Alexander Gerst, Sergey Prokopyev and Serena Auñón-Chancellor will prepare the station for the arrival of three new crew members — Oleg Kononenko, Canadian flight engineer David Saint-Jacques and NASA astronaut Anne McClain.
They are scheduled for launch from Baikonur aboard the Soyuz MS-11/57S spacecraft on Dec. 3.
]]>It's hard to say for sure, but one report had it another capsule was found with a leak during manufacture. Not sure at all whether this is another one, or the one with the hole drilled in it docked at ISS.
Could be bad quality, could be sabotage. Hard to say.
GW
]]>NASA and Roscosmos trying to avoid an empty Space Station
Following the failure of the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft to deliver Aleksey Nikolayevich Ovchinin and Nick Hague to the International Space Station last week, the orbital outpost is now left with two fewer crew members than planned. NASA now must assess their options for keeping the station occupied, pending Roscosmos’ updated launch schedule once the investigation into the Soyuz-FG failure has been completed.
Soyuz spacecraft have an on-orbit lifetime of approximately 200 days.
This lifespan is limited by the Hydrogen Peroxide used by the Descent Module’s RCS thrusters. Extended time on orbit means the Hydrogen Peroxide becomes decomposed into gaseous Oxygen and Hydrogen, which create bubbles within the liquid-fueled thrusters.
These thrusters are used to orient the spacecraft from module separation through reentry. If bubbles form in the liquid fuel, the thrusters can become unreliable, forcing the crew to re-enter on a risky ballistic trajectory instead of a controlled descent.
That is just one factor in the decision but consumables is the second...
A SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft designated SpX-16, launching aboard Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, is scheduled for November 27.
With less crew aboard the station needing consumables, in addition to the normal redundant amounts of supplies sent, these missions will likely not need to launch earlier than currently planned, even if the Progress supply mission is significantly delayed.
The primary focus for NASA in the coming weeks will be the safety of all crew members, whether they are currently in orbit or waiting to launch from the ground. Meanwhile, ground controllers and engineers will take on the difficult and important task of keeping the space station occupied so that the research conducted on the orbital laboratory can continue uninterrupted.
We have run low on food in the past when shuttle stopped flying but then the ESA and Japan picked up the load so as to keep the station occupied.
]]>Its not risk adversion to make and take safety precautions and that is what we are doing with the radiation shelter, bringing and staging backups to critical systems....
]]>SpaceNut,
There is no escape from BFS. It either works or you witness a brief free fall into the Atlantic or Pacific on live TV and that's that, much as it was for the Space Shuttle crews. The crew and passengers will most likely try to escape, just like the Challenger crew did, and it won't work.
There is no escape from BFS. It either works or you witness a brief free fall into the Atlantic or Pacific on live TV and that's that, much as it was for the Space Shuttle crews. The crew and passengers will most likely try to escape, just like the Challenger crew did, and it won't work.
]]>Just think of the fallout if this was a 100 person BFR launch that blew up since we have not seen anything related to vehicle escape for the new rocket that space x is building. Even the dragon crew went through big changes to make it possible.
]]>Louis-
Since NASA has something like a $19.1 Billion annual budget, one would assume that they might actually accomplish something .
Unfortunately, recall a conversation that Admiral Yamamoto was having with his superiors at an Imperial Japanese Staff conference at the outset of W.W. II . When asked if the Navy could accomplish yet one more miraculous offensive task, he calmly took a glass of water--stated that this represents our strength--then poured it on the floor. Then pointed to the puddle and stated "As you can see--it only goes just so far." This little anecdote mirrors what NASA faces, given the myriad of internal factions, each with a pet project and associated staff. NASA is a tree that needs some serious pruning, and a hard headed, hard nosed engineer at the controls.
Indeed, I would have no problem if the agency were broken into 2 components as you've stated. But the real problem is overzealous congressmen and the jobs/pork issue. Too much "oversight" is sometimes worse than none at all.
louis wrote:Indeed.
I think that is certainly one aspect of the problem: "goal diffusion". NASA now has too many goals, spreads itself too thin because it is in thrall to what is basically a science lobby, a manufacturers' lobby group (who like "new" projects rather than tried and tested rocketry because there's a lot more profit in it) and the pork barrel politicians.
I've nothing against science of course! I just think that getting to Mars and establishing a base there will revolutionise planetary science and making exploration of the solar system much, much easier. The NASA approach means decades of small ineffective amounts of cash spent on hundreds of projects.
I have argued previously (not that it's really my business as a UK citizen) that the US should split NASA into a Moon-Mars Exploration and Colonisation Agency and a Cosmological and Planetary Science Agency with roughly 50-50 funding. I think that would make for a much more effective overall effort. But we're past that now. Space X are going to revolutionise everything.
