Discovery Prepares for Return

Kailash Nadh writes "Discovery's astronauts packed up their stuff on Friday as they prepared to undock from the international space station now that NASA has cleared the shuttle to return to Earth next week. Their most difficult task before leaving the station was the maneuvering of a huge cargo container filled with 2 1/2 years worth of trash into the shuttle's payload bay. Once back on Earth, the items would either be disposed of or returned to researchers."

Comments

Aldrin

[coflow]

I find it interesting that Aldrin is critical of the shuttle program. I know there are a lot of people unhappy with it, but it seems a name as big as Aldrin being critical has quite a bit of meaning. Hopefully this is a sign of a new approach to space travel in the future.

Re:Aldrin

[0xC0FFEE]

There's quite a bit of tradition at NASA. For example, the CAPCOM is always an astronaut. This person is, alone, tasked with relaying information between command and shuttle crew. Seems experience as an astronaut is mandatory for conveying essential information in critical times.

So my guess is Aldrin brings up something important to "the continuity of space exploration" in the same way. Whether you thing this is a PR move or not, I think having people with (successful) field experience in the decision structure is tremendously important. I think the 2 shuttle disasters showed how much managers not grounded in reality can be, well, disastrous.

Re:Aldrin

[coflow]

"I think the 2 shuttle disasters showed how much managers not grounded in reality can be, well, disastrous."

That is a lesson that many industries would do well to learn.

Re:Aldrin

[David Horn]

I think he's just bitter. Being second, and all... ;-)

Re:Aldrin

[Anonymous Coward]

So how did they get the first CAPCOM? ;)

Re:Aldrin

[pipingguy]

Probably Aldrin is a no-bullshit, in-your-face type that cannot come to terms with the current sanitized NASA. I cannot honestly say that I disagree with him and that attitude.

Re:Aldrin

[PyroMosh]

I realize it's a joke, but the first CapCom was Deke Slayton.

Slayton was one of the origional Mercury 7 Astronauts. He's also the one that never flew (on Mercury) due to a heart condition which was discovered after his selection. He would later pilot the Apollo Soyuz docking mission at the end of the Apollo Program.

Re:Aldrin

[cahiha]

I think having people with (successful) field experience in the decision structure is tremendously important.

People with field experience should be consulted when the situation warrants it, but making the "part of the decision structure" is probably not a good idea. Astronauts have already demonstrated by their participation in the program that they are willing to make irrational sacrifices for a ride into space. Participation of people with that kind of psychological profile only risks wasting more money on unnecessary space flights.

Decisions about the shuttle program should be made by impartial and disinterested scientists and engineers, in a broadly-based peer review process, based on the scientific and technological merits alone.

Note that Aldrin doesn't seem to question the merit of manned space travel, only the vehicle.

Implements of destruction

[wowbagger]

"... So we went out there with our shovels and rakes and implements of destruction, and we loaded all that trash into the back of a Boeing orbiter, went back inside the space station, and had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat."

Re:Implements of destruction

[stefficus]

*golf clap* HAD to be done, that did.

Re:Implements of destruction

[idonthack]

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Natalie in the restaurant, but Natalie doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the ISS nearby the restaurant, in the bed-room, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bed-room like that, they got a lot of room accross the tube where the equipment used to be in. Havin' all that room, seein' as how they took out all the equipmnet, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in here, and we decided it'd be a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the Earth. So we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a white Boeing orbiter, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the Earth.

Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the landing strip saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving." And we had never heard of a landing strip closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we flew off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn't find one. Until we came to low orbit, and off the side of the orbit there was an atmosphere and at the bottom of the atmosphere there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one slightly burned big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours down.
---
Recent studies indicate that you are a moron.
Generated by SlashdotRndSig via GreaseMonkey

Re:Implements of destruction

[drsquare]

Why does irrelevent incomprehensible drivel like this get modded up whilst other interesting comments get modded down? What the hell is he talking about?

Re:Implements of destruction

[wyldeone]

It's a from a very, very long song written by Arlo Guthrey, the son of Woody Guthrey. It's called Alice's Resturant.

Re:Implements of destruction

[Nasarius]

Not an Arlo Guthrie fan, I take it?

Re:Implements of destruction

[notsoanonymouscoward]

bravo!!! *claps*

Re:Implements of destruction

[idonthack]

You should be ashamed. I have a higher userid than you, and I've already made a parody of my own.
---
Recent studies indicate that you are a moron.
Generated by SlashdotRndSig via GreaseMonkey

Good Luck Discovery

[748boy]

Lets hope they all have a safe return back to earth. And hopefully the damn shuttle can be confined to history where it belongs.

Come home safe

[ZPO]

Come home safe travellers.

Re:Come home safe

[it0]

It certainly would be a waste of life, just so you can play garbage man in space!

Re:Come home safe

[Flying Spaghetti Mon]

Don't worry for them, Midget.



I Will Touch Them With My Noodly Appendage

Re:Come home safe

[�berhund]

Cripes, if they wanted them home safe, why send them in a Shuttle?

Mod me down as insensitive, but for crying out loud, design a new spaceship every few decades!

Overheard on the NASA PA system

[grumling]

Once back on Earth, the items would either be disposed of or returned to researchers.

Attention... Would those of you who have trash from the ISS please come and claim it? If you don't pick up your trash in hanger 12 by 4:00pm, it will be disposed of at your expense. That is all."

Re:Overheard on the NASA PA system

[ZakuSage]

You have 30 minutes to pick up your trash, or it will be compacted into a cube.
You have 15 minutes to pick up your trash.
You have 5 minutes to pick up your trash.
Your trash has been compacted into a cube. You have 30 minutes to pick up your cube.

Re:Overheard on the NASA PA system

[Anonymous Coward]

how about - put each item on ebay?

one's man trash is another's auction

Re:Risk your life for Garbage??

[AC-x]

Well they're going home anyway, it's not like they're doing the trip just to take the rubbish back

It's probably useful to know what happens when you keep rubbish in space for several years anyway

Oh boy, here we go

[p3d0]

Prepare for the flood of "why don't they just drop the garbage into the atmosphere and let it burn up" questions.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[Fishstick]

or, my favorite: why don't they just launch it into the sun?

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[L0k11]

Prepare for the flood of "why don't they just drop the garbage into the atmosphere and let it burn up" questions.

why bother? odds are it will be incinerated anyway

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[deglr6328]

Well Mr.Knowitall why DON'T they? I'd like to know. As long as you separate out anything potentially very hazardous (radioactives, heavy metals) and you don't throw out massively huge chunks of metal likely to make it through a re-enrty then what's the big deal? MIR did it all the time using old Progress resupply containers. It'd certainly be cheaper than sending a shuttle mission every time.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[wowbagger]

They don't de-orbit it because de-orbiting something is not as simple as throwing it out the window - you have to remove enough oribital velocity from the object to place it into a re-entry orbit. That takes thrust - so you would have to have a means of providing that thrust.

