Slashdot Mirror
ISS May Have A Leak
Rio writes "The International Space Station is experiencing a slow, steady drop in air pressure, and American and Russian flight controllers are investigating possible causes of the leak. The Local 6 News report says Mission Control notified astronaut Michael Foale and cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri about the leak just before their bedtime late Monday afternoon. Mission Control first noticed the drop in pressure Jan. 1 and said the data showed a daily decline of about 2 millimeters of mercury. As of Monday, the pressure had declined a total of nine millimeters. That is equivalent to about one-quarter of a pound per square inch, said NASA spokesman James Hartsfield."
the movie Airplane?
FP.
Damn Slashdot... I was about to come out in my penguin outfit to show my Linux Pride.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Two spoons, chalk, washing up bowl, rubber patch, glue.
This is payback from the Martians.
Well, either they'll find out what went bump last November, or everyone will die and we'll be subjected to another Tom Hanks space movie.
they have duct tape, right? If they don't they'll REALLY be in trouble.
Esoteric reference.
one small use for toothpaste...
They say "There are no immediate concerns for the safety or health of the crew", but what are they doing about it?
When is it time to take action?
Do they have a way to leave?
They have a supply of Oxygen and Nitrogen to repressurize the station, but how long will that last?
It would be nice to sit in on the decision-making, just to observe...
--
Use Vobbo for Video Blogs
just before their bedtime late Monday afternoon
Astronauts have a bedtime?!? Screw that, there's goes my plans for the future.
Would a leak this size be visible from outside of the station? I.E. would you see a small stream of gas? And since the ISS is broken into compartments, they should be able to seal each compartment and iron the leak down to a single compartment. Then its a matter of finding the leak itself.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Just submerge it in water and look for the bubbles.
Or in this case space and look for the air.
They just cant catch a break. After every success, some problem always seems to follow. Loose a shuttel, probe lands on Mars, ISS springs a leak, what next?
They'll run out of air within the next couple hundred days. But that's only if they have no reserve tanks and fail to patch the leak.
Buzz: Homer, you broke the handle.
Race: With that hatch open, we'll burn up on re-entry! That's it: if I go, I'm taking you to hell with me.
Homer: Wait a minute, Race. Wait a minute...wait!
[breaks off a support rod]
Aha! Now I'll bust that pretty face of yours!
[tries to swing it, but it catches in the door]
Aw, stupid bar.
Buzz: Wait, Homer. If that bar holds, we just might make it back to earth.
Homer: Oh. [voice rising] I'll bash you good!
--
Use Vobbo for Video Blogs
Oh, and before you go to sleep, one last thing. You're running out of air. Pleasant dreams.
Mission Control notified astronaut Michael Foale and cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri about the leak just before their bedtime
How are they supposed to get a good night's sleep after they've just been told that their home is leaking oxygen?
The leak... does that suck or does that blow...?
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
But if the ISS is losing pressure wouldn't it gain a higher volume of mercury rather than lose it?
And the Martians who destroyed their crafts... You don't think the probes failed all by themselves do you? ;)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
"Mission Control notified astronaut Michael Foale "
They have a leak and they bring in Mike Foale? Why do they need a motivational speaker? Or are things that bad. Further more what kind of rockets have we developed to get Cris Farley up there? Or did he go up by himself in a soyuz?
Well, if they can't seal the leak, they'll need to send the astronauts home until Shuttle is back in service, which could be 2 years plus. Hopefully, they'll find the leak and fix it.
One possible cause of the leak is from a meteorite impact. I have a tiny bit of experience with this from my grad school days. During the design stage of the American module, there was some concern about what would happen if there was an impact from debris. Tests showed that if the impact object was the right size, the entire damaged section could "unzip" and the and essentially blow up, likely killing the astronauts and disabling ISS. The design was tweaked, and it was showed that the section would not unzip, instead it would leak (probably not as slow as what is described, though-- think hours to reach vacuum, not months or seconds).
I have no idea if that's what happened-- it might be a completely unrelated issue. But just wanted to point out that a tremendous variety of possible events are considered, and NASA really wants to assure that none of these could result in a catastrophic event.
Pool on the roof must have a leak! ;-)
I remember reading several SciFi books in my youth which talked about releasing balloons and the like to find leaks. Extra credit if the balloon has sealant on the inside so that when it bursts trying to squeeze through the hole it takes care of the problem. Of course, you gotta hope that you have something to disolve the sealant in case it gums something up that you really need to open (think airlocks here).
fencepost
just a little off
Would it be too much trouble to just light a match and see where the smoke goes? It worked on Stargate: SG1!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Dogg
What? There's nothing to suggest that a lack of communication between international teams led to the problem, nor that the British and Japanese (and Canadian and Russian) teams aren't helping out to fix it. Problems like this happen all the time in spaceflight, even when only one nation is participating! Moreover, how the hell does this count as a debacle? Watergate was a debacle; this is a technical problem.
Just light a cigarette, and follow where the smoke goes to figure out where the leak is.
Then, patch it with chewing gum, and have a beer (or shot of vodka) to celebrate the success.
They do allow cigarettes, gum, and alcohol on the ISS, don't they? Of course! All of the movie space stations do!
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Of course. This sort of stuff never happens when its just NASA...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Can't they shut off sections of the space station...I mean, don't they have independant life support systems in multiple modules???
It sounds kinda easy to me...find some way of sealing off a section and put the equipment in that room (if it's portable)...come back in a day...if the pressure hasn't dropped in 24 hours, you know it's not THAT module...even moreso, if it happens in more than 1 section, it might be shared systems...
I know they probably have a better way to deal with this, but isn't there multiple backups? Wouldn't this be a good use of those backups? I just don't see the concern...they have a russian capsule that can be used as an escape pod...in the worse case, they'll just leave the station for a while...
I've always been under the impression that they don't NEED anyone aboard the station to dock, but it helps...
Mission Control first noticed the drop in pressure Jan. 1 and said the data showed a daily decline of about 2 millimeters of mercury.
Mission Control: "Well guys, we have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, you're having to deal with two fewer millimeters of mercury per day."
Astronauts: "That's good. Mercury's bad...right?" Mission Control: "Did we say mercury? We meant mercury as in 'air pressure'. G'nite!"
