Space Forum / Shuttle / October 2003

Ah, I answered my own question:

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/10.28Flare.html

"The increased solar activity is also having an effect on the International
Space Station. Tuesday and Wednesday, the Expedition 8 crew of Commander
Mike Foale and Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri will spend brief periods
of time in the aft end of the Zvezda Service Module, which is the location
aboard the Station most shielded from higher levels of radiation.

The crew will spend about 20 minutes in Zvezda, twice on each orbit of the
Earth for about three orbits, until the station phases out of the high
radiation areas (high magnetic latitudes).

Asking the crew to periodically and briefly relocate to Zvezda is not
unprecedented. Expeditions 2 & 3 briefly "avoided" high radiation periods in
April and November 2001."

Nick

Yes, sir, seconded and thirded. I've been reading it ever since I found out
that's what the senior people were reading, some seven years ago. It's an
excellent, interesting, and informative publication. It's a good collection
of the amusing, unbelievable, scary, and zany things that happens in the
real world illustrating all sorts of risks with technology.

Such as the time a few years ago when a couple had rented a car in Germany,
and so dutifully followed its onboard GPS receiver (at the time, selective
accuracy was enabled so it was off by possibly 100m...) that when it issued
a seemingly nonsensical instruction to proceed straight ahead, they
dutifully drove it into the river, off any road!

The editor does, however, usually rely on the collective knowledge and
experience to peer-review articles and they're good about submitting
corrections that he then includes in subsequent issues. That's a reasonable
compromise, since it's a single person editing these stuff and he's usually
on the road much of the time, and can't possibly have the knowledge needed
to check stuff for good accuracy 100% of the time. He usually lets things
through if it seems relevant and if it appears to have had its basic facts
and attributions.

He *knows* he's going to hear about any noticed mistakes in any article!

It's an extremely diverse readership; there are a number of luminaries (in
their field) reading that list, as I once found out. :) Highly recommended
mailing list.

In fact, the digest (which is what I read) is even gatewayed to the USENET
newsgroup named comp.risks, if you wish to read it there instead of
subscribing to an email version. I usually get the digest approximately
once a week or so, and only takes up about five to seven minutes of my time
to read it.

The true success of RISKS is apparent only when its members *applies* the
lessons learned towards their projects -- learning and dissemination for
the benefit of others at its finest.

-Dan

I am, I am; indeed, I spent yesterday reading much of a year's backlog
from before I started reading it :-)

The did cite a source, but unsurprisingly copies of /Radio
Communication/ from '89 are a little thin on the ground...