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Space Station Dogged By Oxygen Problems
Alien54 writes "All of the Russian made Elektron oxygen generators on the International Space Station have failed. The three Elektron units on board the space station are the last of their kind. The company that manufactured them has gone out of business, and the engineer who almost single-handedly made the final adjustments of flight units died several years ago. Reportedly he retained some 'trade secret' about the final adjustments of the devices -- and it died with him. But NASA is not alarmed."
The company that manufactured them has gone out of business, and the engineer who almost single-handedly made the final adjustments of flight units died several years ago. Reportedly he retained some 'trade secret' about the final adjustments of the devices -- and it died with him.
And THIS is why there should be public domain repositories actively developped by governments, possibly along with mandatory escrow clauses for failed companies' IP. They would collect and index works that fall in the public domain ("This land is your land" anyone ?) as soon as possible, and maybe even buy exclusive rights of dying proprietary technology to make them open standards forever. I'm pretty sure this sort of service could even be profitable.
Private companies develop their own pool of patents and trademarks, why not the general public, too ?
Maybe we deserve this world ?
I started reading this story, and realized, when I clicked to RTFA, that I was up at 4:30AM, reading Slashdot, and clikcing through to read about some oxygen equipment failure that even NASA isn't worried about. Talk about exchanging sleep time for quality time.
And then you replied to the freaking story?!
You, sir, are officially addicted to slashdot.
(C'mon in! Coffee is in the back, help yourself.)
How about modifying and installing some of the equipment used on nuclear submarines? I'd think that after decades of service and experience at sea, it would be reliable and inexpensive by NASA flight hardware standards.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
In zero-gee the gasses don't bubble from the plates, they just sit there. This makes life much more complicated.
Ok. So now you have bearings and a motor. You have to run your oxygen, hydrogen and water hoses and power leads through the bearing somehow, and you need to make sure that the whole thing stays watertight even when it stops spinning and doesn't make too much noise.
As the man from Pentagon said after their ballistic interceptor test failed again, "this is rocket science".
I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it isn't simple.
It's going to take 4 to 6 years to produce and
deliver the u.s. built replacement for the elektron
systems, according to the article.
A smart third grader can make an oxygen generator
with a battery, wire, salt and electrodes in 5
minutes. For the 0g environment, we'll add a
slow centrifuge.
Remind me not to pay my taxes if this is the
crap I get for it.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-