Positives of the ISS

[holmec]

Thanks bobw that's really helpful. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[bobw]

Yep, it seems like they are doing stuff. I remember this last shuttle mission, they were busy on the ISS with experiments (can't remember which ones, though <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> )<br /><br />Addendum to previous post:<br /><br />For example, here's one from Expedition 11 and reports from 2006 and 2007, maybe they are not ready to publish yet but there are some nice pictures of honey, corn syrup, silicone oil, etc. merging in space.<br /><br /><i>Publications<br /><br />Results Publications<br /><br /> * Antar BN, Ethridge E, Lehman D. Fluid Merging Viscosity Measurement (FMVM) Experiment on the International Space Station. 45th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit. Reno, NV. January 8 - 11, 2007 ;AIAA-2007-1151.<br /> * Ethridge E, Kaukler W, Antar B. Preliminary Results of the Fluid Merging Viscosity Measurement Space Station Experiment. Proceedings of the 44th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, Reno, NV. Jan 9 - 12, 2006 ;AIAA 2006-1142.</i><br /><br /> Pictures etc. <br /><br /><b>Edit:</b><br />I googled the paper number and found that I can buy <i>Fluid Merging Viscosity Measurement (FMVM) Experiment on the International Space Station (2007-1151) Meeting Paper in PDF format</i> from the AIAA for $25. I wish I had twenty five bucks for every one of those things I wish I could read.<br /><br />http://www.aiaa.org/store/cart.cfm?BackTo=%2E%2E%2F%2Fagenda%2Ecfm%3FluMeetingID%3D1064 <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[holmec]

Ok my bad. Of course we gave nukes to college students....LOL <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <br /><br /><br />wiki on LLNL<br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>The main site, at the location of a former World War II Naval Training Station, was originally used to house projects of the University of California Radiation Laboratory which were too large for its location on the hills of Berkeley, California. In 1949, Edward Teller suggested to Ernest Lawrence, head of the Berkeley lab (now known as the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)), that a second weapons lab be created as "competition" with the lab which sprung up to create the first nuclear weapon, Los Alamos National Laboratory. Teller's advocacy for the lab was also in response to his frustrations with the low priority he felt his idea of a hydrogen bomb was getting at Los Alamos. In 1951, Teller formally appealed to the Atomic Energy Commission for the creation of the laboratory, and in September 1952 the lab was formally founded as the Livermore branch of the University of California Radiation Laboratory (Lawrence's lab in Berkeley). Despite Teller's original motivation, however, the hydrogen bomb was invented and designed at Los Alamos.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Of course legend has it that Dr Edward Teller was the real character that Dr. Stragelove was based on.<br /><br />I guess I've always equated the nuclear project(s) there with DOD in my mind. But it was DOE, though I'm sure DOD was close by.<br /><br />But my previous point is that since the nuclear projects stopped (or so the public believes) there, LLNL has been struggling with its Identity. Then Reagan's Star Wars came around. Today they have a few unclassified projects that are cool.<br /><br />Like fusion and 3D holographs. But it carries on.<br /><br />So I would think that the ISS becoming a National Lab may not <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[richalex]

It just occurred to me to wonder if we have any other national labs that are not on national soil? ISS, after all, is "international," a collaborative effort.

 

[usn_skwerl]

Operation Deep Freeze...essentially <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[kelvinzero]

Haha, I was wondering if it was Jim too.<br /><br />Can anyone explain to a non-rocket scientist like me why in orbit assembly is so hard? Why is it any more complicated than a docking maneuver? Docking can even be done by robot cant it?<br />

 

[spacester]

(Grossly oversimplifying for the sake of brevity . . .)<br /><br />ISS, as a combination science lab and closed environment life support system, has a lot of power and fluid connections external to the pressurized spaces.<br /><br />If you cut down on the fluid transfer requirements between units and internalize the rest, you don't have to EVA to connect modules.<br /><br />That shift in design concepts can turn orbital assembly from an un-affordable option to plug and play robotic assembly.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[thereiwas]

Mir used internal connections, and it was a disaster. They had to chop through cables with an axe to get a hatch closed in time when one compartment developed a leak. They had seconds to get it done.<br /><br />Someday somebody will develop automatic connections.

 

[kelvinzero]

It wouldnt seem hard to design something where the connections were internal but didnt literally go through the hatch.<br /><br />What are all those fluid connections for? Anything good to read to get an idea of what is involved in design of ISS?

