Slashdot Mirror
NASA Engineers Question ISS Safety
Atryn writes "New Scientist is reporting concerns over deteriorating equipment on ISS. ISS will celebrate another anniversary on Nov 2 marking its 3rd complete year. This story was also covered on CNN International and covered on Space.com."
New Scientist is reporting that concerns over deteriorating equipment on ISS
I heard a program was being put in place to get together new equipment, repair old equipment etc a while back, I wonder what happened to that?
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
Good grief, safety concerns over equipment after just three years!
Its not like back in my day (Mir era) - All they had to do back then to keep things ship-shape was to put a coin in the meter and remember to wind up the master computer every day.....
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
The Russian's space station was in orbit how many years, and this one's only been up for a few and it's already falling apart? WTF?
Too bad there isn't enough interest in space research anymore. Everybody is too focused on their lattes and PDAs. You gotta look UP people! Where do you think Velcro came from?
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
The Washington Post reported Thursday, however, that two officials overseeing health and environmental conditions on the space station didn't sign off on the launch, instead signing a dissent that warned about ``the continued degradation'' of the environmental monitoring and health maintenance systems and exercise equipment vital to the astronauts' well being.
Shouldnt these people _have_ to agree that it's safe in order for it to keep operating? They, after all, are the "officials overseeing health and environmental conditions". Who has to say 'yes' or 'no' and have it mean something?
The next time something goes wrong no body wants to be the engineer who didn't warn management. Look far a lot more of these announcements of engineers predicting bad things, just in case.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
They simply need to upgrade to the latest version of windows to have 99.999 uptime! ;-)
:-( --- argh. Despair, I owe again.
There is believed to be tension within NASA between safety experts who fear the ISS is becoming dangerously dilapidated and astronauts and managers who do not want to leave the outpost unmanned for fear it could become vulnerable to an accident that would make it spiral out of control.
Space travel is generally acknowledged to be risky. The astronauts are certainly aware of this. NASA should do all they can to repair the ISS, but it makes no sense to jettison a project that cost tens of billions of dollars (not to mention millions of man-hours) simply because the risk levels have increased.
The Shuttle and Station are guaranteed to have a perfect safty record if no one uses them. I't time to shrug of the Columbia funk and light candle!
an ill wind that blows no good
Hyundai International Space Station?
This story was also covered on CNN International and covered on Space.com.
Yeah, but we all know you actually saw it here.
What does it mean to wake out of a dream
and be wearing someone else's shorts?
BNL, Born on a Pirate Ship (1998)
*Any* complex machinery/construction/whatever is going to need maintenance over time. What I find irritating isn't so much that NASA thinks pieces need to be replaced, but the public's reaction to such news. "What?!? You want more of my money to *repair* the darn thing before it is done being built?"
Just because it is in space things doesn't mean things won't wear out. This isn't the Star Trek Universe.
Although, it should be interesting to see how the need for maintenance will affect the development of the spacestation. Sometimes it seems like it was projected based purely on a "best-case" scenario (ie, everything works right the first time and works right until all the work is done).
I'd like to see how this impacts projected missions to the ISS... if they don't step up the number (of missions), will this lead to an escalating decay in productivity (ie, every flight will be just to bring repair parts for what has been built already?).
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
I'd say we're getting our money's worth out of this thing....
Between the 2 guys, they can barely keep the thing operational, let alone do anything of value. We are learning nothing except that we suck at living in space. Abandon ship.
Where's the leadership in congress, the executive branch, NASA, or the scientific community? Who's gonna step up? All are capable. All are too busy with self-congratulations and ass-covering.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
On the one hand it's great that Michael is doing something many of us only dream of but if the engineers' worries come true then he might be able to take part in disasters on the ISS just like he did on Mir. Says it didn't put him off long-term space travel though and still wants to go to Mars. Good for him!
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
Did they use inches or centimeters when they proposed their hypothesis that the ISS isn't safe?
I agree with this post. Pay your license fees to SCO or STOP USING LINUX YOU FILTHY LOSERS
"Cintron and Langdoc were especially concerned that sensors used to monitor the space station's air supply for dangerous trace elements is currently broken." Of all things that could possibly be broken this one is in the top 5 of suck. Murphys Law at its best.
