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A Brief History of the Space Station
HyperbolicParabaloid writes "A story about the history of the International Space Station, and its utility or non-utility for space exploration. One interesting insight: after the Challenger explosion it became obvious that we would never refuel a rocket with volatile fuel at a space station because the threat to the station would be so great. And did you know that to accomodate the Russians, the space station is in an orbit that makes it almost useless as a jumping off point to anywhere?"
Happy Trails,
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
do you people recall those many sci-fi movies and books made during the cold war which feature teams coined of american and russian heroes usually working together on a spacecraft or such...?
obviously, it is not that easy.
Aure entuluva!
Why doesn't NASA just go one step further and establish something on the moon. Surely that would be an even better jumping off point.
Rus
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Well excuse me, but as the Russians are about the only reason we have the ISS in the first place, it seems a little stupid to go complaining about having to accommodate them.
A lot of concessions and compromises have kept the space station from realizing it's potential.
Yeah, "concessions and compromises" like, say, allowing redundancy in the type of supply vehicles so that if, say, the shuttle fleet was grounded, Russian Soyuz supply ships would still be able to get supplies and replacement crews to the ISS, as well as getting them back.
Yeah, I can see how those "concessions and compromises" are a major bummer. Not.
If you want to blame that shit on someone blame it on the penny-pinching politicians who scaled back the ISS's scope to cut costs.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Some missing context:
...But now, we have an administration that's 1. desperately in need of new sources of energy and a big public-works project to drive an economic recovery, and 2. not afraid of nuclear rockets. The moon makes a much better staging ground for such devices than an inhabited planet you don't want to pollute, and lower gravity would make launch failures lower-risk (less chance of a nuclear core breaking apart on impact).
So the Clinton administration decided to erect the station at 51.6 degrees, hailing it as a "world orbit" accessible to all spacefaring nations.
Which wasn't a bad way to save the project, when we had no obvious reason (or imaginary cash) to embark outwards.
The Moon, experts say, has now taken on the role of steppingstone. "Lifting heavy spacecraft and fuel out of the Earth's gravity is expensive," Mr. Bush said in his speech. "Spacecraft assembled and provisioned on the Moon could escape its far lower gravity using far less energy, and thus, far less cost."
Many experts are skeptical of those claims, saying Mr. Bush overlooked the large energy costs of getting fuel and rockets to the Moon. Previous NASA studies for Mars missions have seldom if ever used the Moon as a launching pad because that would take about twice as much energy as going from the Earth or an Earth outpost.
Only trouble is, we need either all the facilities to construct these things on the moon... or to launch them all from Earth, which rather ruins the cost/benefit ratio.
Space development is a big bootstrap problem, and the only way to get a virtuous cycle of development and payoff going is to prime the pump with lots of cash. What happened was that funding levels stayed at a level below "critical mass", but have been maintained long enough that it still adds up to a lot of money. Unfortunatly it's been frittered away in a long string of abortive, wasted efforts (Skylab, Freedom, NASP, X-33, X-34, SLI, OSP, etc etc.) If they had just STUCK with any one of those long enough to actually make it work, instead of abandoning it as soon as the first development challenge came along, MAYBE we'd actually be somewhere by now...
As for the decision to work with the Russians on ISS; if we hadn't done that there wouldn't BE a space station. We'd still be on the ground. Notice how the Russians currently supply: the core module, propulsive attitude control, orbit maintenance, life support functions (O2, CO2 removal, water, food, sleep locations), crew transport, the EVA equipment being used, a major part of the power, basic telecom, and some other things. The U.S. supplies: a mostly unused lab module (complete with air leak), some power, a $700 million connector node, high data-rate comm and a lot of paperwork requirements.
As for NASA's progressively more and more conservative attitude; that spells the death knell for actually doing anything. If you can't transfer fuel in space because it might be danegrous, then you won't actually ever go anywhere beyond LEO or maybe the Moon (in limited cases). Captain Obvious says: space has risks. You have to just learn how to deal with them, not just sit back and decree you won't ever run them. At least not if you want to actually accomplish something... duh.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
Bitch and moan about the influence of the Russians, but if it weren't for them the space station would have been abandoned by now.
The Russians *do* have a shuttle, or at least they did, but they never scraped up enough money to fly it. What ever happened to Buran?
(I'll be mildly amused if it turns out to be Russians who create the materials needed for an orbital tower. Hmmm, it *was* their idea....)
"And did you know that to accomodate the Russians, the space station is in an orbit that makes it almost useless as a jumping off point to anywhere?"
Since THIS space station was never intended to be a "jumping off point", why is that a problem? Since the Russian capsule is the only way to get people there and back for now, accomodating thems seems like a good decision at this point. If we get to build a space station intended for "jumping off" in the future, it will be built in the required orbit, and I hope Russia, Japan, China, and lots of European countries join in on it!
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
For instance, orbital changes to accommodate Russia after the cold war made it harder to use the station as a launching pad.
Originally the ISS was going to serve as the garage for exploration of the solar system. But, political reasons for collaborating with the russians ("let's be friends to show everyone that the cold war is over") forced to change the orbit four out of the sola system plane to let the russians, from their higher latitude launch pads, reach it and help a bit. The ISS became from one of the greatest scientific endevours to one of the most expensive diplomatic tokens ever.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
How does the Challenger explosion connect with orbital refuelling? I suppose the ISS is a lousy place to store SRBs on cold days, but (a) the SRBs are thrown away before you reach orbit, and (b) one day in vacuum is as cold as another. Naturally fuel storage and transfer wouldn't take place inside the habitat, anymore than the corner gas station keeps its gasoline in jugs stacked in the office. Of course, the gas station is surrounded by oxidizer and the space station isn't, so fuel safety is a somewhat different proposition in orbit....
Why are people questioning the energy cost of hauling fuel and interplanetary spacecraft to the moon for launching? That's the dumb way to do it. You make the fuel and the spacecraft *on the moon*. The whole point of starting from orbit, or from the moon, is to avoid hauling hundreds of tons of stuff up from ground level in the first place. It's been the plan for 50 years or more.
It is widely known, but little commented on, that the manned space program being conducted by the U.S. and Russia is a collosal waste of money that is producing little in the way of meaningful scientific or technological research. Rather the I.S.S. is primarily justified within the policy making organs of the U.S. government as a means to keep experienced Russian engineers employed and thus minimize the risk of them being employed by a nation with a desire for interconinental balistic missile technology and who are reckless enough to use it.
Basically, the manned space program in the U.S. and the USSR has become a giant welfare project for aerospace engineers.
While in the short term this is a cheap way to slow the inevitable acquisition of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems by increasinlg underdeveloped and recklessly led nation states, in the long run it is a losing game:
First, because the spread of technology is inevitable, and secondly because the field of aerospace engineering is distorted, with many more engineers seeking training in schools than there is a true economic demand for. These people are not only diverted from turning their talents to more productive areas, but later in life will lobby to keep the pork coming.
President Bush's proposals are an even bigger waste. I wouldn't mind if they were to be funded by voluntary donations, but the thought that people will be taxed to fund this boondogle when they already have to work so hard to make ends meet irritates me. I would like to see government getting out of the fields of scientific research & space travel. Let us keep our tax dollars and spend it on the charities that we want to fund. Let us pick our priorities. I think the results would be quite surprising to people who think that government support is required for these projects.
It would have been a worse idea to keep the Russians out as they provide the cheapest and most reliable transportation system for supplies and the only human transportation system operable right now.
It was never intended to use the ISS as a starting point for planetary missions.
Ah yes, blame Bush, common argument around here.
The design for the original US space station underwent 7 redesigns in a period of 9 years. From inception in 1984 to 1993 the planned costs of the space station increased. The initial estimate from NASA was $8 billion. The second revision (1987) was caused by changes mandated by congress. By 1990 the cost estimate had grown to $38 billion (including launches). In 1991 congress mandated another redesign, the new redesign by NASA now has a cost estimate of $30 billion (including launches). Late 1992, due to cost growth of the program the white house (for the first time) orders a redesign.
In June of 1993 the white house again asked NASA for redesign options that would significantly shrink the cost (by lowering size and capabilities). NASA presented 3 options (named Option A, B, C). At this point a panel concluded that the new plans would cost less, would require management restructuring at NASA, and would benefit from international participation (ie, spread the costs and make people like us).
The final design of 'American SS Freedom' was still more costly then the Clinton administration was willing to spend. The agreement between the US and Moscow was made in Sept of 1993 between Moscow and NASA negotiators. At this time the US station was a 4-person station design (same design Clinton had just turned down as "too expensive") while the Russian 'Mir-2' was a 6-person design. NASA forced Clinton to decide between the US or Russian design, and thus we have the current conglomerate. The redesign in 1991 called for a price of $30 billion while the newly revised conglomerate would cost $17.4 billion after figuring in contributions from Russia. It's worth noting that 9 years of redesigns cost over $11 billion...
