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."
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.
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
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.
Change in manufacturing practices around the world. Now, instead of builting things to last forever and a day (including a nuclear explosion), things are being built to look damn nice, but fail after a "reasonable" amount of time so that people will buy more stuff. There's no reason why this mentaility wouldn't effect the NASA contractors.
Space for rent, inquire within
*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.
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
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."
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.
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
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
Pretty simple, I'd guess. Look up any information on MIG-25 development. Shortages of titanium led them to basically rivet the thing together out of steel plates; the air-to-air radar was powered by a bunch of massive vacuum tubes.
Remember the story of how the US spent $5 million to develop a space pen, which would work in vacuum, under water, in massive heat, etc? (The Fisher space pen, I have one, they're pretty nifty)
The tale goes, the Russians brought a pencil. Different design philosophies. I've been inside a reconstruction of MIR--the thing's pretty massive,
and you definitely get the feeling that some of the engineers had a blacksmithing background...
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
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)
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
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.
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