No comment.
The first sampling of the air preasure was taken when the astronauts inhaled -- and the second, when they exhaled.
Its not that big of a station ya'know?
Now they just need to figure out who is going to take the soapy water outside and apply it all of the seams to find the leak.
You remember correctly.
h tm
"A Soyuz capsule will always be docked at the ISS, capable of carrying two people in a medical emergency, or three people in other emergencies. A crew will take a fresh Soyuz capsule to the station every six months."
http://science.howstuffworks.com/space-station11.
"I am highly trained Russian Astronaut! This is a very sophisticated piece of scientific equipment. Don't touch nothing!"
1800's -- move west, why go through the trouble? (not for science)
When the U.S. goes into space the astronauts seem to get into trouble. So the U.S. grounds the fleet. Now it seems probable that if the U.S. doesn't go into space, then the astronauts might be in trouble. Seems ironic. However I hope other nations, maybe the Russians will send help if need be.
This might be a good reason for Pres. Bush to start up the astronaut space program again. Those politicians are always looking for a reason.
I think what happens is this kind of space effort MUST be commercialised. With the massive resources a commercial enterprise could put behind something like ISS, it has to be better than space agencies with no clear goals (hello cold war) to proceed forward.
At the moment, NASA is pretty aimless. There's no direction. Put a commercial group behind the ISS and there's market competition right there
Obviously: at ".." (parent directory) handling!
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
1) Noise detection equipment.
2) Take up smoking - use a modified bong to prevent excessive discharge of ash.
I am not sure if this will work, but when I think of a leak I think of that boat commercial where he has a big leak and his female companion uses a tampon to plug the hole, although there aren't any female's currently on board maybe one of them left some behind.
Argh, I hate these insane units that you guys keep using, mmHg? psi? let's have it in SI units like
pascal
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
I'm an astro-nut. If I could control where most of my taxed income went, I'd almost certainly have it tunnelled off to Air Force black projects, NASA and science education.
That being said, the ISS has long since become a turkey. It's time to cut that thing loose and build us something usefull. In particular, real telescopes that will let real science be done. This space station is nothing more than a big money black hole.
I'd much rather have a space based inferometer placed at one of the Earth's lagrange points. We could learn a lot from something like that! What are we learning from ISS? Russia has no money... nobody else will cooperate with us... people can't stay up in space for a long time (hello mir?) and our space program is woefully inadequate. Great. Billions of dollars for this? I could've told you this years ago...
Bryan
Anyone know the over/under of how long it'll be before MoveOn.org has a commercial blaming Bush for this?
I was watching NASA TV earlier today before the news conference at 12:00 P.M. EST and they were discussing a problem with the ISS. Apparently, the main oxygen generating component is not functioning correctly right now either, and the astronauts are relying on oxygen generating canisters. They are said to have enough backup canisters to last for months, not counting the ones on the Progress supply ship currently docked. The person on Nasa TV said that more canisters and hopefully replacement parts would be shipped up on the next Progress supply ship.
It amazes me how calm NASA sounds when talking about problems like these. Perhaps they have just been hiring lots of really good media spinsters from Russia lately: "Pieces of Mir disintegrating in the atmosphere will not be a problem at all. In fact, if one falls on your house, its a great souvenir we'll let you keep for free!"
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
Seriously this was clearly the work of Osama Bin Laden and his band of thieves. Osama used Sadam's old rockets to launch a rock at the ISS and now it's sprung a leak. Thank god we liberated those terrorists.
Mission Control notified astronaut Michael Foale and cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri about the leak just before their bedtime
You know, Alexander, this may be our last night alive together..
Uh huh.
Well... There's been something I've been meaning to ask you...
Uhm... Ok?
I've noticed... When you're alone in the shower... Uh... You look so lonely...as the water slowly rolls down your back...cheeks glistening in the glow of the fluorescent light.
Get off me freak!
"We're going to call it a night and make sure we don't misplace the leak equipment," Foale said with a chuckle.
Anyone remember that Tool song?
Commander: What's That hissing Noise
Crew: We hear nothing sir!
Commander: You're all deaf I tell ya!
Crew: Puzzled
Crew: Sir we just got a message from mission control seems were deaf.. were leaking air.
Commander: Got any copies of spaceballs? I need to find out where they purchase those cans from.
I remember there was a Slashdot story a few days/weeks ago where the ISS crew heard a loud thud. They said there was nothing to worry about, but I think it is possible that this could turn into another Columbia style foam incident. Luckily though, this crew should be able to escape in time if there ever were a problem.
As of Monday, the pressure had declined a total of nine millimeters. That is equivalent to about one-quarter of a pound per square inch, said NASA spokesman James Hartsfield.
Hasn't NASA yet learned that mixing units can lead to very bad things
Silly fact: 1.7446551e-40 is Planck's constant in British Thermal Unit-hours.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
<rim job>
To create that fat, they would have to consume oxygen from the air which might look like a leak.
or maybe I'm full of crap.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It blows, which sucks... at the gives location.
Think the pyramids, think Stonehenge... we as a species and as respective cultures have always had inklings to write our name large, to create works the scale of which rivals the heavens. Sure it's science but it's also the beginning of a hopefully universal effort on the part of all the peoples of the world to come together...sounds mary poppinish but still...we could of course feed the hungry
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Either that or NASA wants in on some anti-terrorism funding.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Your numbers are off. Normal sea-level pressure is 760mm Hg. If they lose 2mm/day, after a year they'll only have 30mm Hg left, which, according to the Google calculator, is 0.58 PSI.
Yay! and we could get all the wonderful results we've seen worldwide when medical care, public transport, telephone systems and garbage disposal were commercialised.
Boy I can't wait until the ISS gets THOSE benefits.
Take a leak in the room where the air pressure is at the lowest, follow stream, apply duct tape at the spot where the fluids have left the room.
After that resume hanging out in weightlessness until the next problem.
Air is invisible, even when it is surrounded by (practically) nothing, like in space - TO HUMANS. Well, now we've caught you investigating the hole the Martian uwave laser made in the ISS passing over Florida, blocking the beam busy reprogramming the voting machines. Just you wait until Spirit smokes you critters out of your Martian spiderholes and tries you for crimes against humanity, you illegal aliens!