In 1997 NASA admits, after three years, that it can't build it for $17.4 billion after all. In 1998 the Chabrow report gave NASA a 70-30 chance that the space station would be built for $26 billion and be up to three years late. Due to cost overruns and shortages from Russia, money is requested in 1998 and 1999, bringing the US price tag to $19.4 billion (having already spent about $13.4 I believe). In June of 2000 Congress sets a new spending cap at $26 billion.
Jan 2001: $17.9 spent to date, and NASA finds out there is a $4 billion cost overrun (oops)
Feb 2001: George W Bush officially reveals the cost overrun and minor redesign is necessary in order to keep costs to the previously declared levels.
I have seen figures estimating a cost of $26.1 billion for completion of the space station.
Perhaps I missed something here, but it seems the biggest changes to the stations capabilities(granted, for the cause of saving money) were committed in 1993, with a few billion dollars of blunder added in which necessitated removing additional features down the road. I find the dates for the $4 billion overrun to be interesting, but I guess that somone could have just wasted that money (about 20-25% of original budget) AFTER Clinton left office but before it was noticed in Jan 2001.
Anyways, as far as I can see, the only way we could have not had a minor redesign in Feb of 2001 is if either:
a) Bush decided to spend about $4-$5 extra billion to cover for the current set of cost overruns - and I would love to see what people would have said about that
b) Bush asks for minor redesign to try and keep project inside the most recent budget - which by this point was already almost impossible unless we consider the $26 billion spending cap from congress as the budget, although many analysts think this will all get spent anyway
c) At some point during the prior term someone had paid attention to growing costs and the fact that several billion already had to be requested due in part to cost overruns.
sidenote-
Very little to do with the post, but how do you accidentally spend $4 billion????
I mean maybe if your budget was in 100's of billions could I see a slip like that, but when your proposed costs are $19.4 billion (after 98/99 additions) how do you accidentally spend 20% extra? What was this, the NASA/Boeing beer tab for the last decade?
Whee signature.
No, it's the lack of competence that blows up Shuttles. It doesn't matter how conservative you are, if you are too stupid/lazy/ignorant/poor/inexperienced/rushed to properly analyse a problem like a foam impact, you will have bad things happen. Conversely, smart, well-funded and motivated people can pull off some pretty daring things. Take Apollo and lunar orbit rendezvous. That's a very risky approach, where the astronauts can potentially be stranded if it doesn't work. But we did it and it worked...
The idea that suddenly after Challenger it was too dangerous to refuel in LEO is idiotic. Either it was too dangerous to begin with, or it wasn't. What actually happened was that the perceived risk threshold changed, and suddenly it was no longer considered acceptable to do. In other words, we lost our cojones as an agency.
Under political and financial pressure, NASA systematically puts its own objectives ahead of safety.
That's not only insulting, it shows you don't understand the situation. There is a tradeoff between safety and goals; to put safety ahead of everything means you just don't fly. After all, sitting on the launch pad is safer than actually lighting the damned thing. I might have agreed with the statement that "under pressure, NASA took risks that were too big", but I don't even really agree with that. NASA didn't knowingly say "There is a 1:10 chance that the foam will cause a disaster. Do we feel lucky?". Mission managers just missed entirely the danger. That's incompetence and/or bad luck, not recklessness.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
However, IANARS (I am not a research scentist), but I am unaware of any "flagship" research that ISS is conducting or will conduct in its present 3-person configuration, or even its "Core Complete" projected configuration. I think it's been said elsewhere, without the full build-out of 7 occupants (with at least 4 fully dedicated to science), it is of dubious scientific utility. What puzzles me is how politicials fail to realize that without the commitment to built it to this level of capability, its utility is kept at a bare minimum (about at the level of being able to say once a day or so, "Hey.. look, up in the sky, its the ISS!")
If we were to throw a few more Shuttle launches at the project, we could have a REAL laboratory. Instead, we have spam in a can inclined at 51.9 degrees. Gee whiz. Remind anyone of the fiasco in the early 70's of the USAF telling NASA what design specs to build into the Shuttle? Look how well that turned out.
What we need at NASA is a scientist-administrator who has the White House clout to back him up. Though O'Keefe is much better than his tyrannical predecessor Goldin, O'Keefe is an administrator-type bean counter. While NASA, from an institutional point of view, may have needed this "tough love" right now, ultimately, it must be given a scientific leadership as well, starting from the top.
Bush Lies On the Record.
Its all very nice talking about space stations the moon and mars etc but really , its all a bit pointless until a type of propulsion technology is
created than can get people off this planet as easily as an airliner taking off AND be used in space. Chemical fueled systems just don't cut
it and Ion engines are so underpowered as to be useless even in space (15 MONTHS just to get to the moon! Gimme a break!). What the solution is I don't know but
currently we're still at the space vehicle equivalent of a canoe , not even a 16th century galleon, and if we wish to start exploring space then we're going
to need something a damn site more useful than what we have at the moment.
Which wasn't a bad way to save the project, when we had no obvious reason (or imaginary cash) to embark outwards.
But to save it for what? What are we getting for our $100 billion? It seems like there's a lot of scientific research that could be done for that amount with a lot bigger payoff.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
ISS serves no scientific purpose with its current staff level. ISS serves no functional purpose with its current staff level. The crew has one job - keep it from falling apart. They are in fact custodians.
It doesn't matter that ISS is a failure in the conventional sense - it is a huge plus for Boeing who I am sure is billing the govt 2x or 3x on every billable task, since there is no meaningful competitor. Mars and the Moon projects will similarly sit alongside missile defense as the pet projects to keep military contractors in the black for the next half century.
It's obvious to me that there are plenty of safety precautions that can be used to allow refueling of spacecraft at a space station.
(1) Use binary fuels. E.G, LH/LOX. On Earth liquid hydrogen is seriously flammable, and liquid oxygen will make other things ignite. In space, liquid hydrogen will find no oxidizer to make it burn, and liquid oxygen will disperse into vacuum too quickly to make objects around it burn very well.
(2) Use breakaway tethers. The other major hazard with using volatile fuels is that fuel components from a punctured tank may jet away, imparting kinetic energy to its source. An incident like this with a spacecraft or fuel storage tank hard-docked to a space station might potentially deorbit both. By attaching both fuel reservoir and spacecraft (while fueling) to the station with a breakaway tether, this danger is significantly reduced.
Unless we can synthesize (or extract) fuel and oxygen from the moon, which saves the cost of lifting it out of Earth's gravity well. In addition, there may be circumstances where it would make more sense to lift modular components of a deep-space craft off Earth, rather than trying to lift it all at once. (Like the ISS.)
Pity you got modded as flamebait, I agree with you. The article states:
But Russian rockets blast off in Kazakhstan, much higher on the globe than Florida. They cannot fly much lower than 51.6 degrees latitude without running the risk of dropping spent rocket stages or astronauts during an emergency re-entry on Mongolia or northern China. So the Clinton administration decided to erect the station at 51.6 degrees, hailing it as a "world orbit" accessible to all spacefaring nations.
Let's not forget the Russians are the only ones with experience of making and running a spacestation, nor lets forget it is the Russians who are doing the bulk of the construction and running it (the article does go on to acknowledge this).
The whole idea the present station could be a 'jumping off' point really is crazy - it has no command capacity, it is 100% dependent on supplies (fuel, parts, etc) taking supplies by shuttle or shortrange capsule and then loading them on something else is much more inefficient than sticking them on that something else and skipping the middle-man (this is only a conventional engine, not a warp drive!), it is extremely fragile. But it does allow applied research into space-based technology - a vital stepping stone in the international space effort.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/science/space/03 STAT.html?ex=1076389200&en=9f97461fa48be3e6&ei=506 2&partner=BITCH
IMHO
I'm completely sick of politics and funding getting in the way of proper science and research. I honestly believe that this is really a ploy to involve the aerospace industry as an election scheme.
Think about it... GWB is already throwing all kinds of defense contracts at Boeing, Lockheed, and the like... all of whom also make gear and components that launch into orbit. Sending money this way creates jobs. New jobs for GWB's adopted brainchild improves his public opinion. Then the added bonus comes in of the Bush's Administration having primary involvement in the Space Station, as well as other such projects (do the words "Star Wars" ring a bell?).
Please don't get me wrong... I believe in NASA's purpose and would like to see space exploration become a higher priority. I would like to see more and better studies of planets and heavenly bodies, as well as the effects & potentials for human life outside the atmosphere. I'm a child of the 80's, I know the excitement of watching a launch... even if it was only on TV.
This is why I'm so %&$@ bitter! Grand-scale goals that affect more than "a few people" are being decided with respect to the fate of less than "a few people"... I hope that makes sense.
"Would you rather be right, or happy?"
Why do I have to register if the content is "free"?
Excuse me while I purge all of this spam....
No wait, it's not free after all.
Do it for da shorties
For example, that means that if the US currently has a population growth of 1% (from births only) the amount of resources this birth rate consumes is equivalent to a birth rate of 33% in the third world!
There is no third world nation that has such a birth rate so the real issue is the developed nations drain on world resources rather than the population growth of third world nations.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
tell that to gus, ed, and roger.