Like, oh, say, a rocket. Sent up from the earth. By another rocket.

Which pretty much describes the shuttle.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the answer is "equal and opposite reaction".

Anything you can throw out the window of the space station will stay in orbit unless you throw hard enough to knock yourself out of orbit too.

Or I could be wrong. Would someone more qualified please comment?

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[p3d0]

I'll let others address the technical problems with your proposal, but...

It'd certainly be cheaper than sending a shuttle mission every time.

That's a strawman argument. The Shuttle was there anyway. They don't spend a billion bucks just to haul garbage back from the space station.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[deglr6328]

No actually, it isn't. If you dont HAVE to use it for hauling garbage you can use it for other far more important things. Like scientific experiments! The cost of a Progress resupply vehicle is less than 10% of a shuttle mission.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[Rhoon]

The reason they don't throw it into the atmosphere is for a variety of reasons.

They catalog everything that comes back. They weigh and measure each piece that is returned. They check it for radiation contamination (something that would spread the radiation if it was sent into the atmosphere to burn up). They do tests and experiments to see how the items faired during a long duration such as 2.5 years in space without the protection of the Earth's atmosphere from all the X-Rays, Gamma Rays, etc...

It's more than just garbage when it comes back, it turns into a science experiment in of itself. I'm sure they collect just as much data on items in space from the garbage that is brought back as they do from the experiments that used those items in the first place.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[Zen Punk]

And the capacity of a Progress vehicle is less than 10% of a shuttle. Discovery is hauling back over 3 tons of unneeded material from ISS.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[SA Stevens]

So you're suggesting they use the Shuttle to burn up the trash?

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[torako]

Not quite.. Momentum is conserved, i.e. m_iss dot v_iss + m_garbage dot v_garbage = const.

You can figure the different scenarios out from there on... If the garbage's mass is equal to the space station's mass, then indeed you'd have quite a noticeable effect on the station trajectory.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[deglr6328]

Progress can haul back ~2 tons of trash. I'd say that's pretty economical.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[p3d0]

You know, it occurs to me that the ISS is not in a stable orbit, and needs periodic boosting. I wonder if they could just stop boosting the garbage?

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

Also not quite right ... energy (0.5mv^2) is conserved, momentum (mv) is not conserved.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[lloydtesterman]

because they are gonna put it on ebay

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[drsquare]

Not really. If you throw it out of the window towards the Earth, it will have velocity towards the Earth. This means it will de-orbit. Orbit velocity is higher at lower altitudes, so as the shit gets closer to Earth, it will not be able to sustain orbit, so it will burn up.

If the shit is ejected from the shuttle at a mere 10m/s, it will burn up in a few hours.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[Varun Soundararajan]

I wish & pray your statement becomes false.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[Detritus]

I thought that it just changed the elements of the orbit, making it more elliptical. To deorbit something, you have to reduce its velocity.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[ultranova]

Not really. If you throw it out of the window towards the Earth, it will have velocity towards the Earth. This means it will de-orbit. Orbit velocity is higher at lower altitudes, so as the shit gets closer to Earth, it will not be able to sustain orbit, so it will burn up.

If it was this simple, nothing (including Earth and Moon) could keep a stable orbit. The smallest movement sunward (for example, getting disturbed by the gravity of other planets) would make Earth spiral straight to Sun (and the smallest movement outward would make it break out of the solar system). Yet Earth has stayed in its orbit for at least tens of thousands of years, more likely billions. Why ?

The answer is quite simple, actually. If Earth is given speed towards the Sun, then, after three months has passed, that speed is now parallel to the orbital speed (and therefore adds to it). Three months more, and the speed is now moving Earth away from Sun.

If the shit is ejected from the shuttle at a mere 10m/s, it will burn up in a few hours.

No it won't. What happens is that, long before the shit hits the atmosphere, its orbit has taken it to the other side of the Earth, and that 10m/s is now moving it away from the Earth. All you've done is made the originally circular orbit slaightly elliptical, that's all.

You could shoot crap from space station (or shuttle) to Earth, but it would need to be shot much faster than 10m/s. Of course, you could simply shoot it backwards relative to your orbital speed at that point at the speed equal to your own orbital speed, therefore gaining a boost that helps counter the effects of atmospheric drag and makes the crap have zero orbital speed, causing it to fall to Earth. But just throwing it lazily is not going to cut it.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an asshole.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[petermgreen]

it will burn up eventually (as will the iss if they don't keep boosting it) because there is still some drag and over years that causes the orbit to reduce.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[p3d0]

Someone had better tell Newton that his third law of motion is wrong.

Also, energy is not conserved. Mass-energy is conserved, as per e=mc^2.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[Rei]

That's not safe. Forces don't act evenly on the trash, and its orbit will become elliptical. A lower energy elliptical orbit can still intercept ISS's orbit.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[InfiniteWisdom]

It will take years or decades for it to lose enough energy to fall back into the atmosphere. Considering that a paint fleck caused a 4mm crater in the windshield of a previous shuttle mission, leaving a few tons of trash floating around is a very bad idea.

Re:Oh boy, here we go

[drsquare]

I must admit I don't know much about orbital mechanics. It's all too complicated for me. I don't know why orbits can't all just be circles, it's easier that way.

Hauling The Trash...

[__aaclcg7560]

... a huge cargo container filled with 2 1/2 years worth of trash ...

You would think that they could hurl this stuff into the sun or send it into a de-orbit burn. A certain engineer of late would be offended if someone called his ship a "garbage scow". Alas, I guess that's where the shuttle program is heading.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[jridley]

"hurl this stuff into the sun"

Yeah. Calculate how much energy that would take. It's actually pretty hard to hit the sun from here.

Bringing it down in the shuttle is actually far and away the easiest way to get rid of it. Getting it up there was expensive. Once the shuttle is there, and the bay's empty anyway, bringing anything back is not that big a deal. Some extra mass in the deorbit calculations.

Why would we spend the time and money to build and attach and pilot a remote deorbit pack when we have the shuttle coming back anyway?

The Enterprise had 400-odd people on it. I guarantee they had some pretty extensive waste recycling systems. But they had matter transmutation, so they didn't actually have to deal with disposal, they could just feed mass in, and get food/water/gold/clothing/whatever they needed back out again. If you think about it, people in a society with that technology would soon come to view looking at actual trash as very disgusting.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

It's actually pretty hard to hit the sun from here.

Not to mention that its the only one we have. Lets not be hurling random processed debris into what could be a very delicately balanced mass reaction chamber, when we have not got clue one as to what the short or long term effects might be.

