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."

Comments

Temporary fix

[Black Parrot]

If we could trap all the hot air from the presidential campaign in a big balloon and release it just as the ISS went by, maybe they could catch it and use it to keep the station going for a few more weeks.

Re:Temporary fix

[LastToKnow]

You're suggesting that people actually live off that stuff? I'm sure most people would rather suffocate.

Pulic domain enforcement

[Jesrad]

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 ?

But NASA is not alarmed

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course not, plenty of oxygen down here.

OSS.

[iMMersE]

See, this is what happens when you use ISS. You should have used OSS. You get free and open oxygen that way.