Belter wrote:The difference is that NASA of the 60s had one goal. Beat the Russians to the moon. At any cost, at any risk and with all due speed.
Now they are basically a science organization with dozens of fingers in every little area of space exploration, but no big single overarching goal. Which, actually, is a better thing. We're spending our money on learning things, not just throwing it on interplanetary vacations.
Since NASA has something like a $19.1 Billion annual budget, one would assume that they might actually accomplish something .
Unfortunately, recall a conversation that Admiral Yamamoto was having with his superiors at an Imperial Japanese Staff conference at the outset of W.W. II . When asked if the Navy could accomplish yet one more miraculous offensive task, he calmly took a glass of water--stated that this represents our strength--then poured it on the floor. Then pointed to the puddle and stated "As you can see--it only goes just so far." This little anecdote mirrors what NASA faces, given the myriad of internal factions, each with a pet project and associated staff. NASA is a tree that needs some serious pruning, and a hard headed, hard nosed engineer at the controls.
Indeed, I would have no problem if the agency were broken into 2 components as you've stated. But the real problem is overzealous congressmen and the jobs/pork issue. Too much "oversight" is sometimes worse than none at all.
Indeed.
I think that is certainly one aspect of the problem: "goal diffusion". NASA now has too many goals, spreads itself too thin because it is in thrall to what is basically a science lobby, a manufacturers' lobby group (who like "new" projects rather than tried and tested rocketry because there's a lot more profit in it) and the pork barrel politicians.
I've nothing against science of course! I just think that getting to Mars and establishing a base there will revolutionise planetary science and making exploration of the solar system much, much easier. The NASA approach means decades of small ineffective amounts of cash spent on hundreds of projects.
I have argued previously (not that it's really my business as a UK citizen) that the US should split NASA into a Moon-Mars Exploration and Colonisation Agency and a Cosmological and Planetary Science Agency with roughly 50-50 funding. I think that would make for a much more effective overall effort. But we're past that now. Space X are going to revolutionise everything.
Belter wrote:The difference is that NASA of the 60s had one goal. Beat the Russians to the moon. At any cost, at any risk and with all due speed.
Now they are basically a science organization with dozens of fingers in every little area of space exploration, but no big single overarching goal. Which, actually, is a better thing. We're spending our money on learning things, not just throwing it on interplanetary vacations.
I think that is certainly one aspect of the problem: "goal diffusion". NASA now has too many goals, spreads itself too thin because it is in thrall to what is basically a science lobby, a manufacturers' lobby group (who like "new" projects rather than tried and tested rocketry because there's a lot more profit in it) and the pork barrel politicians.
I've nothing against science of course! I just think that getting to Mars and establishing a base there will revolutionise planetary science and making exploration of the solar system much, much easier. The NASA approach means decades of small ineffective amounts of cash spent on hundreds of projects.
I have argued previously (not that it's really my business as a UK citizen) that the US should split NASA into a Moon-Mars Exploration and Colonisation Agency and a Cosmological and Planetary Science Agency with roughly 50-50 funding. I think that would make for a much more effective overall effort. But we're past that now. Space X are going to revolutionise everything.
The difference is that NASA of the 60s had one goal. Beat the Russians to the moon. At any cost, at any risk and with all due speed.
Now they are basically a science organization with dozens of fingers in every little area of space exploration, but no big single overarching goal. Which, actually, is a better thing. We're spending our money on learning things, not just throwing it on interplanetary vacations.
Murphy strikes again!
]]>The differences (plural) are a lot more than just that. In the 1960's, there were no favored contractors, just a large competitive pool of contractors to select from. There was no micromanagement yet from a Congress that values porkbarrel over results. And the NASA organization itself was far, far smaller. Its internal culture was quite different.
That began to change right after Apollo was cancelled. As the pool of contractors shrank and began to become a small pool of favored corporate welfare clients, and as Congress began to idiotically-micromanage things, the space shuttle went from a two-stage airplane to the cluster that cost a $billion to launch each time, and killed two crews because of too many single-point failure modes. (That and ignorance combined with arrogance about solid rocket motor seals: no one at NASA had ever actually made a solid rocket themselves; still true today).
The agency itself had no real dramatic mission anymore after Apollo, and grew way too large trying to be everything to everybody. The bureaucratic rot had pretty well set in by 1980. And it really shows now.
Which is why they'd rather not do a fast test of crew Dragon and get to flying again, so as not to embarrass Boeing. Boeing owns too many in Congress. Available hardware notwithstanding. It's not about logic and common sense. It's about high-$ politics and corporate welfare.
GW
]]>