--
make install -not war
Reporter: It's a lovely day for a launch, here, live at Cape Canaveral, at the lower end of the Florida Peninsula, and the purpose of today's mission is truly, really electrifying.
Other reporter: That's correct, Tom. The lion's share of this flight will be devoted to the study of the effects of weightlessness on tiny screws.
Reporter: Unbelievable, and just imagine the logistics of weightlessness. And of course, this could have literally millions of applications here on Earth -- everything from watchmaking to watch repair.
Reporter: Now let's look at the crew a little.
Other reporter: They're a colorful bunch. They've been dubbed, "The Three Musketeers". Heh heh heh.
Reporter: And we laugh legitimately. There's a mathematician, a different kind of mathematician, and a statistician.
Riker: "They were just sucked into space!" Data: "Blown, sir" Riker: "Sorry, Data." Data: "Common mistake, sir."
Could this leak be pushing the iss off course? Maybe it won't throw it completely out of the solar system, but it'll be close!
Me
but has anyone considered that maybe the pressure indiactor is faulty? How many are there, and if multiple, are they independantly controlled? How is the system calibrated, and is it possible to re-calibrate it? I'm just curious, since no one has brought it up in anything I've read so far.
It just wouldn't be the same with darn rats and monkeys...
God, your post is so ignorant that I have to wonder why you bothered composing it.
1. No "international" = no "space station".
If there hadn't been international cooperation, we wouldn't have a space station in orbit right now. Compared to the Russians, what NASA knew about space stations could be written on a postage stamp.
Lest you forget, Skylab wasn't exactly a screaming success (heck, one of its solar panels failed to deploy: you could hardly call that an auspicious start). Its longest period of occupancy was 84 days and it was deployed as one unit and nothing like as modular as the ISS.
On the other hand, Mir far outlived its operational life (and would have done so by an even greater margin if the bean counters hadn't tried to cut so many corners), and was occupied almost constantly for 15 years. During that time, docked with 31 spacecraft, 64 cargo vessels, 9 shuttle missions visited it and it was home to 125 cosmonauts/astronauts from 12 different countries. It was, of course, modular, like the ISS. Oh, and before Mir, the Russians also had the Salyut series of space stations up and running throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
When Russia came on board, the ISS gained a lot of expertise; the sort of expertise that money just can't buy. If you think you can find one person at NASA who thinks that putting up a space station as complex and as expensive as the ISS could have been done by the US alone then you're deluding yourself.
2. NASAs main partners in the ISS are Canada, ESA, Russia and Japan, but most of their modules have yet to be deployed.
There is no "British" space agency involvement in the ISS. However, there is ESA (European Space Agency, of which Britain plays a very small role) involvement in the ISS. This involvement includes the Columbus Laboratory, the Automated Transfer Vehicle, Nodes 2 and 3, the European Robotic Arm, and the Data Management System for the Russian Service Module. However, most (if not all) of these elements have yet to be deployed, so I fail to see how they can be responsible for a pressure leak when they're sitting on the ground.
The same is true for the Japanese involvement, the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) also known as Kibo, which is currently undergoing testing at the Kennedy Space Centre prior to launch. Sorry to break it to you, but if their module isn't up there, I can't see how you can hope to "share the blame for this latest debacle" with the Japanese either.
By the way, the single biggest contractor on the ISS is Boeing. Last time I checked, Boeing was an American company.
3. A "sole space agency" is in charge. It's name is NASA.
The ISS may be international, but NASA is its lead partner. All others play second fiddle to it and that's never been in doubt. If there's someone "in charge of making sure everything [runs] right" that someone is NASA.
So that's D'oh!, D'oh! and thrice D'oh!
Seriously, if you could get off your xenophobic high horse for a second (and get some basic facts right too) then perhaps you might have a point (ie, that someone screwed up, again) albeit a rather weak one. But trying to turn this story into a "USA rules, rest of you just suck" gloat is pathetic, particularly when you're so off-base.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
It is, after all, the International space station, why should America and Russia be the only two to deploy supplies. The political relationship between China and the USA could always use a little bolstering.
Deploy a few inflated balloons to find the leak then seal it with some JB Weld and duct tape. :)
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
the way I remember they found leaks in old sci-fi stories was to inflate balloons with air and a gob of leak sealant and set them adrift.
sooner or later the airflow would pull the balloon right to the leak, pop! problem solved.
ain't physics wonderful...
It is official; Netcraft confirms: ISS is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered ISS community when NASA confirmed that ISS atmosphere has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 95% percent of all atmospheres. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that ISS has lost more atmosphere , this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. ISS is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by falling dead last in the recent "Space Stations: What's hot and what's not".
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict ISS's future. The hand writing is on the wall: ISS faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for ISS because ISS is dying. Things are looking very bad for ISS. As many of us are already aware, ISS continues to lose atmosphere.
All major surveys show that ISS has steadily declined in cool factor. ISS is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If ISS is to survive at all it will be among russian dilettante dabblers. ISS continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, ISS is dead.
Fact: ISS is dying
Just cut the air vents for a couple of hours, chuck some M&M's in the air and see where they go. Then just slap some silicon adhesive in there.. it'll hold
Smeghead every day of the week.
I did screw up the numbers, and it is around half a year. I was working in kPa and did the conversion from 1mm Hg to kPa but forgot to double the result.
fencepost
just a little off
One atmosphere at sea level equates to 760mm of mercury. So a 2mm drop is a 0.26 percent drop in atmospheric pressure, assuming the atmospheric pressure of the ISS is set to that of sea level.
(I have no data on the standard operating atmospheric pressure of the ISS. Perhaps someone else can supply that so we can make a more direct measurement of the percentage fall.)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Was this because of that crazy Russian beating on something with a wrench? "American components, Russian components. ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!" Go ahead, mod me down, but I still thought it was appropriate. :-)
Watch ... in about 3 days, they will say the problem was resolved. What they will fail to mention, is that the air preasure returned to its proper level when the silly Russian farted.
Eventually the pressure will regulate itself. Unfortunately the astronauts will then find their insides now on the outside.