I have a Cig, but do you have a light?
In Soviet Russia, the space stations degrade you!
Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.
In the print version of the Washington Post today, there is a picture of the signatures recommending Americans go back up to the station, and two dissenting ones (environmental control guy and health guy). Why, with the supposed new focus on safety at NASA, are we sending these people up when there are any dissenting signatures on that sheet? If some system fails and someone dies, what is NASA going to say? "Duh, we still haven't gotten the whole safety picture thing yet, we'll try to focus more on safety."
I predict that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Whew. Now I'm in the clear if something happens.
Am I the only one who read the headline as "NASA Engineers Question IIS Safety," and said to himself, "Duh!"
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Although the space industry has developed countless technologies used in everyday (and not so everyday) life, Velcro and Tang are not among them.
Velcro history
To see real space based technologies hop over to a this NASA site.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
20721
Anyway, the other thing you have to remeber is that in relation to the Russians with whom safety was a concern but not as much so as we cared about, the Mir was a deathtrap in our minds. I remeber after the remote probe incident all of the NASA officials talking about had it been us we would have crash burned the thing years ago. So in relation to the Mir ours might be in great shape, but after Columbia they dont want to take any chances.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
You gotta look UP people! Where do you think Velcro came from?
Simple... area 51 and the flying saucer they have there...
duh.. every geek knows that.
Personally, I suspect it will-and the ramifications to the US power structure will be tremendous. The US elites expend a lot of energy to maintain the image that the US is _the_ technological superpower. Problem is, the US government isn't run by men like Franklin and Jefferson any more(guys that got fame by being scientists/inventors)-the congress today is composed almost entirely of a bunch of lying weasels that spend much of their time begging for money from corporate oligarchs and planning their eventual "cash out".
So can China beat the US in space? At this point, I suspect it can. The US elites are so rapicous they can't provide technical incentives to maintain the present industries in the US without liquidating resources-let alone build new space industries.
Besides, folks like Bush/Clinton are both kept in office by a steady stream of credit from China and other far eastern countries. Sooner or later that will come to an end. The Chinese leaders strike me as much more cagey than the old Soviet elites-they won't make a really big splash until they think it is too late for the US elites to do anything about it.
Probably just the heroin talking. You know those talk radio guys. Get that stuff in 'em and they get all antsy in the pantsy.
The next time something goes wrong no body wants to be the engineer who didn't warn management.
It sort of defeats the purpose of Professional Engineers being able to take responsibility of things. It sounds like NASA culture encourages top-down managment, which is bad for something as complex as what they do.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
...all is forgiven
``the continued degradation'' of the environmental monitoring and health maintenance systems and exercise equipment vital to the astronauts' well being."
Does this mean they are getting bald spots on there tread mills ?
I've got a greased up penguin stuffed up my ass!!!!
I always find it interesting when Slashdot links to everyone, but the actual source. The Washington Post, which broke the story has an article as well as a followup on how the ISS crew reacted to the news. The reporter also gave an interview.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
We should be focusing on a station that:
IMHO.
--
Power to the Peaceful
Just wondering. hehe.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
I think they said the same thing about Hubble after it's little mishap. But after the first in focus images came back I don't belive there was a single critic who voiced a negitive opinion. Truth is space is deemed an accumplishment by man. We all by instinct are driven to survive and procreate. However Space exploration is like that one accumplishment that has a mesure of honor about it. and yes I know about the starving children in africa.... when was the last time yo made a donation.
The following extract from the Columbia report speaks volumes for sort of politically expedient trash which is allowed to "Administer" this once great institution:( cf.Section 5.8 p117)
"Testifying the same day,Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Sean O'Keefe indicated the Administration's agreement with the planned performance gate:
The concept presented by the task force of a decision gate in two years that could lead to an end state other than the U.S.core complete Station is an innovative approach,and one the Administration will adopt.It calls for NASA to make the necessary management reforms to
successfully build the core complete Station and operate it within the $8.3 billion available through FY 2006 plus other human space flight resources. If NASA fails to meet the standards, then an end-state beyond core complete is not an option.The strategy places the burden of proof on NASA performance to ensure that NASA fully implements the needed reforms.
