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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtm … 80]Reuters
Serious scaledown, internationally agreed(!) so NASA can meet its 2010 goals...
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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtm … 80]Reuters
Serious scaledown, internationally areed(!) so NASA can meet its 2010 goals...
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA and its space partners on Friday approved a scaled-down International Space Station with fewer astronauts
*Odd. Less than an hour ago I saw a news article which said the ISS may host MORE astronauts than 3 consistently! I basically skimmed the article but definitely got the impression that MORE astronauts are wanted.
I'll see if I can't find that article again (Yahoo! - ?).
Who knows what the heck is going on. :-\
--Cindy
::EDIT:: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … &e=1]Found it Article admits "details are sketchy" but definitely mentions goal of 4 to 6 astronauts at a time on ISS "permanently" from now on. ::shrugs::
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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From the Reuters article that Rxke found:
will be able to house at least four astronauts starting in 2009
From the Space.Com article that Cindy found:
NASA and its space station partners agreed that "more than three" astronauts should be working at the station on a permanent basis
This sounds like they're saying the same thing, but trying to spin it as an increase or decrease for political reasons.
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IIRC optimum number of astronauts/scientists was 7.
'between 4-6' will turn out to be 'in exceptional cases 6, but normally 4,' I'm sure... There will be six persons up there, for about a week, during Soyuz-swaps, I guess, but the life support being what it is (the US part off-line, most of the time, for reasons i don't fully understand) six people will be just too much... "The life-support cannot take it, Jim!"
And 4 will be maginally adequate, ISS was built with a full complement in mind, to do necc. maintenance, so the workforce can do science, too, if you cut the crew, maintenance gets more time-consuming, relative to research. Sigh.
I even read somewhere the US would all but completely hand over the ISS to those that still want it, so the US-lab might get used for other things in the future...
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Best thing that could happen--especially for those space-happy Russias--unless, of course, a new U.S. Administration is able to encourage, rather than discourage, increased international participation. It's amazing, you know, how little of a positive spin is required to get things to change for the better when the negative-ists of this World are out of the picture.
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One thing: if the USA actually goes the whole mile and says to the non-US participants: "we're outa here, you can do with it what ever you want, have fun..."
Will it not turn out to be a poisoned gift?
It's like getting a free car from a maufacturer going out of business: great deal, until something breaks down. Where will you get the spare parts? I don't think swapping out gyro's will be a possibility anymore etc...
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Hm. Misread the yahoo article, i thought it said they didn't want to commment on using 2 Soyuzes, but it says US doesn't want to commit to buying Soyuzes, while they do agree they *should* use two...
Logical conclusion: ESA/RSA/ISAS will buy the second one... If at all. US won't do it. (the Iran-thing getting in th way)
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Logical conclusion: ESA/RSA/ISAS will buy the second one... If at all. US won't do it. (the Iran-thing getting in th way)
??? What "Iran-thing" would affect the ISS?
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Russia once sold some stuff to Iran, despite the non-proliferation accords or something like that, Iran being in the axi of evol etc... (nuclear stuff, in other words)
So... US has a law that forbids to do hi-tech business with countries that do such things... And that's why NASA can't legally buy Soyuzes from the 'naughty Ruskies'
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And 4 will be maginally adequate, ISS was built with a full complement in mind, to do necc. maintenance, so the workforce can do science, too, if you cut the crew, maintenance gets more time-consuming, relative to research. Sigh.
I even read somewhere the US would all but completely hand over the ISS to those that still want it, so the US-lab might get used for other things in the future...
I seem to recall from something I read a long time ago, that 3 astronauts are basically needed just to do maintenance, that beyond that you get into research.
Does anyone know if any real research project has ever been completed on the ISS? Were any even scheduled before completion?
I guess the real questions are: was the research originally scheduled for the ISS really worth doing at the price? If not, can we replace the agenda with research that IS worth doing? If so, maybe some drastic revisions in the original plan can be negotiated and the most cost effective alternatives implemented, even if this involves the complete removal of the shuttles from the project and replacement with Soyuz craft. Yes, I'm sure parts were designed so that they could ONLY be delivered by shuttle, but are those ones which are really needed for the important research? Could modifications be made so that they could be delivered by Soyuz or even unmanned launch vehicles?
I don't see how anyone could deny that the original project has been so impaired with loss of the shuttle and economic difficulties in some supporting countries that reconsideration of all aspects of the program is reasonable under the circumstances.
And, while we're at it, a big THANKS to the Russians who have provided the Soyuz craft and personnel to keep things going while things get sorted out.
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So the USA would force Russia to join forces with Esa.
Hmmm, sounds like falling on sword material here. Its not as if Esa and the Russians are not cooperating already. If the Usa does cause a close alliance between these groups it will quickly find itself the second power in space with the Moon and Mars "prizes" not being owned by Nasa.