It seems to me that if I were in an enclosed vessel orbiting the Earth I would want to find that leak as quickly as possible. The nonchalance of NASA and the astronauts given in the article seems a little questionable. I wonder if the trapped people are capable of sleeping before finding the leak. I think that this sort of vague fear would creep up on even the hardened astronauts.
My suggestion for the astronauts is similar to finding a puncture in a rubber raft; one of the them should go on a spacewalk and spray soapy water on the outside of the ISS and look for bubbles
ISS. What is it all about... is it good, or is it whack?
Spray the inside of it with fix-a-flat and spin it around.
He who knows not and knows he knows not is a wise man. He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.
Until the leak is found and resolved, all the astronauts need to keep the air pressure up is eat some beans...
Those who can, do. Those who can't, consult.
This looks like a job for:
Bicycle Repairman!
Yeah, it's an obligatory AYB reference... you know you like it.
....
In A.D. 2004
Trouble Was Brewing Right Before Bedtime
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's You!!
Cats: How are you gentlemen!!
Cats: All your AIR are belong to us.
Cats: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say!!
Cats: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Cats: Ha Ha Ha Ha
Awww, you know you love me.
Insight.matrixFlux.com
* NASA, milimeters, pounds, inches. *
:)
All from the news article posted.
I know what's wrong
Moderators: Don't agree? pray tell why.
Mission Control Alerts Station Crew to Slow Air Leak By Marcia Dunn AP Aerospace Writer posted: 08:00 pm ET 05 January 2004
1 atmosphere = 14.7 psi = 760 mmHg .174 psi
=> 9 mmHg = 9/760*14.7 psi =
If NASA is rounding .174 to .25. no wonder they keep crashing.
Remember the Mars Climate Orbiter where one team used English units and the other used metric? Or is this one of those "Volkswagens per Library of Congress" things that journalists use because they think the public is innumerate?
Spill (rather hard since it's 0 Gs) some Pepsi around the ship, see where it gets sucked out at and patch it.
I dunno, but I gather that in all spacecraft up to the ISS there simply wasn't room to get any privacy, and in the spacecraft with two-person crews there simply isn't room, period.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The next Ask Slashdot is "How do you find a leak in an international space station"
Of course we all know what the answers will be:
- Use google you lazy bastards
- Linux already does this
- Forget about it, leaks are not important
- See, I told you Microsoft sucks
I know the sure fire way to send me off to sweet dreams is to sing me a lulliby about how when I wake up in the morning, I might not because all the air is gone.
"Sleep tight guys. Remember, breathe shallow. I'll have my kids say an extra Lord's Prayer for ya. Hey, maybe Tom Hanks and Sean Connery will play you guys in the movie."
The solution to taxpayer expense is simple: Remove the government monopoly on space launches.
"[...]one-quarter of a pound per square inch[...]"
Can't smart people from NASA use standart units, like kilogram, meters and weird stuff like that??
It's called I.S. too: International System of units!
RIP Slashdot. I used to love you. dead account - but slashdot wont let me delete it.
American Space Station may have a leak.
--- Back to the trees, back to the trees !
WOW.. this is really mind bending dude. So when I blow a fart, I suck poop.. Cool.
According to Google, 9mm of mercury is 1200 Pascals, whereas 0.25psi is 1700 Pascals.
I hope they find the astronaut that was responsible for this leak, because I would love to see him frog-marched out of the ISS.
There's a movie I saw on AXN recently called "Mission to Mars" or something like that. There was a huge leak on their ship, and one of the guys squeezed some Dr Pepper out of it's packet and watched it go towards the hole.
The only problem is it was a large leak, whereas the one on the station is a slow one, and this idea may not work.
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
They just need to demodulate the primary power coupling so they can use it to create an inverse antitachyon pulse.
Christ, don't you know anything?
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
"That is equivalent to about one-quarter of a pound per square inch, said NASA spokesman James Hartsfield."
They're not measuring it in Pascals. What's wrong with this picture? Its a little strong to suggest they deserve to die, but I'll settle for this being a portent of DOOM!
Michael Foale involved in a space station depress again? Remember he was aboard MIR when the supply craft hit it and they had to retreat into a safe pod then do a repair.
Yes, leave it to NASA to let their people burn up on re-entry.
Hi!
I'm the dean of Space University here at NASA, where we train all the astronauts how to do the important stuff like gathering a tear in the corner of one eye while the anthem's being played - that sorta stuff.
My role is largely administrative, so I don't do much hands on teaching, although I still run "Duct Tape 101" and "Swallowing Floating Globules Of Water (Advanced)". I like to keep my hand in: But I digress...
I just wanted to assure the parent poster that Mission To Mars is indeed one of our required course materials. We also use Apollo 13 (obviously!), The Right Stuff (which is the core of "Practical Heroics"), and many, many others. We steer our students away from Capricorn One, and prefer it if they don't view 2001 too many times.
Best Wishes,
Rex Uranus.
Political language
Air also contains water vapor. As temperature drops, water will condense from vapor to liquid or directly to a solid state.
I suspect it still will not be visible as it will probably disperse too quickly.
...the ISS is just passing gas. ;)
:)
Thanks to the vastness of space, us earthlings will not have to deal with any noxious smells.
Millimeters of mercury? Pounds per square inch, for heaven's sake?
I thought NASA had gotten over this units thing and started measuring things in comprehensible units.
What is the pressure drop measured in Libraries of Congress?
http://msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3660508&p 1=0
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/28/10698 25989738.html?from=storyrhs
You can see more of the original news items with this search:
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF- 8&q=sound+crunch+space+station+international&btnG= Google+Search&meta=
This is the last thing that NASA needs right about now. No matter what the root cause of the leak is, it will still cast a negative shadow on the space agency. The public can be a fickle bunch.
I hate sigs.
Just let some dr pepper float around until it squirts out the hole.
To find the leak, they should place the ISS into a soapy bath, and see where the bubbles form.
1. who remembers a few months back when they thought they heard something "hit" the station?
i would start looking in that direction.
