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New Russian Space Station 'Real Possibility'
su-geek writes: "BBC is reporting that the Russians are looking into the feasibility of a commercial space station. The Station would be used to promote space tourism and would help pay for future supply missions to the ISS." I think they should get into the business of crashing space stations into the Pacific, and bringing tourists on boats to watch the fireworks.
I tried submitting information on just this issue several hours ago and it got rejected. Anyway here's the scoop I had.
MirCorp, despite the ditching of their namesake, is still in the business of space tourism. They have proposed a new space station dubbed "Mini Station 1", which would house 3 space tourists for upto 20 days at a time. They hope to make a commercial venture of it through corporate endorsements and giving clients with ultra deep pockets an out of this world vacation. This news story gives additional response from the Russian Space Agency and the spacecraft builder Energia.
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> Facing the same problem, the Soviets used pencils.
For the first few missions, yes. Then the Soviets went to Fisher (the American company that made the pens) and bought several cases. The reason is that pencils produce a lot of graphite dust. When you are locked in a room the size of a telephone booth for a week, you don't want graphite dust floating around, getting into your lungs, eyes and your equipment.
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100 mil is realistic considering the cost of the hardware. Plus the fact they will not need to use the bigger and more expensive proton booster. This looks small and doable.
I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean when you say that Skylab wasn't successful.
Skylab was highly successful, especially considering the damage it sustained during launch. Skylab was intended to support three missions only, which it did very well. After the last crew left, the station continued to function as an automated scientific platform until re-entry in July of 1979.
Its re-entry was unplanned, and was caused by atmospheric drag caused by the exceptionally high sunspot activity at that time (the sun was at the peak of its 11 year cycle). The increased expansion of the atmosphere was not calculated correctly (ever tried to calculate the expansion of trillions of square meters of a gaseous mixture?) Because Skylab was in a Low-Earth Orbit, the greatly expanded atmosphere created drag which eventually brought the station down.
The Russians had the same problem with Mir concerning atmospheric expansion, but they could easily boost the station to a higher orbit. In 1979, the US didn't have an active spacecraft capable of docking with Skylab to boost its orbit. The Apollo/Saturn V had been retired, and the shuttle wasn't ready for launch until 1981.
In fact, one of Columbia's first missions was supposed to have been to boost the Skylab to a higher orbit. The station didn't have engines powerful enough to handle that task. Skylab was huge (I believe it was built from the third stage of a Saturn V rocket), and it wasn't originally intended to last more than 10 years, so a complex orbital-manuvering system wasn't installed, just smaller thrusters for attitude correction. If I recall correctly, Mir didn't have the ability to do a great deal of orbital manuvering either. Whenever the Russians need to boost Mir's orbit, they used the big engines on a Soyuz or Progress spacecraft that was docked to the station.
Besides, the purpose of a space station is to act as a living space for astronauts/cosmonauts. Why waste all that critically valuable space on an engine that won't get used very often, and the fuel needed to operate it? Wouldn't be pragmatic.
All in all, with the exception of the atmosperic expansion that cause the unplanner re-entry, Skylab's mission was a complete success.
"The dead do not shoo-bop-aloo-bah." -- Kai, 'Lexx'
I just came back from a 9 week trip to Russia a little over a month ago. Yes, they have some severe economic problems, mostly stemming from corruption. The government needs to stamp out corruption within the country in order for an economy to thrive. Stamp out corruption and they would be fine, trust me.
As for Russia throwing away its science programs, that is just plain dumb. They cannot afford to have another brain drain. Frankly, what space has is money. Tito payed $20 million dollars to go up in space for a while. If I remember correctly the Soyez space vehicle only takes roughly $10 million per launch. This is money in the pocket. Money desparately needed to fund other programs, education, military, science, you name it. Russia IS focusing on rebuilding their "ruined" country by focusing on space.
Doctors are not paid in trade by the government anymore. There are not huge lines for buying food at markets. In fact I bought food at a fancy place called an univermag, which translates to supermarket, where they had everything that a US supermarket would have except for the automatic doors. Moscow looks as clean and modern, discounting the 14th-19th century architecture that seems randomly scattered about the city and the lack of a "sky line", as most of Denver. St. Petersburg is going through major restoration as they prepair for their 300th birthday in 2003. While I was there a good portion of the St. Petersburg lost hot water because they were fixing all of the pipes.