It ain't like a fire, only bigger.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[cnettel]

It's not like there ought to have been at least a few asteroids or comets with a strange enough orbit to run into it already?

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

That would be the "processed" part of my comment, then...

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[pipingguy]

Quark

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[serutan]

Astronaut 1: 2-1/2 years of trash loaded. Phew! Ready to undock.
Astronaut 2: Dibs on the front seat.
Astronaut 1: I'm not ridin' in the back this time.
Astronaut 2: Well Iiii'm not ridin' in the back.
Astronaut 1: Yes you are.
Astronaut 2: Am not.
Astronaut 1: I'm the oldest, and I am NOT riding in the back.
Astronaut 2: MOM!!!!

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Have Blue]

You're really arrogant enough to think that anything humans can do would have any effect on the sun? The sun would barely notice if we threw in the entire planet.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

Huh? The Sun has probably swallowed millions of tons of material; probably every element you can imagine, during the course of its lifetime. And it regularly ejects thousands of tons of material during the course of a year in the form of solar flares.

Delicate, is hardly a word you can use when describing our Sun.

And as for us throwing rubbish at it. Well if everything were reduced in size by a factor of a billion, then the Earth would be about 1.3 cm in diameter (the size of a grape) and the Sun would be 1.5 meters in diameter (about the height of a man). The Sun contains 99.8% of the total mass of the solar system (Jupiter contains most of the rest).

So you see, throwing 2.5 years worth of shuttle waste into the Sun, would have the same affect as you walking to a spec of dust so small you couldn't even see it. You wouldn't even notice, and neither would the Sun.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

Yeah. Calculate how much energy that would take. It's actually pretty hard to hit the sun from here.

Well, it very much depends on how much time you want to do it in. If you want to blast something into the Sun from here and have it arrive within your lifetime, then thats going to require a lot of energy. But if you don't care if it gets there 5000 years from now (and why would you care) then all you need is to give it a small steady push from a relatively inexpensive ion thruster, and when it expires let gravity do the rest.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[__aaclcg7560]

I think NASA would have a problem if the shuttle breaks up over Texas again, but raining 2.5 tons of trash on top of everything else. Even if you do bring the trash back home, you still have to dispose of it somewhere. Which is why a one-way trip to the sun or a de-orbit burn would make sense. You only need the remote hardware long enough to get things into motion. If NASA can position a copper slug in front of a comet, sending trash somewhere else shouldn't be a problem. Of course, there's the moon (a la Space: 1999).

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[hazem]

While I tend to agree with you, I'll bit it was not so long ago that most people believed the same of the Earth.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[clem]

Yeah. Calculate how much energy that would take. It's actually pretty hard to hit the sun from here.

Fine, Mr. Wizard, do your calculations. Just bear in mind while you're doing your math stuff that astronauts are in peak physical condition. Also, they'll be pitching the garbage overhand, not underhand.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[__aaclcg7560]

Salvage One :P

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Rei]

The sun was *formed* by matter falling into them. Something hits the sun, its entire kinetic energy gets released. The hotter the sun is, and the more massive the sun is, the easier it is for fusion reactions to occur. It's not some delicate machine; it's physics. When you have high energy particles forced together into close proximity, they get close enough to teach other that quantum tunnelling can bring them even coser and thus allow the strong force to overcome proton-proton repulsion (and thus, fuse). No delicate processes involved - just an incredible amount of energy and density. Stars that have a lot of matter falling into them become bigger (although it shortens their lifespan).

The sun wouldn't even notice our trash. It'd hardly even notice Earth hitting it (it's 332,000 times more massive). Jupiter might make a difference...

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[vsprintf]

Lets not be hurling random processed debris into what could be a very delicately balanced mass reaction chamber, when we have not got clue one as to what the short or long term effects might be.

Yes, gotta be careful with those saturated fats. Then we'd have to start hurling periodic doses of Lipitor. :)

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[hazem]

That's why I say I agree. But I wonder if there is something we could do, that we don't understand yet, that could actually affect the sun. Maybe something that could "foul" the fusion reactions going on there.

But as for this topic of space-station trash, I completely agree that this trash wouldn't make the slightest impact on the sun.

In fact, I've wondered if it might be feasible send nuclear waste into the sun. Of course, there's the tricky problem of getting it away from the earth without a tragic accident spilling it everywhere. And the cost of sending the waste up eats into any energy advantage you get from nuclear. Oh well.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[jridley]

They should auction it on eBay. Seriously. I mean, they could probably get hundreds of bucks for an old used toothpaste tube that had been on the ISS.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

What does arrogance have to do with it? Oh I forgot, this is slashdot, its a faux pas to respond to anyone without insulting them. You tool. The fact remains that relative to the sum of knowledge that could be known about our parent star, we know almost nothing about its layout and probable life cycle. Assuming that we do is arrogance. Further, I'd rather take zero risks with something that could conceivably wipe out everything within a few light years, if its all the same to you.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

then the Earth would be about 1.3 cm in diameter (the size of a grape) and the Sun would be 1.5 meters in diameter (about the height of a man).

Remind me, is a bullet larger or smaller than a grape?

would have the same affect as you walking to a spec of dust so small you couldn't even see it.

That depends on what the speck of dust was composed of. Since we're taking things to extremes here, lets assume its antimatter. I guarantee you you'd notice if you walked into a speck of that good stuff. I daresay plutonium would do you no favours either. So once again, lets not take chances with the largest nuclear reactor in the neighbourhood, just because we have an inconvenient rubbish problem. Better just to put it in a stable orbit away from anything solid, or better keep it in a relatively inert environment like the moon, where we can at least keep an eye on it and deal with it once technology matures to that level.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

Remind me, is a bullet larger or smaller than a grape?

Huh? What ever are you talking about? I was scaling things down to a size you could visualize to try and get the point across just how infinitesimally small our waste would be in comparison to the size of the sun, AND how small it is compared the the stuff the sun digests on its own anyway.

Since we're taking things to extremes here

I'm not taking anything to extreme, I'm being very realistic. You seem to have a problem visualizing just how small and insignificant we and our rubbish are in comparison to the Sun. It's like, REALLY big! So big, that it could swallow the whole of the earth, rubbish and all and still carry on burning for a few billion years. So don't worry about throwing a few crates of stuff at it.

Now if you really really want to worry about what we do with our rubbish and the effects it has, why don't you direct your attention and energy towards the oceans? That is something worth worrying about.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

I was scaling things down to a size you could visualize to try and get the point across

And I was taking your point and making yet another point, which appears to have sailed merrily over your head, that when you introduce a grape sized body into a human sized body, you get a dead human sized body. Relatively simple system into complex system with unpredictable results, get it?

I'm not taking anything to extreme, I'm being very realistic

So throwing our trash into the sun isn't an extreme solution... I see...