2. there are a number of posts about watching objects(insert with balloons, pepsi, dr peper,,,) float thru the station and use that for an indicator of air flow.
as with other manned space programs the ISS has CO2 scrubbers(remember apollo 13) that keep the air clean. i was under the impression that the air is circulated thru these and that a flow already exists because of this. i also recall reading that with skylab this flow effect caused lose items to commonly be found at one end of the station.
3. newtons laws of motion and inertial navagation.
even though the ISS is in a fixed orbit, it still makes use of an inertial navagation system. it is required to keep the station from tossing and tumbling out of control when the astro/cosmo-nauts move around. each of their movements create a reaction which causes an equal and opposite reaction on the station. a computer is constatly making corrections to maintain pitch and attitude of the station. a log these corrections will show these reactions to be somewhat random with an almost noise quality.
with a contiuous leak of a known size in the iss, a constant known vector(except for location) is created. once the noise is removed the location should be able to be calculted from the log information.
in short, break out the slide rules!
Fixing leaks is not that difficult. They should just run it through a debugger to find the leak. Then after that, apply a tarball directly to the leak using patch. Unfortunately, these types of leaks are all too common with multiple architects milling around.
Another thing they can try is to remove the "memory hole" in the BIOS. This can cause lots of problems with streaming software.
To me it smacks of some sort of date manipulation error. Started Jan 1, 2004? That's quite coincidental.
Oh, you didn't say *IIS*?
mm of mercury, I thought inches of mercury was a more commonly used unit.
Anyway, does anybody see the irony of measuring air pressure in a weightless environment in how high (in mm) the pressure would push mercury into a tube that has the top sealed off from the air.
I really hate it when a single article uses 4 units (mercury, mm, pounds, inch) to express pressure (force per area).
- Mercury has the same mass everywhere, but it doesn't weigh the same everywhere, especially on the ISS where it weights practically nothing.
- mm, wow a standard unit, I'm impressed, but it was used in combination with mercury, while normally inches are used in combination with mercury.
- Pounds, what pounds, deprecated unit, and again it's a measure of weight.
- Inch, again a deprecated unit, but at least it's used to measure an area, not the height of mercury.
1 atm (standardized sea level pressure)
= 1.01325 Bar
= 1013.25 mBar
= 1013.25 hPa
= 101325 Pa
= 101325 N/m2
= (approx) 29.92 inches of mercury
= 759.968 mm of mercury
= (approx) 14.7 pounds per square inch
This will likely lead to a catastropic disaster, esp if they can't find it fast.
Poor Michael is 2 for 2 on pressure leaks in space stations he's been on. Time to start calling that fella a bad luck charm.
If I recall correctly, Michael Foale was onboard Mir when it sprung a leak due to a collision with an unmanned Progress supply rocket. They were testing a new automated docking system and it malfunctioned, causing the unmanned rocket to collide with Mir causing a significant leak. [wanders off to actual _read_ the article]
Yup, my memory is correct. The current situation is massively different from the previous one in which they had something like 30 minutes of breathable air left in the station and Michael Foale was already sitting in the escape capsule preparing it for launch / release, IIRC. Dragonfly: An Adventure of Survival in Outer Space is a well written book that describes the Mir program, including this incident.
You know, sailors have supersitions about "unlucky" crew and someone who is involved in too many incidents find that they are no longer welcome on board. Michael may ind himself in this situation after this. :-)
Am I the only one to recall that sound heard on ISS a while ago? Maybe whatever caused that noise is causing the leak?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
If there's one thing my hollywood education has taught me its that Dr. Pepper is the best way to find a leak in a space station/vehicle.
Somebody crack open a can and be ready for some slow motion.
Thank you Red Planet...or Mission to Mars...or whatever the hell that movie was.
No datacenter is secure if it has windows.
Dip it in soapy water and look for the bubbles.. oh, is that an innertube? wonder if you could use a spectrometer to hunt for the O2 coming out.
meh
"'Good Night Wesley, sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning.' Went on like that for three years..." --Wesley, as the Dread Pirate Roberts, "The Princess Bride" (1987)
they just flood the station with pink smoke, then look for the trails on the outside
"...That is equivalent to about one-quarter of a pound per square inch, said NASA spokesman James Hartsfield..."
;-) Sorry I couldn't resist.
But aren't this near-weightless in space?
How can it be 1/4 of a pound?
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
This may be redundant, but I was thinking the ISS (Internet Security Scanner) had a leak. That would be equally bad, I presume.
2+2=5 for extremely large values of 2
What's the point of an experimental space station if not to learn about things that can happen to a space station and its inhabitants, and what to do about it? I think we can learn something from this.
:P.
Of course, provided they actually solve it
Didn't NASA learn anything from losing the Mars Climate Orbiter?
"Houston, pressure is down again, we've lost three hogsheads of air in the last lunar month."
"Sorry, ISS, can you translate that into firkins per square thread?"
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
and ISS is leaking. Thank god that the Spirit Rover mission has gone well thus far, lest I have to start cheering for the Chinese program.
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. - HST
It's the amount of O2 - if pressure drops, you can increase O2 to compensate to a certain point.
.5 people doing science every month is an afterthought. We need to get the station back to its original 7-10 person design in order to see the returns we deserve.
And the ISS ain't dead - we just need to give NASA the funds to complete the crew module in the original spec. It takes 2.5 people to run the station, and
Then the moon and L5.
kulakovich
They plan around the lifeboat capacity. Even when they used to move the Soyuz between docking ports on Mir (i.e. to free up the only port that a shuttle orbiter could use) everyone had to go aboard the Soyuz for the maneuver, just in case they couldn't re-dock. If they couldn't, they'd abandon the station until another crew could be launched to re-man it.
Of course, they've always able to re-dock so far. There hasn't yet been an unscheduled abandonment of a space station.
The Soyuz-TMA spacecraft serving as the current lifeboat is the one that Foale and Kaleri were launched in. But a Soyuz has a finite shelf-life. Occasionally Russia launches a short-duration crew to bring up a new Soyuz (with fresh batteries and other supplies) and take back the old one. That's just part of sustaining the long-duration mission and its crew.
ISS has more docking ports so they don't have to juggle them like they did on Mir. (And there are no scheduled shuttle orbiter arrivals before late this year anyway.) But if they had to move the Soyuz for any reason, it would still be the same thing - all aboard and leave no one behind.
