Do astronauts aboard ISS always follow orders?

Question

There have been many documented cases of astronauts not following direct orders during the Skylab and Apollo missions. Some of these have been publicly reprimanded but most have not. Most of the issues have been about relatively minor things - things which do not endanger the safety of anyone, but never the less have been disobedience.

What about the astronauts currently aboard the ISS? Do the astronauts exercise their own volition and flat out refuse to do some things, or do things they have been forbidden to do, or do the orders of the ground crew always come first? Is the fear of being reprimanded and thrown out of the space program big enough to ensure there are no deviations?

It is unlikely any sort an official answer could admit to any disobedience by the astronauts because of public image, but are there any 3rd party accounts or external sources that have revealed any problems?

Answer 1

One ISS astronaut, Expedition 15/16 crew member Clayton Anderson, has written frankly about his conflicts with Mission Control while serving aboard the station. Chapters 13 and 14 of his very readable memoir "The Ordinary Spaceman" detail his sparring with the ground and the subsequent effect on his career.

For example, at one point he made a call to the ground "Houston, Station on Space-to-Ground 2 for inefficiency" and proceeded to list out how foolish he felt it was that Houston had had the crew open up the same panel for maintenance three separate times in a week, instead of planning the activities to access the panel once, then do all three activities.

He states:

The total number of weightless turds I launched from the ISS escapes me, but no doubt it was substantial. Safely back on the ground after a sometimes combative five months, I was sentenced to what I would call the astronaut version of "community service", otherwise known as the astronaut penalty box.

On his return from his long duration mission, he states that his flight status was "conditionally eligible." He did end up flying again on STS-131.

Edit: Clayton Anderson made a post on this subject on Quora. https://www.quora.com/Has-NASA-ever-deemed-an-astronauts-performance-on-a-space-mission-unsatisfactory

Answer 2

I only experienced one instance in the three years I worked as an ISS flight controller where a crew member publicly balked at the planned schedule.

They had just completed a demanding EVA, and the ground had preemptively rescheduled the next day's activities to give the crew an extra two hours to sleep in and recover. (Which was no small feat, the ISS timeline plan is incredibly complex.)

When CAPCOM informed the crew of this during the Daily Planning Conference, the ISS Commander said it was an unacceptable amount of time and that they needed more rest. Cue Flight asking the ISS Commander to call them on their private console phone. After a few minutes, Flight came back on the loops and informed everyone in Mission Control that we would be re-re-planning the next day to accommodate the crew's request.

I could appreciate the commander looking out for his crew's best interests. They do a very difficult and challenging job, and there's no one else available to "cover their shift."

From the other side of the issue though, I don't know if the crew realized they had just signed up entire teams of planners and flight controllers to stay after work for hours in order to replan the next day.