You seem to have a problem visualizing just how small and insignificant we and our rubbish are in comparison to the Sun.

And you seem to have a problem visualising just how small and insignificant our knowledge of the sun actually is, compared to the sum of knowledge that could be known about the sun. The fact is if we start firing rubbish wholesale into our parent star, we cannot reliably predict the consequences. Anyone that says otherwise is labouring under some serious hubris.

Just because it's large, doesn't mean we can make assumptions about it. To repeat myself, it's not like a fire, only bigger.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

You only get a dead human sized body when the grape sized body is 1) hard, 2) enters it at speed and 3) destroys a part of the body that disrupts the flow of blood to vital organs. Many times people get shot and survive too. You cannot take this analogy and apply it to bits of rubbish entering the Sun because:

1) Any rubbish we throw at the Sun will vaporize before it gets there.

2) Any rubbish we throw at the Sun is not going to get there quickly, and even when it arrives, it would approach the sun very slowly. Hardly "bullet" speed !!

3) I have repeated (and you have ignored because you can't answer it) that the Sun has already consumed vast amounts of material during the course of its lifetime; and regularly ejects many times more matter than we could throw at it annually. Yet it continues on with its multi-billion year lifetime, unaffected and regardless.

Your scare-mongering flies in the face of observed behavior and common sense.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Good lord its like arguing with a wall. Okay lets just deal with this whole thing in one sweep sparky. I'll put it in bold and and use short simple words just for you.

We don't know shit about the sun. If you think you know shit about the sun, you are a fool. Shit is what you know about the sun. Full stop.

Now, if you have in fact travelled from the future and are an infamous and well travelled sun-scientist as well as temporal voyager who knows all there is to know about the sun, well I humbly apologise. If not, you may need a towel for that dribble of fat rolling down your chin.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

Good lord its like arguing with a wall

Ditto!

Ok then let me get real with some hard facts. We know more about the Sun than you're obviously aware of, because we observe it, every day of every year. I've tried (in vain) to explain to you, that the Sun is, has, and will continue to be hit by large space bound objects many many times and still continues to do its thing. But you obviously don't believe me. So how about I show you!

Go here> and take a look at the movie and data. Yes, its a comet hitting the Sun. One of many observed events. Did the Sun explode? No! Did it collapse in on itself? No! Did life as we know it cease to exist? Fucking NO

Now use your imagination a bit. That has to be one frigging big Comet for us to be able to detect it and capture it on film. So what effect do you think us dropping a 2.5 years worth of Space Station rubbish into the Sun would have. Yeah, space station rubbish .. because that's what you were initially objecting to. Absolutely fuck all.

Has the light bulb come on yet?

If you don't get this by now you're a lost cause!

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

I strongly suspect I am being trolled here, so I really shouldn't feed this one any more than I have already, but what the heck. Having lost the grape argument, you have degenerated into simple minded mass arguments. Heres a question that might get those sluggish neural channels stirring... was the comet formed of processed debris? Was the comet composed perhaps of the advanced technological cast offs of a spacegoing race? And this spacegoing race, once it blithely decided it was okay to hurl one lump of crap into the sun, did they then just dump every inconvenient piece of crap into the sun?

We know more about the Sun than you're obviously aware of, because we observe it, every day of every year.

Well thats a load off my mind. I'm glad, nay relieved beyond measure that in the half century or so we have been observing the sun with anything beyond rudimentary equipment and even more rudimentary scientific theories, we have learned all there is to know about it. Splendid. Especially in relation to processed products and chemicals, since we already know all there is to know about their effect on the earth's biosphere and makeup. I mean, if we didn't there might be raging debates about things like global warming and greenhouse effects. Can you imagine.

I am using allegory and metaphor here, I realise, so I'd better bring things down to your level.

Durr.

Troll.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

No you're not being Trolled, you're supposed to be having an adult debate about the merits/demerits of tossing waste into the Sun. Nice attempt at ad hominem though. And if that's the way you want to play it, well I can give as good as I get.

Having lost the grape argument

Only in your reality distortion field, Sparky. In your warped world, tossing a stone into the sea would likely cause a tsunami off the coast of Australia.

you have degenerated into simple minded mass arguments

Simple minded ... mass has EVERYTHING to do with this and is the scientific way to approach this. But then you dismiss it out of hand because you've repeatedly demonstrated a complete failure to grasp the basics. What's even more amazing is your apparent lack of ability to take in extra information and add it to your thought processes to see how the end result changes. Are you so stupidly blinkered about everything in life?

Was the comet composed perhaps of the advanced technological cast offs of a spacegoing race? And this spacegoing race, once it blithely decided it was okay to hurl one lump of crap into the sun, did they then just dump every inconvenient piece of crap into the sun?

Ok, lets ignore mass for the minute, plus the fact you're moving the goal posts away from the space shuttle to the entire earth (I accept that I won the shuttle argument, thank you) and lets explore your new angle.

Everything we make no matter how technologically complex, is made up of various combinations of base elements from the periodic table. Everything we make changes its form with changes in temperature and pressure. Everything burns, or melts and vaporizes. Anything we chuck at the Sun will approach it so slowly and absorb so much heat that by the time it gets there it will be a combination of ash and metallic vapor. It won't actually "hit" the Sun, it'll be a wisp of dirty compounds and elements! It won't penetrate into the depths of the Sun, its just going to scatter and bounce around inside the photosphere where its totally removed from the nuclear goings on in the Sun's core.

Or fuck it .. your minute is up, I can't ignore mass any longer. Man get your head around the fucking SIZE of the thing. Look here and pay special attention to the first paragraph that says:

It is the largest object and contains approximately 98% of the total solar system mass. One hundred and nine Earths would be required to fit across the Sun's disk, and its interior could hold over 1.3 million Earths.

Troll

Twit! You've obviously spent too long out in the Sun. Go back to your science fiction bubble world where you're most comfortable. You probably believe in Martians too.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Hahahah, ahh this is great. Eh I haven't had this much fun in hours. Let the dissection begin!

Nice attempt at ad hominem though.

An ad hominem is an attack on an opponent's character based upon imagined flaws in said character. A troll is someone that says things designed to cause debate and inspire emotion, without adding anything constructive to the debate. I see your ad hominem and raise you a strawman.

In your warped world, tossing a stone into the sea would likely cause a tsunami off the coast of Australia.

I thought the relative size differences were between a grape and a man sized object? Now who has the warped perspective...

Ok, lets ignore mass for the minute, plus the fact you're moving the goal posts away from the space shuttle to the entire earth

You're the one who brought it up, not me, in staggered awe of the gigantinormous size of the sun. Heres a good one, Richard, and this is going to rock your boat. Actually I doubt it will, since I have been repeating it from the start with no impact on your ultra dense mass. Not all matter is created equal. Repeat that a thousand times and then come back to me. Exampli gratia, would you rather juggle plastic balls or lumps of uranium?