This is a procedure NASA learned from the Russians, among many things they learned from each other. Remember, when they started working together on the Shuttle-Mir dockings in the mid- to late 90's, NASA had the experience with big shuttle orbiters, but no long-duration platforms. Russia had the experience with space stations, but wasn't able to bring as much cargo up, and almost nothing (in comparison) back down. Each had what the other needed so that worked pretty well, besides all the symbolism it made for the end of the Cold War.
So, what are they going to do now? My guess is the first thing will be to close all the hatches to try to isolate and identify the module (or docking port between modules) with the leak. They have a finite supply of gas with which to repressurize the station - so this can't go forever without becoming a danger of shutting off a module. In a worst case scenario (which can't be ruled out yet but also isn't likely yet either), they'd have to abandon the station and take the Soyuz on re-entry back to Earth. So they have to look for it and try to fix it ASAP.
At any given time, if Foale is forced to make a life-and-death decision as commander, even he could initiate abandonment of the station. He was aboard Mir when the Progress collision occurred in June 1997. They had to close the hatch to the Spektr module (where all of Foale's on-orbit personal belongings were), losing that module and the power from its solar panels. He's seen worse than this. But I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't sleep well tonight.
I'm sure it's not a major problem. And I'm sure it will be fixed soon. So "oh Bugger..." has nothing to do with the facts of the story.
The major problem with this story is that the British press will once again resort to rabid jingoism. Not once have I heard the name Michael Foale without the prefix "British-born". See what I mean on the BBC. I mean at no point do they mention that Alexander Kaleri was born in Latvia. Do they?
FFS he left the UK 1983... and I really don't care where he was born. It's not important, has no relevance, and is bloody annoying.
Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
Moderators, these days!
Yeah...lets invest all of this money into this giant project that unifies the nuclear capable nations of the world and then forget how much we spent and everything we've learned and start spending money on even more projects!
f*** that. You don't throw away existing infrastructure. Its just stupid.
Mod parent up as funny!
I read my paperback copy of "A Man on the Moon" so many times, it fell apart at the binding!
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
a couple articles from 2002 when NASA figured contingency plans in the case of an emergency or budget shortfall.
here here and here
> But if the ISS is losing pressure wouldn't it gain a higher volume of mercury rather than lose it?
No, it would lose it. A barometer measures pressure by the atmosphere's ability to push a column of mercury up a vacuum tube by pressing on the reservoir in the bowl at the bottom. As the air pressure drops, the pressing force that drives the mercury in the bowl drops, which means more of the tube mercury settles back down into the bowl.
Virg
Bibo Ergo Sum.
At $400 million a planetery robot, you could launch 200 for a $80 billion space station. You could have them crawling over every major body in the solar system.
In Rod we Trust
Technology Consulting & Free Downloads
Just to note, the Dr. Pepper in Mission to Mars was in a drink bag, which is not a pressure vessel. It's reasonable to assume that it was non-carbonated, flavored-with-Dr. Pepper-syrup drink, not really a carbonated beverage.
But other than that, yeah, I'm with you. It was a really dumb way to look for a leak.
Virg
> With all the sensors and remote monitoring I'd think this would be an automated alert.
Um, I'd think it was an automated alert because Mission Control was alerted automatically when the pressure fell beyond specification. So yeah, it was an automated alert.
Virg
How about:
Turn off the air blowers (temporarily) in each module, and blow some soap bubbles. Follow them to the leak. Might be even better if the soap had some food dye in it.
Chip H.
I guess they forgot to bring a can of fix-a-flat in their earthside emergency kit. Do they have AAA coverage?
An interesting point, but you sound like a 13-year old cigarette smoker at a skate park in how you speak. But seriously, this is Slashdot, and obviously a science-oriented story, so what's with using anything but SI? At the very least, we could stick to torr/mmHg as it's metric-based, but I think the SI pressure unit is the Pascal.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
Sad but true. If you're kid's want to be astronauts, its time for them to learn Russian, Chinese and Hindi.
There is always some disparity between actual events and reported history, depending upon ones position in the scheme of things.
The lack of a common language, (the majority of the earths population do not speak English as their native tongue, if at all), makes it easier for diverse beliefs to promulgate.
Thomas Edison did not invent electric lighting - he just reinvented it and was successful in getting the first patent.
There is and there always has been a lack of unbiased and accurate reporting by the media, historians and religious institutions.
Godard and Braun both pursued liquid fueled rocket propulsion. A lesser known fact is that the concept was also proposed, (earlier?), by Konstantin Tsiolovsky.
More info from a really neat site I found:
http://www.geocities.com/duppim/Spaceintro.html
Alas the document appears to be missing a page or two at the end. Nonetheless it is worth the visit.
"I live in hope that one day science will prove for once and for all that the universe was created by a penguin"
A couple weeks ago there was a CRUNCH somewhere, that they could not pinpoint.
The hull of ISS is almost as thin as tinfoil. So now a leak?
In two weeks we'll wake up to read that the whole end of ISS tore off, and the project will be forked.
Campaign finance reform is national security.
Some of you may remember the astronauts heard a loud bang a couple of months ago and they never found a source for it. There was speculation that they got hit by something, maybe it's been such a gradual bleed that they didn't start to notice up until now.
WURD!!
The ISS budget would fund a lot of real science missions. Deorbiting the psace station would also allow us to kill the shuttle program before we blow up the ships we have left.
This looks like more of a troll than I intend. But, seriously, are we going to wait for ISS to become a deathtrap like Mir? We can't support a fully staffed crew or properly supply it anymore.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Why not use a dye like you do when checking for a leaky toilet?
Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform
i sure hope they brought one of these little gems along: fix leak
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Get it right. They'll use JB Weld. That stuff is the best. :-)
Or at least so says this page on "Cockpit Pressurization Schedules" from the flight manual...gotta love FOIA.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Looks like this needs to be standard issue on space craft... stick it on and apply a little gas... works like a champion.
surely it just weighs it down and causes a risk of blindness.
What happened to good old Pascals? -mi
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This is an old joke I swiped off the internet (hence the AC) I love the "alient puppet" reference.
Mir Scientists Study Effects of Weightlessness on Mortal Terror
KOROLYOV, RUSSIA--U.S. and Russian scientists are increasingly excited
about the Mir space station project, which promises to reveal more than
has ever been known about the scientific relationship between
weightlessness and mortal terror.
"By stranding our scientists on a dilapidated space station with
faulty wiring, loose hardware, and malfunctioning air systems," NASA
head Daniel Goldin said, "we have created extremely favorable conditions
for learning about spaceborne panic."
The two Russians and one American on board the station are
reportedly terrified beyond lucidity.
Among the groundbreaking experiments conducted on board Mir: a
June 25 collision with a cargo craft that depressurized the Spektr
module; last week's emergency power shortage, caused by a disconnected
cable; and the periodic release of "dry ice" steam that simulates
a shipboard fire. All have been deemed a huge success by agency heads.
"They are in a constant state of what aerospace scientists
term 'mind-shattering terror,' frightened for their very lives,"
Russian mission director Vladimir Solovyov said. "And we have not even
used the hull-mounted Alien puppet that taps on the window yet."
"We have also taken huge leaps in our understanding of the patterns
created when one wets his pants in the weightlessness of space,"
Solovyov said. "The urine spreads out in an expanding sphere, something
we did not expect."
Taking a break from his busy schedule, astronaut Michael Foale told ABC
News reporters: "Where's my mommy?"
"Please tell me the access code to the Soyuz capsule," Russian
cosmonaut Aleksandr Lazutkin said. "I would like to return to the
chaotic government and widespread hunger of my homeland."
Scientists expect to gain even more useful data during an experiment
at 3 a.m. tomorrow. As the astronauts sleep, whirling red siren
lights will flood the cabin while an ear-splitting klaxon alarm jolts
them awake.
Detailed scientific data will then be collected on such variables as
open weeping, uncontrollable spontaneous defecation and unusual hair loss.
Back in the goodle days, the tar from cigarette smoke would plug up minor leaks in aircraft cabins. Or is this an urban legend?
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
.5 atm is generally accepted to be 500 hPa (or 500 millibars for most operational meteorologists) As a rule of thumb, this is 18,000' MSL or FL180 depending on how you want to say it, but the actual level of 500mb (and thus .5 atm) changes from location to location and of course over time.
For example...a quick glance at the upper air data sampled around 1200 GMT on 6 Jan 04 tells us that the height of 500mb is as follows below for different places around the globe...lower heights tend to signify a denser (ie colder) column of air beneath it.
Barrow, AK (PBRW) 5380m or 17650ft
Pickle Lake, ON (CYPL) 4875m or 15990ft
Guam Mariana, MY (PGAC) 5916m or 19410ft
Key West, FL (KEYW) 5884m or 19300ft
Essen, Germany (EDZE) 5230m or 17160ft
Amundsen-Scott (89009) 5110m or 16760ft (s. pole)
Brasilia, Brazil (SBBR) 5890m or 19320ft
Mt Pleasant (EGYP) 5560m or 18240ft (falkland islands)
Churchill, MB (CYYQ) 4850m or 15910ft
Tucson, AZ (KTUS) 5772m or 18940ft
Omaha/Valley, NE (KOAX) 5332m or 17490ft
Topeka, KS (KTOP) 5429m or 17810ft
Little Rock, AR (KLZK) 5639m or 18500ft
IIRC, the brain never gets involved. It's as you wrote in the first sentence; it's entirely the autonomic nervous system.
What's more, I read somewhere that it's due to a small ganglion of nerves located near -- of all places -- the left armpit. (Maybe for proximity to the heart?) That's what makes the decision, so to speak.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Mission Control, you can rock me to sleep any time.
-
I pity the people up there is NASA is really calculating this in mm Hg, what happened to the SI unit Pascals? Did they already forget that playing with units crashes spaceships?
Does a mercury barometer even work in a 0 gravity environment?
Yep...punch one up and put an end to this money flushing toilet circumnavigating the planet. 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1...bye now!
"The first thing we must do is kill all the lawyers" - Henry VI, Wm. Shakespeare
Yeah, without international cooperation, we wouldn't have a space station in orbit at all. And that would be a good thing.
Eat at Joe's.
American space station had mysteriously stopped communicating. Iron Man was called to investigate why. He donned his space armor, entered orbit, and paid a visit. Holes had been ripped in the hull. He found a few dead astronauts. He was attacked by a monster. Out of nowhere its shark-like toothful maw nearly sawed his head off. Firing his repulsors, Iron Man defended himself. It was ten feet tall, green, moved like lightning, and strong enough to rip apart steel beams. It could live for days in a vacuum. A terrifically intense battle involving wits and guts. Iron Man figured out that the monster was created by the government. The government wanted to create an invincible super soldier. Shell Head was running out of air, fell to the ground, and was about to die. With his last breath, he tried to restore air pressure in the station. The monster was about to smack him with its gnarly claw, but then it was surrounded by air. It started choking to death. To the monster, oxygen was poison. It landed with a thud. Iron Man took off his mask to breathe the frigid air. Through his misty exhales, the unhelmeted superhero muttered, "What I don't understand was 'Why? Why?'" An eerie, wavering voice said, "I was just doing my job." With that, the monster expired.
they should be searching for tiny black holes in the space station that could be sucking out the air.
Damn, all those Iraqis shooting at the sky in celebration of Saddam's capture have finally hit something.
- shazow
> What I meant is that the actual problem should be alerted. They've got a reported lowering of pressure. If its a leak, they should automatically know that, not have to guess and cross-check to see if it really is, or its a sensore error.
Maybe you'll want to reread that and go through the steps, because it seems that you're answering your own request. The report on lowering pressure came from pressure sensors in the station that moved out of safe range. How exactly do you propose they tell whether it's a leak or a sensor malfunction without a cross-check of the sensors? In a different way, how do you propose they detect a leak unless it's with pressure sensors?
The system threw an alert because a sensor moved out of safe range. There's nothing wrong with setting up a system that way, and simply having one of the station astronauts verify the sensor alarm to ensure it's not a false alarm.
Virg
You had to see "Mission to Mars".
-=- Many seek good nights and lose good days.
Do we really have to go to space to measure inferences? There are plenty of good logicians on the ground.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Are they rocks? Cuz I thought they were rocks, flying really fast through space.