Mr.O'Keefe added in closing:
A most important next step -one on which the success of all these reforms hinges is to provide new leadership for NASA and its Human Space Flight activities. NASA has been well-served by Dan Goldin. New leadership is now necessary to continue moving the ball down the field with the goal line in sight.The Administration recognizes the importance of getting the right leaders in
place as soon as possible,and I am personally engaged in making sure that this happens.
A week later,Sean O'Keefe was nominated by President Bush as the new NASA Administrator." End of extract
If the system addy here can keep a pdp-11 just by working on it during his spare time, i don't see why tehy can't handle the ISS with what they have.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Why do Americans always have to come up with acronyms!?
Damn!
We have all the science from ISS we will ever need- prolonged exposure to zero-G environments is toxic. None of the other science promised in the 80s is worth pursuing in zero-G anymore - computer simulations of the effects of zero G are cheaper and more useful. No we won't be developing advanced circuit manufacturing techniques in space, or radical drugs.
ISS is a drain on NASA that is diverting funds from the newfound darling of research - unmanned drones. If a person was to crash on Mars, collect a soil sample, then die, it would be a $500 billion failure. For an unmanned drone it is a $500 million success.
Just let it go NASA, it was never anything more than a pork project.
If NASA didn't jhave to fund this rustbucket they could actually be pursuing more viable unmanned craft for true science. Fuding ISS should not be confused with funding research.
ISS does nothing. All it does it float around. No one is breaking down the door to do research up there. When is the last time you heard a researcher remark that they wish ISS would be completed so they could get their project up? This is not a risk issue, its an issue of admitting that this project is a drain of resrouces and a waste of time.
If a NASA shuttle blows up, they just have a public enquiry. If an X-Prize rocket blows up, the team loses all their bragging rights. Hey, that's a lot of incentive.
For those who've followed my previous posts on space travel, I have always contended that amateur and semi-professional ventures will ALWAYS out-pace both the commercial and Government sectors.
This is what we're seeing. The ESA, the Russians and the Chinese are mostly into commercial space work. The ESA is only just about at the moon, and there's no evidence any of them are interested in going further. This after two decades of effort by all concerned.
At the Government/National/International level, everything is either dead, dying or very likely to start dying in the near future. This, after over three decades of effort by all concerned.
The X-Prize contestents have not seriously been working on any large-scale rocketry, with the exception of the Australian OzRoc team. The UK's Starchaser group looks promising, but until they started into the X-Prize, they were not doing much beyond high-altitude rocketry for photography and other basic commercial work.
The serious amateur work has been done in the past three to four years. In that time, amateurs have gone from sending up cameras to being within a year of sending 3-man crews into space. The Chinese only managed a single man crew, in decades of work at space research.
I really and truly believe that by 2100, the aerospace engineers working -on- Mars will be the philosophical descendents of people like Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox.
Those working on putting pop-up ads into Mars orbit will be the commercial sector. (Apart from those putting pop-up ads into Earth orbit.)
Those working on a white paper speculating on the number of votes the last accident cost the President or Prime Minister will be employed by the Government.
The bottom line is this. Rocks in space aren't on the electoral register and don't have money to spend. Until someone gets there first and creates a reason for others to follow, they won't. This has always been true in exploration. Geeks Lead, Leaders Follow.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
We need to realize manned space travel is not going to happen. There is nowhere to go, and getting there would kill you (if you could even stay alive long enough to get anywhere useful). Manned space travel is one of those things that doesn;t make any sense if you think about it for ten minutes with an education in basic science.
Velcro came from a Vulcan who sold it to a patent office to get money... just see Star Trek Enterprise series..
Warm blooded sentient "plants" that are designed to live in a vacuum. From F. Dyson, who would agree with the fact that humans in their current form are ill-suited for space travel.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Particular concerns were raised over the state of environmental monitoring sensors, exercise equipment and medical systems at the ISS.
NASA has safety concerns regarding the exercise equipment, but they can't seem to keep their shuttles from blowing up? Uh, guys, priorities?
Houston, we have a problem. This damned Bowflex just about took my eye out!
I'm nowhere as excited as I was when duke nukem whenever went through it's 50th year in development.