The ISS is a 100 billion$US waste of time it could have made better science sending up 4 or 5 Russian Soyuz type stations for a total price of about 250 Million$US.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Morris: ISS is now core complete, i think, but esp. the japanese stuff should get up, IMO... Their centrifuge, for starters, might do a lot for simulated Moon and Mars experiments.
Heh, and as European, i should of course *demand* the columbus lab to be launched, too, but to be honest: in the end there will be THREE labmodules, and no scientists, to man them adequately, think about it...
Grypd: i sometimes wonder how much a MIR v.2 would have cost... You could argue that's old, obsolete tech, but if you consider FGB and Zarya are in fact just MIRII blocks, and the blueprints for the American solar panels and lab are pretty old, too (just check some late seventies pictures of the first plans of the spacestation... ) the thing strikes you: it's virtually *ALL* old stuff, sold as new, orbiting.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/24/scien … n.html]NYT article (registering required)
Looks like NASA won't leave the station, there's talk about the life-support experiments in USLab, and re-housing current experiments there to the other labs...
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Does anyone know if any real research project has ever been completed on the ISS? Were any even scheduled before completion?
Yes, 'lots' of smelting experiments, greenhouse stuff, etc etc. It's not that there is *nothing* being done up there at all, it's just that the output could be orders of magnitude higher with a bigger crew...
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Logical conclusion: ESA/RSA/ISAS will buy the second one... If at all. US won't do it. (the Iran-thing getting in th way)
??? What "Iran-thing" would affect the ISS?
As I understand it, Washington claimed it doesn't want reactors that MIGHT be used to make nuclear bombs to Iran or any country on Washington's naughty list. But Russia sold a power reactor, not a military breeder reactor, and offered to arrange U.N. inspectors to ensure it wasn't used for weapons. Washington said "we said no and that means no".
Now let's point out that the U.S. provided the nuclear material to Israel to start their nuclear weapons program. Washington claims that an Israeli secret commando squad raided an American transport ship and stole the material. Yea right; do you think Israel could have taken it if Washington didn't want them to have it? So the U.S. has always been allied with Israel while Russia has always been allied with Arab countries. The U.S. provided weapons grade uranium to Israel to start their nuclear weapons program and now Washington doesn't want Russia to provide a nuclear power plant to an Arab country, even with U.N. inspectors ensuring a weapons program is never started. Russia should agree to this, why?
Russia prides itself in high-tech stuff. They developed the first commercial nuclear power plant; later designs are better, but they developed the first. Russia desperately needs foreign money so why wouldn't they sell something as expensive as a nuclear power plant.
The Soyuz ban is just dirty international politics at its worst.
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The ironic thing is that the US violated it's own ban by selling missiles to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. Of coarse, the really ironic thing is that at the same time we were also selling WMDs to Iraq.
It seems a little silly for us to refuse to buy Soyuz vehicles just because Russia once helped to build a nuclear power plant in Iran. I think that the US probably has other reasons for not wanting to buy the Soyuz vehicles, and that the Iran Nonproliferation Act is just an excuse.
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One thing: if the USA actually goes the whole mile and says to the non-US participants: "we're outa here, you can do with it what ever you want, have fun..."
Will it not turn out to be a poisoned gift?
It's like getting a free car from a maufacturer going out of business: great deal, until something breaks down. Where will you get the spare parts? I don't think swapping out gyro's will be a possibility anymore etc...
Nonsense, the Russians supplied a great deal of the operational (and noisey) hardware. Fire in the belly is all that's necessary, and they have it, in spades!
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dicktice,
agreed, and not... Eventually they'd have to at least replace some American-built hardware, like the batteries, the gyro's, ... and retro-fitting stuff from different manufacturers is never that easy. For starters, Russian hardware works at different voltage/current, so *if* they have similar space-rated hardware to replace, it will be a jury-rigged mess of transformers an cables etc. Maintenance-hell, in other words.
And their approach is different, the 'watchmaker', hi-tech American hardware and the 'glorified plumber' Russian tech might prove quite incompatible...
Anyway, doesn't look like NASA isn't about to leave ISS to the other companions after all, so....
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The ISS is just make work to ensure the survival of the shuttle. It would have made more sense to have had more than one station but saying that the ISS as initially envisaged was supposed to be a construction platform, this needless was dropped due to cost.
There are 4 main science disciplines that would be accomplished in orbit, they are Astronomy, Earth study, Microgravity research and finally spacecraft operations( satellites and manned spacecraft). It would have made sense to have had spacestations for each discipline. This could have been done cheaper than the ISS as it only needs soyuz type stations to do the amount of research that the ISS does.
It would be more efficient as an example Earth study (atmosphere and ground ) would really need a polar orbit. Microgravity would prefer a higher orbit. And space station operations would have had benefitted from just having 4 stations to work on, oh and a space tug. The Esa columbus science module was to have its own power and life support system and was to be substantially larger than it is now. Nasa vetoed it as it would have shown that the rest of the ISS is not needed to service the module.
Too many corners where cut too many compromises where made to get the ISS in space for the eventual price tag of over 100 billion $us why cant we have had something that didnt leak have really strange bangs and noises and allowed our astronauts a quiet place to sleep.
The ISS is a wonder, I wonder how someone let it happen
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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This is nuts. The ISS is an all-or-nothing venture. Either there will be room for at least seven scientists or the thing will be practically useless. It would be absolutely insane not to make the station fully capible up to its original seven occupant design, there really isn't a point in doing anything to it anymore unless we make a full commitment.
It's kind of like having a choice for lunch at a fast food resturant, either $3.99 for a kiddie-size burger or you can add 50 cents to jumbo/biggie/super-size up to something you can actually use. If NASA won't make a hab module and my shuttle/hab/ERV idea is too boondogglish then why not retract our cold shoulder to the Chinese and give them a challenge: build an ISS hab module. It's nothing they couldn't handle given they have six years to make one and near-slave labor availible to them. In an emergency, the MOOSE system (Personal heat sheild+retro rocket built into a spacesuit, one per person) could be implemented.
But if the station will be limited to four or six people we might as well turn it over to Paul Allen right now.
A mind is like a parachute- it works best when open.
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Frankly I don't think China can do it... not yet anyway. They simply don't have the experience in building long-term manned spacecraft yet... and you would still need Shuttle to launch it since US nodes don't have docking hardware like the Russian Soyuz hatches. And you would still need Shuttle to fly cargo, barring creation of a whole new cargo ship. And you would still need to double the Soyuz flight rate or build Klipper or CEV before full crew... by that time, the ISS will be so old, I don't think its worth the trouble.
There are two reasons that we are going to plod on to the bitter end to "finish" the ISS, barring a Dr.Bell "Legion of Doom" conspiracy by Bush & Co to have an excuse to do away with Shuttle sometime next year...:
1: We said we would. Contracts between governments have been signed to get the ISS at least to core complete (3 crew + labs, no hab, no CRV), and going back on them is not an option without terrible cost.
2: Political momentum and saving of face... that tens of thousands of people on both sides of the Atlantic are employed in the ISS/Shuttle armies, and no politican would dare to risk the fallout of pulling the plug on a $100Bn project with nothing to show for it or at least somthing that looks like it. So, said politicans will pass the ball to the next guy, and so will they, and so on... it becomes un-cancelable. Bush doing away with Shuttle in 2010 would not have been possible if it hadn't been for Columbia I bet.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Bush doing away with Shuttle in 2010 would not have been possible if it hadn't been for Columbia I bet.
Bush wants to do away with shuttle in a way that requires the next guy to take the blame. Most likely a Democrat if GWB wins in 2004.
A little 2008 "Welcome to the White House" present from the GOP to the Democrats. Now you make Florida happy, Hillary.
This is why I fear there may be a "re-certification" loophole found, somewhere, somehow. GCNREvenger is exactly right, IMHO, the orbiter is the hot potato you do not want to be holding when the bell rings, so you just pass it on.
A 2010 end date allows Bush to have it both ways.
= = =
Only an immediate transition to SDV would allow grounding the orbiter and keeping Kennedy Space Center workers on the payroll.
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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So what exactly has changed?
The US habitation compartment and x-38 were both canseled months ago? Is that all thats gone?
That by itself does not mean the ISS will never reach its full crew, depending on how the development of the CEV, or Russian Kiliper goes.
Am I right in assuming that the only thing preventing a crew size in the 6-7 range is an escape pod? Can the ISS life support systems handle the load without the US compartment?
"Yes, I was going to give this astronaut selection my best shot, I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses."
---Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane
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Only an immediate transition to SDV would allow grounding the orbiter and keeping Kennedy Space Center workers on the payroll.
The funny thing is I think that there will be plenty of work for KSC workers once we get a heavy-lift system going. Take the Engeria system for example, were the boosters were reuseable. Those working on the current batch of SRBs wouldn't have to skip a beat.
And if the private sector is going to take over launches, there going to need employese just as much as NASA.
"Yes, I was going to give this astronaut selection my best shot, I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses."
---Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane
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Only an immediate transition to SDV would allow grounding the orbiter and keeping Kennedy Space Center workers on the payroll.
The funny thing is I think that there will be plenty of work for KSC workers once we get a heavy-lift system going. Take the Engeria system for example, were the boosters were reuseable. Those working on the current batch of SRBs wouldn't have to skip a beat.
And if the private sector is going to take over launches, there going to need employese just as much as NASA.
http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/c … ml]Another link on ISS completion.
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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