Russia is focusing on rebuilding their country, and if it weren't for the corruption, they would be doing very well. People are working hard to try and get their country back on track. I am not surprised at how frustrated they get, and the drinking they do, when all of that hard work seems to be going nowhere as the ruble slips to the dollar weekly. They are hard working people, and smart people, they just don't have a handle on capitalism yet, nor have they eliminated the biggest problem that is preventing their economy from growing.
I only wish that the US honored and reviered its scientists and poets as the Russians do. They continue to fund science because they know that when their economy turns around, their being on par, or slightly behind, the rest of the major economic players scientifically is going to be necessary. When their economy turns around they will be a major force quickly.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
Urban Lengend
To sumarise, NASA needed a pen that wouldn't:
Burn in 100% oxygen atmosphere
Would work in a vacuum
Work under zero-G
Could work in +150c and -120c
Prior to using the pen, the Americans also used pencils. Pencils had problems with the tips breaking off, which could be a hazard.
In December of 1967 Paul C. Fisher, the inventer of the pen, sold 400 of them to NASA for $2.95 each.
This "mini station" could be actually be constructed quite cheaply, say $100Mil. The russians could even use some of the old Almaz station shells that they have stored in a warehouse somewhere. (They had hoped to sell them off as big, unmanned radar imaging stations, but that didn't come to much). There not as big, but since all they need are 3 bedrooms and minimal life support, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
For short missions, they shouldn't need all that bulky excerise equipment either.
Since there wont be many things docked to them (unlike MIR), they can save money by only having 2 or 3 docking ports and mechanisms, instead of the 6 that were on the MIR core module.
Since they will only be used for short missions, (3 people at a time for less than 20 days), the life support systems can be fairly minimal. They won't really need water recyling systems since they can carry enough water with them. They can also bring their own oxygen supply (either compressed, or in perchorlate form), so a oxygen generator ("Electron") wont be needed. (Which needs a lot of power)
They can also bring enough Lithium Hydroxide Canisters with them to scrub the carbon dioxide, so they wont need the "Vosduka" C02 scrubbers either.
Since there wont be any power hungery science equipment on there, (or the "Electron" oxygen generator), the electrical drain will be lower, so there wont be as much need for acres of solar panels or huge heavy batteries.
So, Budget another $50Mil for a proton launch, and there's your economy size station.
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights
As a small, only temporary manned outpost, this station could actually be used to produce better science, at least in the area of migrogravity crystalography or metalurgy. The main requrement for this type of research is the best possible microgravity enviornment. MIR was ok, and the ISS will be better but the problem with these stations is that they are manned, and people make noise and vibrations. The crew have to excerise for hours each day, pumps have to run for the life support, thrusters have to fire to maintain a favourable orbit, and other ships are docking and undocking to bring supplies and take away trash. Not to mention astronauts/cosmonauts drifting into the walls and flushing the toilet!
However, this proposed small station would be unmanned for most of the year, hence no people moving around and less need for fans and pumps to be running to clean the muck out of the air. The station could be left in a 'free drift' mode for months on end, avoiding the need for thruster firings. If the solar panels are big enough and there are enough batteries, it wouldnt be as critical to keep grinding the solar panels around to catch the sun all the time.
So, what the scientists could do is give the 'visiting crew' some equipment such as a microgravity metalurgy furnace (or send it up beforehand in a progress cargo ship). The visiting crew would then spend their 2 week holiday or whatever looking out the window, then set up the equipment and experments and leave. Once they hade left (and moved to the ISS or back to earth or wherever), ground control would power down the nonessintial, noisy equipment on the station and activate the experment. It would be left running, quietly, for several months during which it would grow perfect crystals or whatever the experment was. The next visiting crew would then retrieve the results, and bring them away with them (possibly droping them off on the ISS for a smother ride home on the next space shuttle).
Incidently, the original plan for the european space station module, the Columbus Lab. was very similar to this. It would undock and dock to the ISS, so it could run its experments quietly well away from human noise. Of course, cutbacks and politics killed that idea.
Unmanned spacecraft will almost always give you a better science enviorment, once you have good remote control and robitic systems. They are also much cheaper. NASA knows this, but it's raison d^etre is manned spaceflight, nothing else really gets the tv coverage, and unfortunaly even that is minimal at the best of times.
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights