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NASA Plans Discovery Launch May 15
Haxx writes "More than two years after losing the space shuttle Columbia and its seven crew, NASA said Friday it has set May 15 as its target date for once again launching shuttles into space." Reader gollum123 writes points out Reuters's version of the story, which says that "May 15 was chosen as the launch date for Discovery and its seven-member crew because of lighting conditions and thermal issues related to the shuttle's launch and docking at the International Space Station."
Russia can't handle the ISS. The shuttle is the only vehicle that can handle lifting the larger parts of the station. Russia can only resupply and and lift small items for the ISS. Until the shuttles get back into it, ISS constuction is on hold.
Go to the Return to Flight page. Atlantis will be ready for a launch on July 12: that's not an emergency turnaround, but a full-fledged mission. I don't imagine that Discovery will be in a position to act as emergency rescue vehicle for that mission, though, as even July 26 (i.e., 2 weeks after the planned launch date for Atlantis) will be only 2 months after the shuttle's planned landing on May 27. Endeavour is in major modification mode.
First of all, microgravity is an astonishingly useful thing to have when conducting experiments. For instance, imagine how much better one can grow crystals if everything is just floating and one doesn't have a dish to corrupt the crystal formation. Not interested in growing snowflakes? Crystals grown from organic seeds allow one to develop medical cures. So it's not a stetch to say that a microgravity experiment might be what cures AIDS or cancer.
Second, even if one doesn't care about microgravity, space has another feature: vacuum. Lots and lots of it. The Japanese science module is specifically designed to conduct experiments in the vacuum outside. They've got an exposed pallet and a bunch of waldos.
For lots more examples, see NASA's ISS science page.
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With respect to the Orbiter itself (aside from management and flight rules), the main changes are the following:
1) Redesign the insulation foam on the external tank around the area of the bipod struts where the foam detached on STS-107.
2) Get the makers of the Canadarm (robotic arm) - MDA Space Missions - to design and build a second arm that will be used to inspect the underside of the Shuttle for damage when it reached orbit. Check a picture of the Shuttle with two arms at the Jan 26, 2005 press release.
3) Always launch missions during the day to the ISS only (hence the Hubble discussions) and have a spare Orbiter (in this case Atlantis) ready to go for rescue missions.
As was said in an earlier post, Atlantis is being scheduled for it's own mission on July 12, but it will be on the Launch Pad for the Discovery launch to support a resuce mission if required. Even for the Columbia mission, they could have gotten another shuttle ready to fly (all testing, etc.) in 28 days if all testing was done without failures and the minimum required was done. The current plan is to have Atlantis with basic testing done and final turnaround and pre-launch testing should be able to be done within 7 days if necessary. This is well within the window of a typical 16 day mission which can be stretched to 28 days in emergency situations (by rationaing food, fuel, etc.) or even longer with a bailout at the ISS.
Some posts ask about what sort of rescue options Nasa has handy in the event of catastrope.
Well, Presuming that the bugger does not blow up on launch, this thing is going to the ISS. If they cannot come back down due to a safety issue, they could conceivably stay up there for a while.
Also, the ISS has a Soyuz for emergency escape. They coould come down on that.
Or they could have the Russians send another Soyuz up specifically for evacuation purposes.
Using a Shuttle for a rescue is probably overkill.
And if the shuttle is destroyed in the same manner as Columbia, well, once your in atmosphere on your way down, your either land in one piece or you land in many pieces.
END COMMUNICATION
For starters, try:w s/1107178933995_11?hub=SciTech
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNe
There's four major changes - 2 of them help spot problems, not fix them:
1. NASA launches only in daylight, so they have a better chance of photographing any damage that may happen.
2. The crew has a kit to help inspect the shuttle for damage.
Two changes actually reduce the risk of an accident:
1. The crew has a rudamentary repair kit, although NASA admits it's not as good as they had hoped for.
2. The main tank foam system has been redesigned. The biggest piece that it should be able to shed is supposed to be no bigger than a dinner roll, compared to the suitcase sized piece that hit Colombia.
What NASA hasn't done: 1. Gone back to a non-foamed tank design. 2. Found more ways to improve the range and scope of the repair kit, or else they haven't paid enough to implement every repair kit tool or patch they thought of.
Who is John Cabal?
Good question. Sorry for not elaborating before.
The first and original arm has joints (shoulder, elbow, wrist) which allows it to manipulate and move the various pieces of the ISS it installs and other payloads (e.g. HST). But unfortunately, it is not long enough to view the complete underside of the shuttle (it could have seen the damage on the wing of Columbia, but that mission didn't have an arm installed).