I can't ignore mass any longer.

I just bet you can't...

It won't actually "hit" the Sun, it'll be a wisp of dirty compounds and elements! It won't penetrate into the depths of the Sun, its just going to scatter and bounce around inside the photosphere where its totally removed from the nuclear goings on in the Sun's core.

This is great. More far future grasp of the sun's structure. John Titor, is that you? Your entire understanding of environmental interaction appears to extend to first grade ballistics. So the lump of pollution won't punch through the sun and out the far side, and send it whizzing about the solar system like a great balloon of superheated matter? Well I'm glad we settled that hotly debated issue. Pun intended. So instead of concentrating the nastiness we drop in, we sprinkle it lightly across the upper regions of the star. Well thats much better.

Man get your head around the fucking SIZE of the thing.

Get your head around something else. Yes its big. Well done. Pick up your nobel at the door. But its not comprised of hot hotness with flaming death to all molecules uniformly arrayed throughout its internal structure. Putting processed elements into it will have unpredictable results. You may feel just dandy about urinating on the source of all life in this world and the biggest reactor anywhere close, but I choose not to stick my head in the sand. Call me conservative.

Twit! You've obviously spent too long out in the Sun.

Ahahhahahah, ah stop, my sides are hurting. Listen, I don't think you are serious about this process, I don't think you really want to be helped, and since you refuse to take your medication, I just can't see any use in continuing the treatment.

Troll.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

An ad hominem is an attack on an opponent's character based upon imagined flaws in said character. A troll is someone that says things designed to cause debate and inspire emotion, without adding anything constructive to the debate. I see your ad hominem and raise you a strawman.

So you don't think I've added anything constructive to the debate? Despite teaching you basic awareness of mass, and posting reference material in the form of links to expert web sites (which you have tactfully chosen to ignore on the basis they don't support your argument). In this case, I think the teacher can be excused because his pupil is a dullard.

BTW: the definition of a strawman attack:

THE STRAWMAN ATTACK: The strawman is, perhaps, the most heavily-employed tactic used by Creationists. The strawman attack's name comes from the idea of setting up a strawman and knocking it down. The strawman is a false man, metaphorically representing a false argument. The strawman attack is a very dishonest one. Creationists ruthlessly use this tactic to win public support. In essence, the strawman attack is putting words in your opponent's mouth and then attacking the resulting position, while simultaenously evading the real argument.

That definition seems to fit your arguments very well. You represent a false argument, based on no scientific evidence what so ever, based on some fantasy that throwing a dust spec of alien matter into a bonfire is somehow going implode the bonfire and fry everyone nearby cooking their marshmallows.

I thought the relative size differences were between a grape and a man sized object? Now who has the warped perspective...

Ooo, I recognise that one .. that would be the latter part of the strawman definition, putting words in your opponent's mouth and then attacking the resulting position, while simultaenously evading the real argument. Nice try, but no cigar. Would you like to have another go?

You're the one who brought it up, not me, in staggered awe of the gigantinormous size of the sun. Heres a good one, Richard, and this is going to rock your boat. Actually I doubt it will, since I have been repeating it from the start with no impact on your ultra dense mass. Not all matter is created equal. Repeat that a thousand times and then come back to me. Exampli gratia, would you rather juggle plastic balls or lumps of uranium?

Ok Einstein. Time for you to blind me with science. What kind of exotic matter did you have in mind that our super hot Sun would have such trouble digesting? Me, and the rest of the scientific work await your response with baited breath.

This is great. More far future grasp of the sun's structure. John Titor, is that you? Your entire understanding of environmental interaction appears to extend to first grade ballistics. So the lump of pollution won't punch through the sun and out the far side, and send it whizzing about the solar system like a great balloon of superheated matter? Well I'm glad we settled that hotly debated issue. Pun intended. So instead of concentrating the nastiness we drop in, we sprinkle it lightly across the upper regions of the star. Well thats much better.

My god, its a good job I'm sitting down. That's the first thing you've said that's actually correct. Well done. You're quite right Grasshopper, the pollution won't punch through the Sun and come out the other side. Even if were somehow capable of defying the laws of thermodynamics and hit the sun as a whole, the Sun is for too big for it to maintain momentum, and the Suns core is far too dense for it to penetrate, and the heat far too hot for it to survive, and the pressure (340 billion times Earth's air pressure at sea level) would crush it beyond recognition.

I'm encouraged. Maybe you're learning through osmosis, or some other primitive absorption technique.

Get your head around something else. Yes its big. Well done. Pick up your nobel at the door. But its not comp

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

So you don't think I've added anything constructive to the debate?

Nope, not really. Besides doggedly sticking to one flawed perspective and belabouring it in approximately the same way post after tedious, tedious post, the only thing you have really brought to slashdot is exercise for my fingers.

In essence, the strawman attack is putting words in your opponent's mouth and then attacking the resulting position, while simultaenously [sic] evading the real argument.

Congratulations, you learned what the copy and paste process is for. And you have just perfectly described your position from the start. Thanks.

You represent a false argument, based on no scientific evidence what so ever, based on some fantasy that throwing a dust spec [sic] of alien matter into a bonfire is somehow going implode the bonfire and fry everyone nearby cooking their marshmallows.

Show me evidence to the contrary. As I have stated from the start, you sarcasm-proof individual you, its not a bonfire. If you stick your hand in a fire, as your mommy told you, you will get burned. If you stick your hand in a nuclear reactor, you may mess with that reactor's workings and cause bad things to happen. Now I am sure that there were no nuclear reactors near the farm you grew up in, but if there were, I am equally sure we wouldn't be having this conversation today.

I see, and you can back this up with some kind of (any kind of) research or publication can you? Its put up or shut up time.

If the research existed, it would be shown to you, you anally retentive troll. The point, dear god in heaven, the point I have been making since the start is that it does not exist. Can you show me the research to prove (note I said prove here, its a far cry from the armchair analysis and wild extrapolations you seem to indulge in) that dumping into the sun would have no ill effects whatsoever? Whoops, no, didn't think so.

Btw, "processed elements" is an oxymoron.

Moron, yeah. Look up elements.

I bounce that back at you.

Troll.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

Nope, not really. Besides doggedly sticking to one flawed perspective and belabouring it in approximately the same way post after tedious, tedious post, the only thing you have really brought to slashdot is exercise for my fingers.

LOL, what a load of revisionist horse shit. I've offered perspectives based on mass, speed, temperature, and composition. You on the other hand drone on, reiterating the same zombie mantra over and over. You think because you can't understand it that no one else should be able to either. So you resist the possibility of advancing future rubbish processing if it in anyway involves the sun. Retarded Luddite!