My, what a brilliant scientific mind you have! You should write up a paper summarizing your results -- "Prolonged Exposure to Zero-G Environments is Toxic". I'm sure you could get it published in Nature. Then, of course, NASA will deorbit the ISS because obviously there's nothing more we can learn from it. They'll give the money they save directly to you, I'd expect. Keep checking that mailbox!
Seconds or nanoseconds?
They have been working on this, but on a much smaller scale. They had at one time something I can only describe as a "rotating bed" to rotate in circles as you lied down in it to simulate gravity in space. (This was to see if it would stem the rate of bone loss encountered in long stays in space) The problem they had found with it was that although you were weightless, your inner ear (which controlls balance) can still detect the rotation, and made the people that used it dizzy and nauseous. In order to make one almost undetectable, they had determined that the radius of the thing would have to be huge. Just to build it would be expensive as hell, and the energy required to get such a mass rotating made the whole thing unwokable currently.
"You say my way of thinking cannot be tolerated? What of it?"
Next Story: NAZI Party Officials Blast SS Deathtroops for human rights violations
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
When we were kids we'd walk six miles to school through knee-deep snow, now they mom rides them to school in the 4x4.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
If you would think for a little longer than 10 minutes and with a education in history, you could see this isn't the first impossible thing we solved.
Building a boat to cross an ocean wasn't a trivial thing and many didn't return from those expeditions.
Get a history book and see how long it took to go from an small river boat to a sea worthy ship.
And keep in mind we've only spend half a century on space travel.
yet no years complete!
Tragek
Yeah, keep those urban legends going.
AC comments get piped to
The fact that you feel that transoceanic travel is comparable to intergalactic travel demonstrates that you did not take the requisite ten minutes to think this through. Another high-school dropout/liberal arts student tech culture wannabe strolling on slashdot. GODDBYE.
What should be done in case of mechanical breakdown? A) Repair B) Failure
Would someone please remind me what exactly is going on up there that is worth risking lives and spending money to continue? ISS in its current condition (of repair and staffing) is doing effectively no research or engineering work beyond "Let's put some guys in space and see if they get sick", and that's been done previously and with more functional medical gear.
What, at this point, is ISS for?
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Operating on the assumption that the human race will endure, we will need to go into space. It would appear to be easier to learn how to do space travel correctly while we still have the required resources and time available to us; rather than later, when a calamity occurs which could possibly force us into a position that requires us to go into space. While necessity is the mother of invention, it can be said that the inventions aren't always successful. Better to invent now and learn from our successes and failures, than wait until such a time that our first failure due to such invention is our last.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot. If there are no people there, then we aren't exercising our adventurous human spirit, expressing our curiosity, daring to do eexciting things, being spiritually aware (or whatever), making startling new advances in medical technology, and all those great things that can only be done with manned space flight.
With machines, we would only be exploring the solar system more quickly and more cheaply, on a larger scale, with more general technological development by more individuals and organizations, and hastening the appearance of relatively regular voyages to the asteroids and the other planets, eventually by people. They would be mostly unmanned though. Dull and boring.
- Rring!
- Hello? Yeah? Ok, bye! - Hey, John! Your cat died when it fell off a tree!
- Pssst! Jack!
- Yeah?
- We don't say that in this way dude! That's too harsh! Go easy on John, he's not very strong of heart, you know...
- What should I say, should I lie?
- No, you just got to say it in small steps; prepare him for the pain. For instance, say first that his cat climbed to the roof, then it jumped onto a tree, then it had a misstep, then it tripped, then it fell, then it seems not to be in good condition and then you finally say it has died.
- Mmmkay, I got it...
- Rring!
- Hello? Yeah? Ok, bye! - Hey, John! Your mother climbed to the roof...
As I write, I'm in the computer lab where we're
testing the software for the "Centrifuge Module",
which is in the queue to be attached to the
station eventually. The centrifuge will be
able to spin lab animals at various levels of
gravity so that we can learn what happens to
them beween 0 and 1 gee.
So far we know that at 1 gee, everything is
normal, and at zero gee your body figures it
doesn't need bones anymore, so they atrophy.
What we need to find out is what happens at
1/6 gee (Moon), 0.38 gee (Mars), and various
levels of gravity up to 1 gee spinning (because
that might be different in its effects than
1 gee not spinning here on Earth).
