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ISS Oxygen Generator Fails for Good

Posted by Zonk on from the totally-not-worried-at-all-nope-uh-uh dept.

billyj4 writes "A balky Russian oxygen generator broke down on the International Space Station, but its two-man crew has a reserve air supply that would last about five months, NASA officials said Friday. The station's primary generator, which has been operating in an on-again, off-again fashion for months, stopped working last week and the station's crew has not been able to fix it. Mission managers say the unit has failed for good. Consequently, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and U.S. astronaut John Phillips will be relying on reserves until replacement parts arrive at the station in late August."

3 of 397 comments (clear)

  1. ISS crew and solar emissions by munehiro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Slightly off topic, but since as I understand from this post there's someone up there, I'm asking myself about the possible problems the crew might have with the latest very strong solar emission. Sort of a billionth Xray machine exposure?

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    -- "If A equals success, then the formula is A=X+Y+Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut." - Einstein
  2. Alternative Generator by Gallenod · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How many and what type of plants would it take to convert the carbon dioxide exhaled by the astronauts and convert it to enough oxygen for them to survive? Would they still need periodic deliveries of fresh oxygen or would the plants provide enough? Can they keep enough plants alive in space to do this?

    One of my favorite old science fiction films is Silent Running, with Bruce Dern. The premise was a little implausible, but the idea that we could be completely self-sufficient in space using biodomes (minus Pauly Shore) is still pretty cool.

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    TLR

    A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
  3. Entirely the wrong approach by RealProgrammer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why don't they build a greenhouse up there?

    Actually, a biosphere seems like the next logical step for the space station.

    Make the greenhouse a disk:

    • Spin it and make centifugal "gravity"
    • Keep it to the moon's 1/6 G
    • Put a convex mirror at the hub, reflecting some filtered sunlight to augment the artificial light.
    • Play some Yanni. Plants love Yanni :^}

    You'd have to be careful about mixing in animals, though. It'd be tragic if the animal population got out of hand.

    A greenhouse would serve to keep the astronauts from getting too loopy, too. "Gardening", even hydroponically, would probably be a welcome change from the other crap they have to do all day.

    Speaking of crap, a garden might be a good way to recycle other human byproducts.

    --
    sigs, as if you care.