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ISS Spacewalk Cut Short
RobertB-DC writes "The spacewalk that was intended to replace a balky power supply ended almost before it started, according to Spaceflight Now's Mission Status Center play-by-play. The Russian Orlan spacesuit worn by US astronaut Mike Fincke developed a problem with its oxygen supply (!), forcing both spacewalkers back to the airlock after less than 15 minutes. Mission control and the ISS crew are still debating what to do next."
I don't know...the tether breaking sounds pretty unlikely; has it ever happened before? I mean, rock climbers don't carry jetpacks either....
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Rocket launches are fairly obvious things, especially to spy satellites.
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Sure, right after they install a pod bay on the ISS. :) Since a space pod's manipulators would be controlled by an astronaut inside, why bother bringing along the astronaut? A pod could be much simpler if it didn't need life-support and all its mass. It could even be operated by the ground, although delay might be an issue for fine manipulation.
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it also has to be put into perspective of the American mentality vs the European mentality.
Americans would be far less tolerant towards the idea of having a few dozen test rockets blow up in the development stage than Europeans. Americans value 'success' more, thus valuing things representing 'failure' more.
(incidentally, this is an exact quote from when Victoria replied to the question 'is really David the father of your child?')
I don't normally watch soccer, or any other sports on TV, but I did watch the last few minutes after the Portuguese 1-1 goal, the extension and the penalties - it was very good entertainment. It was fun to see Svennis not only actually has emotions, but he can display them. :-)
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This station cost millions of dollars and months of construction to assemble. Every flight costs between $400 million and $1 billion depending on the load of the shuttle. It is VERY unlikely that they would ever abandon the station before it started to crash into the upper atmostphere from orbit disentigration.
This again begs the question: Do we really need manned spaceflights where unmanned, robotic spaceflights can do the job just as well and at a much lower cost?
Do we really have any need to go down a concrete path at 60 miles per hour in a tin box just to see the latest Adam Sandler film? Perhaps we should hide away in our homes for all except the most urgent business.
I know someone is going to mod that down as flamebait or mod me as a troll but the bottom line is that we risk lives everyday for much much less. These guys and gals know the risks and except them willingly. Frankly I'd do it, and if I were to die you can sleep well at night knowing that I'd rather have given my life for a decent contribution than dying at the age of 90 after a lifetime of pandering to idiots who are too lazy to try to reboot their PCs before calling the help desk over what are often non-issues.
And besides, perhaps the robot aspect is cheaper but what about the time in development? Tell me to use a screwdriver, it'll take you 3 seconds and I'll get the job done and be able to work my way thru most unexpected problems. Do that to a robot and it takes hours if not days to tell it the task and when it encounters a problem it takes more time to figure out how to tell the stupid thing to overcome the issue. And good luck getting any input back from the machine that may help explain the problem.
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My guess is that the ISS is cramped as it is, so they put it on the outside to save space, figuring if it ever broke, an EVA would be worth it.
Maybe it had a fire risk, too.
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Well, the obvious solution wouldn't be jetpacks, it would be having two tethers instead of one. That seems like a pretty easy thing to do, anyway.
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This stupid white elephant needs to be put down. It was a stupid idea in the first place.....Why? Because it is in the hands of two (or more) governments who know nothing about how to run a business. Put the space program in the hands of private businesses and watch how well it works. How much did it cost NASA to put the first American in space versus how much it costs the Rutan group to put the first private human in space? With cost overruns, stupidity, etc.....it's no wonder NASA can't hardly do anything right anymore. I use to be a big fan of NASA in the "golden age" but not anymore. They don't have a goal....in the old days it was beat the Soviets to the moon, since then it's been stumbling to find something to do to keep the gravy train of money funneling to it's doors. A lot of good scientific research has been funneled from NASA to the private sector, but that has pretty much stopped, since they can't do anything right anymore. The shuttle was for building the space station, and the space station was for the shuttle to bring people to it. Hardly a worthy goal if you ask me.