With this knowledge we will have some idea
how to design for lunar bases, mars bases,
and long duration travel (mars and asteroids).
Daniel
Please mod parent up. That Centrifuge Module looks like very interesting research...
karma capped
I remember one thing about US vs. RSSR.
It's the pen in space story.
The US spent about 50000 to find a pen that would work in space, the lack of gravity posed problems for the ink. Once NASA and the russian team started to work together, the NASA guys wondered how they managed the ink problem. Russian's wondered what it was about. They were using 1000 years old technology: the pencil. A pencill can work underwather and into space without some complex system putting pressure for the ink.
I think this is a good image for where NASA is failing, going for excellence where simple methods are required.
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
I am not saying it "shouldn't" be done, I am saying it cannot be done.
Point 1 - where to go? Mars? You would need massive external support to live there. Can't happen if by your arg Earth is gone. Anywhere worth going (Earth like planet) is so far away it is not worth considering given our understanding of physics.....leading to
Point 2 - don't believe in "warp speed" or some other fantasy that instantly lands you on a paradise in another galaxy instantly. The reality is that even at very high speeds we can conceive of producing, it would take so long to get anywhere useful that you would run out of food, go insane, or get irradiated.
Robotic life will be the only view of Earth aliens ever see. That wil have to be good enough for our legacy - our organic systems are completely unsuited physically and mentally for long term space exposure. If we want to destroy Earth then we are going to have to deal with having NOWHERE to live.
The problems isn't informing management, that happened in both the Challenger and Columbia accidents. But in niether accident did the engineers make the risks and level of danger clear to management. I know it's fashionable to blame the PHB's, but both the Rodgers and CAIB reports make it abundantly clear that when push came to shove, the engineers depended on veiled innuendo rather than clear language. In the end the same engineers that post facto claimed to have been fully aware of the magnitude of the problem put their heads in the sand rather than their careers on the line.
I hope not. One day the wolf will be real, and too many CYA 'warnings' will do nothing but desensitize management.
And what about the labrats' inner ear? Or maybe that's fine on this scale ... guess I'll check the sitelink posted below.
--
Power to the Peaceful
"The Columbia accident has left NASA's entire shuttle fleet grounded..." Must they keep calling it the "shuttle fleet"? It just depresses me. I have an equal number of cars in my driveway.....
There will be a space accident threat index, that never, ever goes down to green, and will go up to orange during space shuttle landings.
"Orange" means "we didn't know what bad thing might happen, but we did know a bad thing would happen." If the bad thing doesn't happen, credit the "Orange" condition for preventing it.
Sheesh, everybody else already knows the IIS is hopelessly bugridden and the very definition of security hole.
You might as well allow telnet access to your machine via the guest account and give the guest account administrative privlages... ok that wouldn't be quite as insecure, but you might get close if you posted the fact you did this as an article on slashdot and invited everyone to tear up your stuff, putting it in writing that you have 12million credit card numbers on the box, the exact path, and expressly point out that nobody will be doing anything illegal since you are inviting them.
But hey, NASA is government, they've probably known that IIS was insecure for awhile now, it's just taken 7 or 8yrs for the paperwork to go through.
How can any self respecting geek talk about colonisations when we cant even live here on earth peacefuly and with a comon goal in mind (progress and not profit) . I mean what is the point of colonising mars if we would only overpopulate it in no time given the technology and again have the same problems we do here . Yes i do understand that eventualy when we grow up we can go places and should. I mean just look around , we have more than enough resources here on earth even for our curent population , except we can never use any of it properly without screwing up things for our children . Cmon guys lets explore space once we can learn to use it properly !!!!!!
Lets grow up and stop fighting before we even think of space .
Nobody said transoceanic travel is comparable to intergalactic travel. I think space habitats are a relatively small challenge considering how much more evolved the human mind is then when transoceanic travel was tackled, not to mention the refinement of methods of study, the vast base of existing knowledge we have to build on.
Give me a break, if we didn't already know how, something like transoceanic travel would take us about month to figure out with the current physical evolution of the human mind. It takes a bigger more complex problem now to be anywhere near the challenge that was then.
