Slashdot Mirror
Perimeter Railway for ISS; HETE-1 Comes Down
Quirk writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is touting the mission to start construction of an orbiting railway. Space Shuttle Atlantis will carry the astronauts who will initiate the planned 107 meter rail line along the outside of the International Space Station. The remote controlled train will move at speeds of 2.5 centimeters a second and be able to carry more than 20 tonnes of cargo. Construction is projected for completion in 2004." And B3avis followed up with news about the HETE re-entry: "The pieces of the HETE-1 spacecraft seem to have crashed somewhere in the Himalayas.
"The final notification from Space Command indicates that the debris re-entered at 31.5 degrees North and 92.4 degrees East." says NASA. And they should know."
Although the whole idea of building an orbiting train is cool, the article fails to mention *why* they are building it. If the train track run 107 meters, and goes 2.5 cm/sec, without stopping, it will take 71 minutes to go from end to end. To do what? Carry 20 tons? What do they have up there that is 20 tons that they're moving? I don't remember how much of a cost NASA quoted before to carry something like a gallon of water into space on the shuttle, but if they're sending 20 tons of something up there, why?? The idea of the train is really cool, but beyond that, I really don't get it. Anyone have insight?
Yeah, but, it's only going, like, 300 feet (when finished)...
no stops, it'll take it an hour and 11 minutes to get from one end to the other (when finished).
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
When finished in 2004 the line will stretch about 107 metres along the outside of the International Space Station, 400 kilometres above the planet.
/. comments in an effort to keep up on DMCA and tech issues is really getting frustrating...
It's just a robotic system for manipulating cargo outside the ISS without the need for someone to do a EVA. It's not like it's that hard to figure out from the article, if you'd actually read it.
Does anyone know a better site that has tech news with a higher signal to noise ratio? Because wading through the same tiresome uninformed
How long do you suppose it would take to bring 20 *tons* of material up to the ISS that's going to stay there? Not only that, but be in one place at one time, which just happens to be on a 1m by 3m cart.
Also...I see a lot of people complaining about the speed (or lack thereof) of this thing. If you have 20 tons of material moving, and you want it to stop, you have some serious momentum issues. The speed seems appropriate for this application, I would think.
-kwishot
Damn slashdotting. here is a mirror.
If they rounded off from 2.54, then this is exactly one inch/sec - I'm wondering whether the speed was calibrated to English units.