 

[thereiwas]

The fluid is ammonia, part of the active thermal control. It carries internal heat away to the radiators.<br /><br />For technical overview go to this NASA page. On the right is a link to an "Interactive reference guide". Once the Flash program loads, click "how it works". Then on the left will be a tab "download PDFs". Click that. Each document is narrowly focussed and quite short. There is a much longer detailed ISS manual, now somewhat out of date, but I don't remember where I found it.

 

[qso1]

Depends on the task.<br /><br />If spacecraft are designed for as much automated orbitla assembly as possible, then the task is not so hard. Case in point, Mir. Mir modules were virtually ship and shoot. Each would be launched atop Proton rockets and automatically dock with the Mir core upon arrival. The Cosmonauts would be able to use the module shortly after docking and checkout. Mir consisted of six modules that required six Proton rockets to send up.<br /><br />ISS was not designed as much in this way. ISS modules taken up aboard shuttles are too heavy for the shuttle to go up as complete units. ISS has required far more assembly flights in part due to the shuttles limited payload capability. Shuttle can take approximately 48,000 lbs to LEO (Prior to Challenger it was 65,000 lbs) but ISS orbits in an inclination of 51 degrees which reduces the payload capability of the shuttle substantially. Therefore, ISS components go up in a more piecemeal fashion and ISS is a bigger station than Mir. There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods of assembly. A key Mir advantage is fewer launches, a key ISS advantage is better layout, particularly where solar panel placement is concerned.<br /><br />I'm of the opinion ISS is more complicated than it needed to be but its better to have ISS and get as much out of it as we can than not to have it at all. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[erioladastra]

"Russian side can control thrusters and altitude of the complex. They did it during moratorium of STS flights. "<br /><br />Not correct. US CMGs mainly control attitude. Russian thrusters control reboost and attitude maneuvers. With or without Shuttle. They cannot indefinitely hold attitude.<br /><br /><br />"European ATV could deliver spare parts. "<br /><br />Only a small subset, espcially not larger ones.<br /><br /><br />

 

[erioladastra]

"And to say "No US, no ISS" is just plain false. "<br /><br />Not correct. Explain how it is not? The US is too embedded. Both sides could not last too long without the other.

 

[holmec]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>The US is too embedded. Both sides could not last too long without the other.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />The context is after assembly and the question is highly speculative. <br /><br />To maintain the ISS is to provide consumables, some spare parts (not major), keep control. If US is making it a National Lab then someone is controlling it. <br /><br />So the normal controls would be used, boosting orbit can be done with ATVs and Progress.<br /><br />Whoever is using the "lab"/ISS along with Cosmonauts, European Astronauts, and Japanese Astronauts will occupy it and maintain it.<br /><br />If something major fails then I'm sure assessments would be made to either live without whatever failed or repair. And that depends on money.<br /><br />So your saying that Russia, Europe, Japan, and whoever uses the Lab cannot maintain it with out the US.<br /><br />That is quite a statement. It also could be a challenge for Russia, Europe, and Japan. <br /><br />And I find it amusing that you give a definite 'No' on a highly speculative future event. Jimfromnsf does that. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[erioladastra]

"So your saying that Russia, Europe, Japan, and whoever uses the Lab cannot maintain it with out the US. <br /><br />That is quite a statement. It also could be a challenge for Russia, Europe, and Japan. "<br /><br />Well I think you are only looking at half the story. By design (and I won't debate whether good or not) the ISS is totally tied into the US ground control system: TDRS, MSFC, Goddard, White Sands and MCC. You can have 30 IP astronauts up there but you won't go long without Houston operating the vehicle. So to make this work you would some how have to spin off or lease a huge infra structure. Keep in mind that it is US software that controls most of the systems - you couldn't just let it run by itself or turn it off. Whether good or bad, the US-RS are joined at the hip and are symbiotic twins. That is just ONE example. Even if the government allowed it, who would actually pay for it? The IPs can barely afford their own ops let alone the US. No private company could afford to do it since a profit is a fair bit away.<br /><br />"And I find it amusing that you give a definite 'No' on a highly speculative future event."<br /><br />Fair point. I was just too tired to retype the same argument that has been had over and over in these forums. I know the US control system. I can say no pretty confidentally - speculative or not - since I don't see there being even a remote chance of it being likely, and that is not even taking into the account that there is no way in heck that congress would ever "sell off" such a big chunk of the national assets. I won't argue right or wrong, just the reality.

 

[vulture2]

There have been significant periods when the ISS was controlled from Russia; although this is now done with US computers. What will actually happen if the US says it is withdrawing vital support? International cooperation with the US will be out the window forever, particularly if the US spitefully refused to provide the information required to keep it functional. This would simply be a flagrant violation of an international agreement.<br /><br />Personally I don't think the US will withdraw. We proposed the ISS with numerous claims that, using it, humans would perform useful and productive work in space, and I believe if we are as smart as we claim, we can do just that. I'm speaking only for myself, but if, after spending $100,000,000,000 of the taxpayer's money, we can't find anything worthwhile to do on the ISS, than I think the taxpayers would be extremely unwise to give us another $100,000,000,000 to do the same thing on the moon.<br /><br />With all the ISS "Utilization" flights off the schedule, it may be a challenge to get experiments up there, but the original proposal included both astronomical observation (using co-orbiting free-flyers that would periodically dock with the ISS for servicing) and earth observation (using sensors simply mounted externally on the truss). In fact, I believe the potential for earth observation was one of the reasons for the bearings that allow the inner station to fly in local-vertical attitude, facing the earth, rather than solar-inertial, facing the sun, which was required, for the most part, for Skylab and Mir because of their fixed solar panels.

 

[erioladastra]

"There have been significant periods when the ISS was controlled from Russia"<br /><br />Not sure I understand what you mean. This is not true post 5A. Prior to then it was essentially totally controlled by Moscow since that was all that was up there. Not true now. Even when we handed over during hurricane Rita, most systems and operations (including payloads) were shut down. Even then the US was still controlling a lot from remote controllers and a team of people in Moscow. So if your contentions is that we could let go and just give it over to partner control that is incorrect.

 

[richalex]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Yep, it seems like they are doing stuff. I remember this last shuttle mission, they were busy on the ISS with experiments (can't remember which ones, though )<br /><br />Addendum to previous post:<br /><br />For example, here's one from Expedition 11 and reports from 2006 and 2007, maybe they are not ready to publish yet but there are some nice pictures of honey, corn syrup, silicone oil, etc. merging in space.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />At least this explains the quote in my other post, in which Steven Weinberg says, <br /><br />"If the instrument [AMS] were ferried to the station, he said, its study of cosmic rays 'would be the only significant science ever done on the space station.'" <br /><br />Launch of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS)

 

[halman]

RichAlex,<br /><br />I don't think that it is fair to compare the servicing of a reusable Earth-based launch vehicle and a Lunar shuttle. Lifting off from the Moon will never be totally stress free, but it doesn't have to be a balls-to-the-wall, triple redundancy, abort at the the drop of a hat kind of thing, either. I think that that a well designed shuttle should be good for at least 5 or 6 round trips before it has to be put in the hanger for an inspection, and periodic maintenance will probably be similar to what passenger aircraft get.<br /><br />A large, enclosed, pressurized space will be built for working on these kinds of vehicles, because they cannot return to Earth, and the support facilities will probably be in Low Earth Orbit for sometime. Excavating a hanger would require moving enough dirt for a good sized station, and zero gravity makes ladders unnecessary. The engines will probably be modular, for ease of replacement, so that they can be swapped out every so often, with the motors coming off going to the bench for a rebuild. But that is the only part of the space ship that that is going to get a lot of wear and tear, other than pumps, airlocks, and landing gear.<br /><br />We cannot let the nature of getting off of Earth color our thinking about travel in space, because it is two entirely different things, especially when taking off vertically from Earth. An orbit of only 9 miles is adequate for the Moon, which doesn't take a lot of propellant. If something goes wrong, they can just pull over and open the hood, which is not an option when lifting off of Earth. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[halman]

Missile_Mother,<br /><br />What is a failure is the space exploration policies of the United States. Repeatedly, Congress has made achieving the objectives set out for a program practically impossible. They barely gave NASA enough money to finish the shuttle, resulting in delays of several years, then, they refused to come up with the money to build a space station, the mission that the shuttle was ideal for, and a major justification for its design. Congress also refused to fund the minimum number of orbiters to make the system viable economically, which has resulted in the shuttle fleet being reduced to 3 orbiters, at a time when a flight every month could easily be justified.<br /><br />Because Congress has consistently refused to fund the development of any alternative launch vehicle capable of putting humans in orbit, when the shuttle was grounded, so was the science at the International Space Station. It is not a failure of planning, or lack of experiments to perform, it is the fact that we cannot support a full sized crew which is preventing the science from being done.<br /><br />Now, Congress is going to do another space project on the cheap, trying to convince the rest of the world that we have superior technological abilities by going to the Moon, but abandoning practically every other science related program do so. Giving up on the ISS is extremely short sighted, especially as it will only become fully functional, (if that is the term,) just a few years before we stop participating. When are we going to learn that it is not worth doing if it is not worth doing right? Are we going to continue to fund programs for only 60 or 70 percent of what it takes to do the job? Will we continue to blame the program designers and managers for the failings incurred by inadequate funding?<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>