First of all, the culture of NASA was bad long before O'Keefe was hired.
Second of all, the reason O'Keefe was hired was to bring some idea of fiscal sanity to NASA. They made the DoD look good. Most programs went over budget. So (at least officially) O'Keefe was hired to bring costs under control. The thought was why give additional money to NASA unless it was going to be spent wisely
I'd feel better about that centrifuge thingy if you were in the lab working and not in the lab posting on Slashdot.
Besides the prime crew (M. Foale, A.Yu. Kaleri, P. Duque) there was a backup crew (W. McArthur, V.I. Tokarev, A. Kuipers) of the Soyuz TMA-3 ship. If, for any reason, NASA backed out, but Russians (and probably ESA) did not share the same concerns, they would have sent Tokarev instead of Foale. For the first time ever, the ISS team would have been %100 Russians, thanks to whistle-blowers in NASA. Then the American Public asked NASA "Ahem, did you just spend some $30bln+, and then backed out, giving the way to Russians?" And then what? Will NASA just write off ISS, and let other nations use it? Or NASA will sabotage any such use, possibly by disassembling or destroying american parts of ISS or making them uninhabitable or otherwise offlimit to visitors? I know that is ridiculous, but so are any demands to abandon the project.
For your information. Russians can build Energias, which is a monstrous rocket booster capable to lift huge fully automated cargo vessels. In contrast to american shuttles, Buran, the russian shuttle, did not have to use engines for the lift off, all the heavylifting work was done by Energia. Buran's engines were used primarily for maneuvering on orbit and deorbiting. Its only flight has been fully automated. That would have been an ideal tool to bring pieces of ISS up there. In fact Russians proposed use of Energia/Buran for ISS construction, but NASA, of course rejected the plan. Russians did not have enough money, and NASA wanted to sponsor its own technologies, and use american labor. It cost a lot more, but helped Boeing, other NASA's contractors, and, probably, american economy in general. More was spent, but more was spent in US, not in Russia.
Of course, despite evident capabilities of Russians, they are not able to build or to use ISS without NASA, even with cooperation with Europeans and Japanese and Chinese. Not yet anyway.
Russian Space Corporation EnergiaIn theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
The artical is about ISS (international space station) not IIS.
So they want to spend X-Million $$$ to replace 'old and deteriorateing tech' on the station... Sorry, but at only three years... either A) it was very poorly engineered... or B) we didnt learn a dang thing from Mir about how long something can be made to work. Yes, Mir wasnt as safe as it should be up there, yes Mir was out-dated... but dang, the thing -worked-... They should spend those $$$ on finishing the dang thing first, then we worry about upgrades.
Atrox
-Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
How do you teleport to someplace man has never gone? How do you teleport a living person. This is exactly the issue I am talking about - people who are so science stupid you actually believe what you see on Star Trek.
I guess your sig is once again proven right :)
I have some better suggestions: Try recycling, buy a fuel efficient / hybrid car (or none at all), eat organic food, don't litter, don't smoke, and stay environmentally and politically aware. These tend to work a bit better than the weak sci-fi scare tactics you so happily brandish about.
Oh, and back to the topic of the space station... This is one of man's most noble quests and greatest and largest collaborations in known history, pushing the limits of science and taking us away from this rocky egg and into the stars, the first step of our cosmic journey. Your post is just sad.
Safety issues on the ISS? Who the hell cares about that, anyway? The ISS's only purpose is to hang there for a few years before NASA declares it defunct, lets it burn up in the atmosphere, and then makes grandiose plans for the next-generation, multi-billion-dollar, goddamn boondoggle. We let Skylab and Mir fall and burn ... so what makes you think the ISS will end up any different?
... and aerospace companies gotta eat, too.
After all, it's only tax money, and it's plain to see how little oversight governs that.
We spend $10K per kilogram or pound (I forget) to hoist entirely reusable stuff to orbit, but that's still not enough money invested to consider re-using any of it. Re-use is never in the plans, because USAGE itself was never really in the plans either.
The ISS is the side-effect of the gaping-wide aerospace welfare program. At least $8 billion that I know of was spent, without a kilogram making it to orbit yet. Eight billion dollars without a single launch? If that doesn't make it obvious what's going on, then nothing will for you.