Show me evidence to the contrary. As I have stated from the start, you sarcasm-proof individual you, its not a bonfire. If you stick your hand in a fire, as your mommy told you, you will get burned. If you stick your hand in a nuclear reactor, you may mess with that reactor's workings and cause bad things to happen. Now I am sure that there were no nuclear reactors near the farm you grew up in, but if there were, I am equally sure we wouldn't be having this conversation today.

Well you seem to know dicky shit about nuclear reactors too, and maybe thats the crux of your problem. Nuclear reactors get hot, but they don't burn unless they get out of control. And when they do get out of control very little can be done to stop them. Its called meltdown, and then the core will burn through anything they come into contact with. "Processes Elements" (as you seem to like that phrase) ordinary metals, the lot. And there is LOADS of evidence collected to back this up. The Sun, being far more powerful than any meltdown we could cook up, would have no trouble.

And yes the Sun is not a bonfire. And yes its not a uniform ball of flame either. If you bothered to read any of the web sites I pointed you to you'd know that. Its only the core thats nuclear. And as I've repeated over and over and over, NOTHING WE COULD THROW AT THE SUN WOULD MAKE IT TO THE NUCLEAR CORE. It would be destroyed and scattered way before it got that far, for all the reasons I've told you about.

If the research existed, it would be shown to you, you anally retentive troll. The point, dear god in heaven, the point I have been making since the start is that it does not exist

Ah, so finally you admit that this whacky insane idea of yours; that has no basis in known science fact, theory, or supposition ... is nothing more than a product of the ramblings of your retarded imagination.

There are special places in this world for people like you ... they have white rooms with padded walls, and special pills to make all these nasty doomsday dreams go away.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Hahahahahahahaaa...

Eh

Aaaahahahah

Ahhh yeah....

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

Quoting from this publication from Cornell ... http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/supernovae.php

Stars of all masses spend the majority of their lives fusing hydrogen nuclei into helium nuclei: we call this stage the main sequence. When all of the hydrogen in the central regions of a star is converted into helium, the star will begin to "burn" helium into carbon. However, the helium in the stellar core will eventually run out as well; so in order to survive, a star must be hot enough to fuse progressively heavier elements, as the lighter ones become exhausted one by one. Stars heavier than about 5 times the mass of the Sun can do this with no problem: they burn hydrogen, and then helium, and then carbon, oxygen, silicon, and so on... until they attempt to fuse iron. Iron is special in that it is the lightest element in the periodic table that doesn't release energy when you attempt to fuse it together. In fact, instead of giving you energy, you end up with less energy than you started with! This means that instead of generating additional pressure to hold up the now extended outer layers of the aging star, the iron fusion actually takes thermal energy from the stellar core. Thus, there is nothing left to combat the ever-present force of gravity from these outer layers. The result: collapse! The lack of radiation pressure generated by the iron-fusing core causes the outer layers to fall towards the centre of the star. This implosion happens very, very quickly: it takes about 15 seconds to complete. During the collapse, the nuclei in the outer parts of the star are pushed very close together, so close that elements heavier than iron are formed.

So what this tells us is that the forces produced by the nuclear reactions in the core of a Sun are so violent that they shield themselves from the other matter in the sun. Any rubbish that survives long enough to enter the outer most parts of the Sun will be held off by the same forces from the nuclear core.

This article also states that Sun's have a very specific order of fuel they attempt to consume. Artificial man made matter is way down that list. So science tells us that the star will run out of fuel and collapse long before it could attempt to fuse anything we throw at it.

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Hahahahahahahaaa...

Eh

Aaaahahahah

Ahhh yeah....

Ahahahhhaaaaaaaaahhahahahahah!!

Ahhh...

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

TROLL

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Well, yes, my posting history certainly supports that, as well as the accepted stories. Oh by the way...

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahah!!

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

I agree. Your posting history on this thread certainly does support it. All you offer is conjecture, hyperbole and emotional reactions formed from a vacuum of scientific knowledge on the subject. What are you doing on Slashdot anyway? Its "News for Nerds". Nerds open up things, look inside them, find out how they work and what makes them tick. But your approach to seems to be "Waaaa, don't touch that, you might break it". You're not a Nerd, you're an embarrassment. Even my girlfriend thinks you're a joke. Oh by the way ...

TROLL

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Haaaaaaaaaaahahhahahah... ahhh yes indeed... hahahahah....

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

TROLL

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Haaaaahahah ahahahahhhhh ahahahahh! ahhh.. sniff..

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

BORING TROLL ... YAWN

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Ah cheer up, I was just trying to see how long it would take your head to asplode. Honestly, at the end of the day, I can't say I'm convinced by your arguments, and its a safe bet to say that I can't convince you likewise. So lets agree to disagree, and leave it at that.

Here, have some strongbad, always puts me in a good mood.

:D

Re:Hauling The Trash...

[Macka]

Yeah, you're right. We're never going to see eye to eye on this one so we can agree to disagree.

I've not had a long ding-dong with someone like this for at least a year now, and it was kind of fun. Sorry for getting a bit "personal" with the insults. In the heat of the moment I forgot my manners.

Hope to dual with you again sometime ;-)

Have a good one.

Come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should I care about a few brown people who died thousands of miles away in a perfectly natural event?

2-1/2 years

[inode_buddha]

I guess its time to undock from my room, huh?

Re:Risk your life for Garbage??

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the new NASA funding plan:

1. Collect space garbage
2. Ebay
3. Profit!!!

Throw it out

[Peter Cooper]

Why don't they just drop the garbage into the atmosphere and let it burn up?

How bout an auction of the Space returned garbage?

[Guru Goo]

Would be any takers if NASA were to auction the space returned garbage on ebay ?

Sorting of NASA Trash/Rubbish?

[vchoy]

...2 1/2 years worth of trash into the shuttle's payload bay...

Here in Syd, Australia, residents are required to sort the trash.
General rubbish (red bin)
recyclable material (yellow bin)
Garden and plant material (green bin)

Just interested to know if the ISS trash was sorted?

Unmanned flights

[roman_mir]

NASA is going to freeze the Shuttle program, but I wonder, Shuttle can fly without anyone on-board, so isn't it possible to do that? Just use the damn thing as a cargo vehicle without people on board. Or have one pilot on it who will take it up, and then if the thing is damaged, have it fly back automagically, and let the pilot stay on the space station and go down with a Soyuz crew.

Re:Unmanned flights

[Gaewyn L Knight]

Yes and no... The shuttle can take-off and reenter 100% computer controlled. However it can't land that way. The wonderful designers thought it was too dangerous to let the computer control the landing gear since they can't be retracted and accidental opening means death on reentry.

So... yes it can.. except some monkey has to be there to drop the landing gear.

Re:Unmanned flights

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC they don't have the ability to land the orbiter . there has to be somebody actually in there flying it by the seat of their pants.