I wonder what would happen if one of them hit the ISS? Is the ISS's hull durable enough to withstand a meteor impact?
IR.
Think about it. Space is cold - very cold. The air inside the ISS is relatively very warm in comparison. This means that escaping air would initially be much much warmer than the surrounding environment. It would cool quite fast, but at least in the immediate vicinity of the ISS's shell it would be warmer.
So... see where I am going with this yet?
Use an infared heat signature. Can their camera only shoot video? If there isn't something up there that can aim at the ISS and look for it (hmm, what about these IR space telescopes?), send something up. We have IR cameras on helicopters for the cops, there is no reason one could not be retrofitted for space and used as such.
The heat signature should look like a tiny plume coming out of wherever the leak is occurring from, dissipating quickly, but enough to detect the location.
I fail to see why this would not work. Of course implementing a $5,000 IR camera in space would cost about half a billion dollars more or less, but I believe it *would* work.
Why doesn't the leaking air freeze as it comes out? Space is definietly cold enough. And as the leeking are freezes (as I think it does), why doesn't it plug the hole?
Anyone care to enlighten me on why that is?
#include "sig.h"
Leak found, but the problem is that it will talk a while to fix (like a couple weeks). Lets hope if it doesnt fix quickly they are good at holding thier breath.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
Oh come on... somebody with moderator points give this guy his deserved "one more"!
DiscDividers tabbed plastic CD dividers: divider cards f
The article mentions that the astronauts are burning oxygen producing candles to make up some of the deficit of lost air. Oxygen-producing candles seems kind of oxymoronic to me, does anyone have any info or insight into how they work or what they are made of?
I really can't offer up much defense of my statement since it is admittedly hearsay from a lecture some years ago.
This is the suit he brought to the lecture and put on one of the short female physics profs during the talk. He also answered the great question of "How do you do a 12 hour mission without a lavatory?!"
I'm not an SR-71 expert so I can't say why the cockpit was pressurized and the pilots still sat in a full pressure suit. An interesting question to consider for someone with plenty of time on their hands I guess.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Or chinese Taikonaut :-)
If it is the space station, they may have a leak. If it was the web server, we all know it has many leaks!
> So out of curiosity: how do you look for a leak on a space station? If following smoke (which is nothing else but colored gas), or drink is considered stupid, how do you do it?
Well, just for completeness, the reason why you don't use smoke or liquid is really the same: settling. Smoke is particulate, and the particles (in zero-G) float until they stick to something, and that's bad in a system not hardened against that sort of pollution. The same is true of loose liquid, which can easily drift into circuitry and cause grief. Using Dr. Pepper is tremendously dumb, because it's sugary and therefore will cause a horrendous mess in a zero-G environment. The concept in the movie was that the leak was so fast that it was urgent to find it and it was strong enough to suction liquids, which the current ISS leak is not. The current method for finding slow leaks in spacecraft is with sound-sensing equipment that listens for the escaping air. If I recall correctly, they don't have high sensitivity equipment on ISS, so they're using stethoscopes.
Virg
The pilots wore full pressure suits in case the cockpit lost pressure or they had to bail out at 100K+...man, that would be some freefall. I'm pretty sure the suits were kept at sea-level pressure or something close to it, I suspect the cabin pressure was there to keep the suits from getting overly rigid.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
> You state that my proposed construction method would be much more expensive than the current ISS method. I would argue that the costs would me much more predictable and managable. Go look up the numbers for the ISS initial projected cost and the final cost. Compare where the project was supposed to be now (11 people living on board) and the surrent state of things (3 people on board, usually). Compared to the stated goals, ISS is a failure and a waste of money.
I am aware you argue that costs for a different design would be more predictable and manageable. The part that confuses me is why you think that. What difference would a change in vessel design have on unexpected costs? Are you to imply that all of the unexpected costs spring solely from inadequate design, and that your design will somehow be free of any inadequacies? Most of the problems with the ISS reaching stated goals have been political. I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that a different blueprint would have fixed that.
> As for the sensors, I don't understand why you keep saying things like "...sensing units and pressure maintenance units are not tied together...". I never stated that these units are or should be tied together.
Um, then reconcile this to your statemnt in the same paragraph that "In my layout, the problems are taken care of in an automated fasion..." please. If they shouldn't be tied together, how does one automate the response of the pressure maintenance units to what happens in the sensor units?
> The redundant monitoring sensors should be separate and isolated from the control sensors, which should in turn be separate and isolated from the gas flow sensors and the tank pressure sensors.
All of these systems are separate and isolated at the present time.
> Your wriring seems to indicate you can only forsee two failure scenareos: slow insignificant leak, and catastrophic breach causing instant death. There are more scenareos between those two that the system you define can not handle in a manner that would preserve life and the mission.
Actually, there isn't much room for scenarios between the extremes here. There are two general conditions in a pressure hull: failure that's fast enough that humans can't realistically react to it, and failure that's slow enough that they can. The current system assumes that any failure that's severe enough that a human can't fix it in real time is going to be too fast for the pressure maintenance system to compensate for. If the vessel is leaking so fast that the crew can't move themselves to a safe spot and seal off, dumping the reserve tanks at full open won't be sufficient to save them. Therefore, automating the system introduces complexity that doesn't add any real degree of safety, and it was therefore left out. Also, remember that Mission Control on the ground handles much of this stuff, so in a dire emergency they could react to the breach as well.
> As for plate on frame not being very good for pressure vessels: that's essentially what the space station is right now. It's just more of a foil than a plate.
Incorrect. It's a pressure vessel, held to other pressure vessels by trusses and the joiner seals. Your design as you describe it is used in buildings on Earth, where there's very little pressure differential from the inside to the outside. A pressure vessel with skin is more like a submarine, where an inside "tank" is mounted inside a body frame, and panels are attached to the outside. The panels don't take pressure, just protect from impact. The fact that it's made from thin aluminum is because it's not efficient weight-wise to make it from anything heavier. A heavier pressure vessel skin doesn't add a significant amount of structural integrity over other designs.
> The "plates" in a more standardized construction would not have to be solid metal. We have these wonderful composite materials like carbon fiber, fiberglass