[hutzlibu]

The reason was this:

"When I turned on my own instrument, it didn't work," Wang said. "You can imagine my panic. I had spent five years preparing for this one experiment. Not only that, I was the first person of Chinese descent to fly on the Shuttle, and the Chinese community had taken a great deal of interest. You have to understand the Asian culture. You don't just represent yourself; you represent your family. The first thing you learn as a kid is to bring no shame to the family. So when I realized that my experiment had failed, I could imagine my father telling me, 'What's the matter with you? Can't you even do an experiment right?' I was really in a very desperate situation"

Which made him think out loud of opening the intentional easy to open hatch. (because of Apllo 1 with 3 burned and trapped astronauts who could not open their door)

So what happened was a lot of distress while on this flight and from now on there was a lock installed. Which means that in a real emergency, astronauts maybe could then not open the door in time. All because social pressure brought someone close to the point of violently breaking.

(and because NASA did not do proper testing for the specialists, like they did for the professional Astronauts)

[Marthinwurer]

There's very few emergencies that the lock would kill them in if used properly. Since it would only be locked once the shuttle got to space and once it would open to hard vacuum. It would be unlocked before reentry. The only other failure modes that I could think of would be if the lock was unable to be opened or the key was lost. Neither would be the end of the world, as they would have had tools available to cut or remove the lock.

Given that, I'd push for the lock to be part of standard procedure. It can't be a point of distress if it's standard procedure instead of a judgement call by the captain.

[pdonis]

> Which means that in a real emergency, astronauts maybe could then not open the door in time.

The lock was only installed while in orbit--where the hatch is not an emergency escape anyway.

[hutzlibu]

Oh, then I saw problems, where they did not exist. Thanks for clarifying.

[bityard]

I'm actually a little surprised that there wasn't some kind of lock on the hatch already. Not necessarily to deter the rare suicidal/homicidal astronaut, but more because it seems like there would eventually be a non-zero chance of an accidental opening. Imagine the air quality goes to shit and one of the astronauts losing their state of mind and heading for the door while thinking, "man, I really need to step outside to get some air." Or a strap getting caught in the handle in just the right highly-improbable way.

NASA never forgot their lesson about spacecraft doors from the Apollo 1 fire, and I don't blame them one bit. But as an armchair observer, the fact that the hatch didn't have _some_ kind of rudimentary protection system to keep it from being opened to the vacuum of space until that point, is highly interesting.

I mean, if the account of Wang is true, I have to imagine that he was only asking about the door with the same kind of idle fascination that I most definitely would. I could be wrong but as far as I know, I don't believe Chinese culture promotes the idea of killing your crewmates in front of the whole world as a less shameful act than a physics experiment that didn't work out as intended.

[hutzlibu]

"I don't believe Chinese culture promotes the idea of killing your crewmates in front of the whole world as a less shameful act than a physics experiment that didn't work out as intended."

Rational chinese people for sure not. But he was not rational anymore, but out of his mind. Thinking how his family and the whole chinese people would despise him now because he failed as the first chinese in space. Nothing is sure here, but the way he asked, deeply disturbed the others. When you are desperate and cannot handle the pressure anymore - any way to end it, becomes a possibility you consider. A way out. Quite literally in this situation.