Re:Unmanned flights

[afabbro]

If memory serves, it was the astronauts who objected to computer-controlled landing gear and insisted upon the change.

I wonder how hard it would be to retrofit, though...

Re:Unmanned flights

[ytm]

It is much cheaper to use Russian crafts for unmanned missions. Shuttle would be terribly inefficient if used only as an unmanned cargo vehicle.

Re:Unmanned flights

[TMonks]

Saying "the shuttle can fly without anyone on board" is very similar to someone asking why we even need commercial pilots, since the planes can take off, fly, and land themselves. If anything were to go wrong with the shuttle, you might not lose over a hundred passengers, but you still lose over a billion dollars in investments. IMHO, Having people on board to make sure that everything is going right is absolutely necessary to protect that investment. After all, how would you feel if an unmanned shuttle performed beautifully in its mission and re-entry, only to crash and burn on the runway, a problem that could have easily been solved with human intervention?

Re:Unmanned flights

[Zen Punk]

Yeah yeah yeah yeah....they'd probably never want to fly the orbiter unmanned, since if they're going to shoot something that big up there it's either a satellite that can go on a regular rocket or a peice of the ISS, and you need astronauts there to bolt it together. However, if for some reason it made sense to do so, I think that a retrofit allowing for 100% flight would be in order. How frickin' hard could it be?

Re:Unmanned flights

[doomtiki]

In Soviet Russia (this is not a joke), Space Shuttle Buran flew one unmanned orbital flight. It landed in a 57km/h crosswind and was only 1.5m off the center line of the runway. The program was cancelled after the end of Communism in Russia. Buran was destroyed a few years ago when the hanger it was being stored in in Kazakstan collapsed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Buran
http://www.buran.ru/

Re:Unmanned flights

[Zen Punk]

100% unmanned, automated flight that is.

Re:Unmanned flights

[bbc]

How frickin' hard could it be?

It's been done before. (Though that wasn't retrofitting, but design--but if you can turn a Volkswagen Beetle into a stretch limo, you can retrofit a shuttle.)

Re:Unmanned flights

[zippthorne]

The vast majority of airline accidents are caused by pilots and air traffic controllers. (not the ones in charge of the air-space, the ones in charge of the taxiing around)

Since automated flight is simpler than automated driving and the vehicles are big enough to have supercomputers hidden away in a compartment somewhere, the question is, "Why do we have pilots in the loop on airplanes?"

The argument that the pilot can think of a new way out of a situation is a red herring. Plenty of accidents involving pilots occor which are very similar or exactly the same as accidents caused by other pilots. further, ultimately, the pilot is just another processor with a separate power supply from the main system whose weight could be spent on an actual separate processor if redundancy is the reason for the pilot. The overwhelming advantage a computer can have in "unique" emergency situations is a huge database of situations. essencially, every accident that occurs whose cause can be determined is the last accident of that type.

So yes, I'm all in favor of the classic "pilot and dog" cockpit. where the pilot's job is to not touch anything and the dog's job is to bite the pilot if he tries to.

Re:Unmanned flights

[Achra]

It's interesting how uncommon knowledge this is. I've seen this thread pop up on slashdot among everywhere else, and the single answer remains: the astronauts insisted that the actual dropping the landing gear mechanism be completely manual.. The landing gear can only be retracted by a ground crew, so any premature dropping of the mechanism would be instant and total death for everyone on board, no matter what they were doing at the time. The Buran could do this, but a craft would have to be built from scratch if you wanted to put it into space, along with the energiya booster setup.

Re:Unmanned flights

[TMonks]

You make a good argument, but try telling that to the 300-400+ people in any given 747 bound for an overseas flight. Not to mention the terrorist implications. What happens when a virus is planted in the computer controlling an airplane and there is no pilot to take control?

Re:Unmanned flights

[zippthorne]

The same thing that happens when the terrorists instead kidnap the pilot's children and sell them into slavery and kill the pilot's wife.

On the other hand, without the pilots, why would we need 300-400+ passenger planes? Computers could safely fly the planes much closer together and provide consumers the benefit of more direct and frequent flights as well as limit the effect a terrorist can have on..say..large buildings. a learjet would not have destroyed the trade towers. Since the payoff would be lower for the terrorists, so would the risk.

Re:Unmanned flights

[Anonymous Coward]

So put a servo-operated control on the landing gear that is actuated remotely via an observer at the landing field. You actually activate the landing gear by wire from the ground instead of from the lander itself. Voila, no need for on onboard pilot anymore. Problem solved I think.

Anonymous Dave

Re:Unmanned flights

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be dense. Two heavy widebodies have to stay a certain distance apart NOT because the pilots would get freaked out if they got too close but because the wash from the first plane would completely upset the aerodynamics of the second.

And I haven't even mentioned the economics ... flying fifty Learjets under your program from JFK to Heathrow is going to be astronomically more expensive than flying one 777 on the same route. Not to mention the maintenance, ground handling, etc.

But shine on, you crazy diamond.

Dumpster Divers and Industrial Spies....

[Travoltus]

start your engines!!!!

A reason to bringing back the waste.

[Chonine]

It is very possible that what we consider waste and what NASA does could differ. Remnants of experiments, minilabs that belong to schools, old journals, outdated equipment, failed equipment... I think a big part of the reason to take it all back is so the engineers can find out failure points, reuse or sell older equipment, for NASA historians and archivists to keep any documentation, and to give loaned items back to their respective owners.

Re:A reason to bringing back the waste.

[Sartak]

Perhaps you're right.. or maybe they just want to sift through astronaut turd.

Re:A reason to bringing back the waste.

[SA Stevens]

Also, there's always eBay. . .

Re:A reason to bringing back the waste.

[fm6]

I doubt if much of the waste is that useful. (A lot of it much be just ordinary household trash, or worse.) A bigger reason for bringing it back is the simple difficulty of disposing of it in orbit. There's already a lot of crap in orbit -- that's why there's such a shortage of launch windows.

But come to think of it, this is a long term problem. If the station is ever finished (which is pretty doubtful at this point), it'll be generating several times as much trash as it is now. Were they really planning on hauling it all back to the surface?

what a fucking dumb-ass comment

[Anonymous Coward]

what, are you picturing a stack of black plastic garbage bags piled up in the cargo bay?
no, they have a multi-purpose module that they carry up into space that holds all the supplies they were bringing.
While docked, they lift the module out of the cargo bay and dock it to the space station. The crew can then transfer the contents to and from the ISS (what, you thought they loaded everything through the shuttle's airlock?)
Before undocking, they move the module back into the cargo bay so they can take it back to earth and use it again (what, are they supposed to "send it into the sun" and make a new one for the next trip?)
Why the hell wouldn't they transfer refuse from the station back into the module since it's going back anyway.
Where did you get the stupid idea that this added any risk to the mission or that it was desirable or even possible to eject this crap into space and have it burn up in the sun.

go fuck yourself, dumbass

Re:what a fucking dumb-ass comment

[Chriscim]

Tell us how you really feel. Don't hold back now.

