaur undergoes evolution into Ivysaur and then later into Venusaur, the bulb on its back blossoms into a flower.
Soyuzes That Tried to Dock Thru 1977Soyuz 3/2 Oct 1968 Tried 3 times but failed.
Soyuz 6/7/8 Oct 1969 3 way failed b/c of electronics failure.
Soyuz 10 Apr 1971 Tried to dock w/Salyut 1. Hard dock failed.
Soyuz 11 June 1971 Successful dock w/Salyut 1. Crew died from depressurization during undock.
Soyuz 14 July 1974 Docked w/Salyut 3.
Soyuz 15 Aug 1974 Auto docking system failed.
Soyuz 17 Jan 1975 Docked w/Salyut 4.
Soyuz 18 May 1975 Docked w/Salyut 4.
Soyuz 19 July 1975 Docked w/US Apollo spacecraft.
Soyuz 20 Nov 1975 Unmanned; docked w/Salyut 4.
Soyuz 21 July 1976 Igla failed. Docking mechanism jammed on undock.
Soyuz 23 Oct 1976 Igla failed. Ran out of fuel before docking.
Soyuz 24 Feb 1977 Docked w/Salyut 5.
Soyuz 25 Oct 1977 Soft dock w/Salyut 6, but hard dock failed.
Soyuz 26 Dec 1977 Docked w/Salyut 6.
What Gives?
• You don’t get to prepare like you want– No zero-g room on Earth
• Our intuition doesn’t help– Orbital mechanics is screwy
• Doing stuff on orbit is hard– If you mess up badly enough, whoops!
death.
• Practice helps– Look at Soyuz and at Shuttle dockings
versus the satellites
Docking is hard!