The new arm - which is built from the spare booms from the original one - does not have joints, just solid pieces to link the booms together (although much of the hardware was already in existence, which is partly why MDA won the contract. It is a solid 50 foot extension with a camera/sensing package on the end.
Essentially, the original arm (the one in the far side of the picture or on the right of the shuttle looking out of the cabin window toward the tail) will grab the extension boom (Orbiter Boom Sensing System or OBSS) at the Grapple Fixture (the thing that looks like it's sticking out of the arm and the close end) and will simply swing it under the Shuttle. The camera/sensing package at the end of the boom will survey each tile on the bottom of the shuttle for damage. I can't find the animation somewhere, but Discovery Channel just did a segment on it.
When complete, the original arm (Shuttle Remote Manipulator System or SRMS or Canadarm) will re-berth the OBSS on its side of the payload bay and will then go about the rest of the mission as normal - installing payloads, moving astronauts around on EVAs, etc.
I can't remember the last time I heard anyone talk about the space station. I mean, people hang out up there (right?) but they aren't doing much more.
Are you kidding me? We are still studying the long term effects a zero-G environment has on a human body. So far, studies have shown that periods of weightlessness reduce the body's bone mass, cause muscle-wasting, depress the immune system and lead to changes usually associated with aging.
If we're ever to seriously think about colonizing space or even another planet, we need to focus on the afforementioned obstacles first.
The article says that Atlantis is being prepped simultaneously for a possible rescue mission. I doubt it actually be on the other pad when Discovery launches, but how realistic is it for NASA to set up another launch on two weeks' notice?
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One of the original goals with having four shuttles was to do a new mission every two weeks, and so turn around time of each shuttle was supposed to be every eight weeks. They never approached that rate of launches long-term, but they came close a few times. The ill-fated the 1986 Challenger launch was just 16 days after the launch of the previous mission:
http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/archives/
In the year before, 1985, there were nine Shuttle missions, more than in any other year:
http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/archives/
That's still an average of less than one a month, and after having lost not one but two shuttles, they're sure to 'try harder' to put safety above turnaround time. Now that may mean not launching one until the next one can reasonably be launched within two weeks.
Tag lost or not installed.
The Boeing CEV concept page.
The Wikipedia CEV page
@de_machina
The Army National Guard begs to differ.
The last paragraph is the really pertinant one but the entire selection is from the website.
http://www.arng.army.mil/About_Us/
"The Army National Guard (ARNG) is one component of The Army (which consists of the Active Army, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserves.) The Army National Guard is composed primarily of traditional Guardsmen -- civilians who serve their country, state and community on a part-time basis (usually one weekend each month and two weeks during the summer.) Each state, territory and the District of Columbia has its own National Guard, as provided for by the Constitution of the United States.
The National Guard has a unique dual mission that consists of both Federal and State roles. For state missions, the governor, through the state Adjutant General, commands Guard forces. The governor can call the National Guard into action during local or statewide emergencies, such as storms, fires, earthquakes or civil disturbances.
In addition, the President of the United States can activate the National Guard for participation in federal missions. Examples of federal activations include Guard units deployed to Bosnia and Kosovo for stabilization operations and units deployed to the Middle East and other locations in the war on terrorism. When federalized, Guard units are commanded by the Combatant Commander of the theatre in which they are operating."
The others all have similar statements.
Again they did not EXPECT to get called on for a long term federal commitment to a conflict overseas. That is not the same as saying they did not sign up for one if it occured.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Uh, robots are cheaper and can do more in space, go farther and longer. The transit time to Mars is about three months at best, three months with NOTHING to do. I don't buy that humans are cheaper for that. For one, a trip to mars is IMO nearly prohibitive risk. Not only is it a long trip, you don't get the convenience of a re-supply ship like they had with Mir, Freedom or Skylab, nor do you get the emergency getaway capsule. Then there are radiation risks, to go outside the Earth's magnetic field that far and that long hasn't been done, save for a few days at a time during the Apollo program. The South Atlantic anomaly in orbit is a lot, IIRC going farther out is a progressively worse dose. Nuclear rockets are a solution, but politically impossible.
If humans were cheaper, we wouldn't have sent Viking, Pathfinder, Spirit or Opportunity to Mars. Nor the Pioneer or Voyager series probes through the solar system. The reason we send humans is because it is more glamorous. It costs a lot to lift the meatbags, and the cabins to house them, the food, batteries, fuel, and their redundant systems to make sure the meatbags don't die. We are talking thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per pound to lift this stuff into orbit.