Any of ISS's problems are irrelevant, because it has already served it's purpose. Safety? Maintenance? Science? Shit, the only other project goal on the hidden agenda is to let it fall, and then to use the failure to propose something bigger, better, and guaranteed more expensive. "We have a bigger dick than the Europeans, Russians or Chinese."
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Conditions where stuff is used is variable in Russia. There are Deserts through to tundra, equipment may not be properly sheltered, so it breaks down. However the field repairable philosophy means that their stuff is not the most efficient, and it does break down - however it can be easily fixed. Anywhere.
Lets take this way of doing things into orbit. A 'Field Replaceable Unit' takes a launch and costs a small fortune to get to the station. If you make things slightly less sophisticated but more easily repaired then you win on down time.
I visited a MIR simulator on earth. The level of sophistication was very low even by the standards of the time it was built. They had to bodge a whole lot of things to keep it going, but it was relatively easy and they could get proportionally more science done per person than the ISS crew today.
The ISS is understaffed and has been since the beginning. It was planned that there would be an amergency return vehicle that could take a crew of seven down. That was late then scrapped. The only 'life-boat' is a Soyuz. This limits the permanent crew to 3.
A second Soyuz could be added (I believe there are docking facilities for up to three vehicles) but the Russians are currently hard up and they have been getting no extra money of late due to a dispute over Iran.
So we wnd up with up to three very busy people only. Most of their time is for the plumbing, etc.
See my journal, I write things there
We have trouble building something that's barely the size of a football field and you think we're ready to enginneer a construct three times the diameter of the Earth itself!!! Not to mention that we have no idea of what material will stand the stress or how to ground it.
Get real.
I based my points for ponderance on the assumption that the human race will endure, whether we do or do not is a matter for time to decide. In the event that we do, the Earth will most assuredly cease to exist as a haven for civilization regardless of our ability to travel through space. Of course, the same argument could be made that we might posses the ability to prolong the life of the sun by that time. You and I certainly have no worries about our sun vaporizing our planet. If our bloodline continues into the distant future (as I based my assumptions on -- optimism makes for a happier day) our kin will need to deal with that very real issue. Perhaps it is moot for a discussion on why we should go to space at this time, but it helps to manage perspective in my opinion.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
I think they're overreacting. Those holodecks go haywire every few weeks no matter how old they are.
I'm sure recycling will prolong the life of the mineral deposits, but we can recycle only what is no longer in use. We cannot recycle what we are currently using (i.e. buildings, machinery, equipment, artwork, and other manner of inventions). Recycling alone will not compensate for an increase in consumption of those minerals. I agree that the most efficient process to harvest extra-terrestrial mineral resources will be to have machines harvest the asteroids, moon, comets, etc... However, that would only satisfy the demands of the human population, and not the demands of the biosphere. It is not clear that our harvesting extra-terrestrial mineral deposits will make those resources available to the biologic and physical processes that depend on the planet to provide those resources.
It was not my intent for that point to encompass only transportation or even power generation. Compounds created by "cracking" the fossil fuel are in use in all facets of society including but not limited to Medicine, Industry, and creation of Consumer Products. At some point, our demand for derivative products of fossil fuels could exceed the supply of fossil fuel resources.
As the lifespan of a human increases it will be possible for many, many, many generations of a single family to exist in relatively the same frame of time. We see this happening today. We have had birth control for several decades now, indeed some manner of birth-control has existed for centuries. How do you propose to control population? China has attempted to control birth rates in the past by regulating how many children its citizens can have and aborting the unauthorized procreations. China has met with little success in that respect, they still grow their population quite r. Perhaps we should have a mandatory period of living, which no human could exceed. People will not stop procreating, unless they are rendered unable either by force, nature, or rational thought. Perhaps we will be able to address this issue with rational thought. Many people would not want to be told how many children they can have, or when they should have them. At present, even with the pervasive use of contraceptive devices, planetary population increases every year. The largest increases are in third world countries, but first and second world countries show an increase in population. Perhaps in the end we would limit the lifespan of a human to a "reasonable" amount of time by artificial means.
My fouth point, while not immediately relevant, will become so in the future, or perhaps sooner.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.