Re:what a fucking dumb-ass comment

[drsquare]

It's still a good point, no matter how much you swear. Why does the garbage have to be brought back down? Surely they should just dump it off the spacestation and let it fall into the atmosphere and burn up?

Bringing the waste back down in the shuttle is always a risk. What happens when the shuttle breaks up on reentry again and spreads two years worth of astronaut poo across hundreds of miles of people's houses?

Maybe instead of collecting the waste on the ISS they could just shit and piss out the window. There was a recent article about spacesuits which said that the human body is not damaged by vaccuum. This means there could be a small hole in the wall of the station, big enough for a cock or a turd, but not big enough for the air to fall out of the space station. Problem solved.

Re:what a fucking dumb-ass comment

[jkerman]

i miss the good ol days of slashdot :(

Re:what a fucking dumb-ass comment

[vrioux]

This means there could be a small hole in the wall of the station, big enough for a cock or a turd, but not big enough for the air to fall out of the space station. Problem solved.

What a stupid idea. First, what about the dangers of dispersed matter floating around in space, hitting satellites and other spacecrafts? Second, do you even have a clue on pressurization? Even the tiniest hole will leak enough air out of the station to pose a serious health risk to it's inhabitants.

No, they aren't taking a risk returning that garbage from space. They are REMOVING one from the 30-billion+ dollars piece of equipment.

OH and by the way, the garbage is not all shit and piss. Much of it's weight is from a damaged gyroscope they plan to check on th see what got wrong with it so they can make better ones in the future.

Re:what a fucking dumb-ass comment

[Zen Punk]

A hole in the wall for you to pee through. What a great idea, dickcheese. No women will ever come to a space station without a bathroom. What's a lonely cosmonaut to do?

Re:what a fucking dumb-ass comment

[drsquare]

First, what about the dangers of dispersed matter floating around in space, hitting satellites and other spacecrafts?

By that logic, we shouldn't have anything in space, as it might crash into a satellite. In fact we shouldn't send up a shuttle in case it crashes into something.

Second, do you even have a clue on pressurization? Even the tiniest hole will leak enough air out of the station to pose a serious health risk to it's inhabitants.

That's where the clever bit comes in: There'll be a sort of lid over the hole to keep the air in, you just open the hole when you need to use it. It will be airtight.

Re:what a fucking dumb-ass comment

[drsquare]

It doesn't matter if women don't go to spacestations, astronauts are gay anyway, especially on the ISS. I mean, what straight man would want to spend months at a time in a small tight space in the middle of nowhere with just another man for company? I bet most of that garbage pod is filled with used condoms.

A better crew for this job

[murderlegendre]

Next time, get ahold of Richard Benjamin, Tim Thomerson, Richard Kelton, Tricia Barnstable, Cyb Barnstable and Conrad Janis.

Re:A better crew for this job

[wowbagger]

I'm not sure which of us is worse - you for bringing that up, or me for getting it.

Alas, the average /bot won't get it - they think "Quark" is a barkeep, not a trashman.

Re:A better crew for this job

[Megane]

Only if I can have the show on DVD first.

(and don't forget Buck Henry)

Re:A better crew for this job

[R3d M3rcury]

Whoa...I had to look that one up. Never saw "Quark," but I heard it was pretty funny.

Actually, I was thinking that you were setting up an episode of "The Surreal Life".

"Tonight, old TV and movie stars fly the Space Shuttle and have to pick up garbage on...'The Surreal Life'."

Re:A better crew for this job

[captainlynn]

It is available on DVD and VHS. Check out imdb.

Re:A better crew for this job

[captainlynn]

Actually, Matt Greoning has parodied "Quark" on "The Simpsons" and "Futurama."

I don't get it...

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you discover something twice?

Embarrasing. Just let it die!

[johnnywheeze]

Embarassing trip all the way around. Foam still fell off, even after x number of years and x millions of dollars. Shuttle grounded again. Spacewalk to remove a piece of junk by hand.

Seems fitting that it's returning to earth full of garbage. Lets just put the shuttle with the rest of the refuse and move on to the CEV.

Doesn't anyone remember us chiding the russians because Mir was old and rickety and well past its intended lifespan? Drop the shuttle, burn up the ISS, and start reaching for the stars from scratch.

Re:Embarrasing. Just let it die!

[vsprintf]

Drop the shuttle, burn up the ISS, and start reaching for the stars from scratch.

Darned tootin', I agree. Same for those pesky Wright brothers - they'll never get anywhere with that bicyclioplane thing. Torch it all, and start fresh. (That was sarcasm for anyone who might really be wondering.)

Re:Risk your life for Garbage??

[murderlegendre]

It's probably useful to know what happens when you keep rubbish in space for several years anyway

Don't you think you're being a little hard on the ISS?

Why is this filed under 'Science'

[fuzzy12345]

I wasn't watching around the clock, but I saw no evidence of any science being done at all on this mission.

NASA uses the word 'science' as a figleaf. What they mainly do is engineering, and they badly do what they should have perfected 20 years ago.

Microchips have become routine, brain surgery has become routine, but in 'rocket science' there's been no progress. It's a process and internal culture issue, and it isn't being fixed.

Re:Why is this filed under 'Science'

[torpor]

I wasn't watching around the clock, but I saw no evidence of any science being done at all on this mission.



i dunno, i saw them testing their new shuttle-patch materials, there was some science in that. things froze, got solid, didn't stick, etc. the chemists weren't totally right about everything in that experiment, either, neither were the engineers.

oh, okay, i'm being optimistic. but hey .. this was the 'patch' flight, man. over 100 other missions, and you're complaining about the 'return to flight' being 'not science enough'.

mothball the shuttle, yes. but only if you can replace it with something else in 6 to 12 months, i say, or at least keep the show on the road some other way (just buy Progress rockets, people, sheesh..)

Re:Why is this filed under 'Science'

[dukerobillard]

saw them testing their new shuttle-patch materials, there was some science in that.

Sure...the major use of the shuttle missions is now to figure out how to keep the shuttle healthy.

Re:Why is this filed under 'Science'

[zippthorne]

Aren't the "new shuttle patch" materials in fact actually the old apollo heat shield patch materials?

Re:Why is this filed under 'Science'

[dazey]

If you haven't noticed, they also installed a MISSE (Materials International Space Station Experiment) on the ISS which contains a few new types of solar cells. It's supposed to be up there for a year, seeing which one is more efficient. http://web.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/pcsat2.html

Re:Why is this filed under 'Science'

[jkerman]

They also installed a new human research rack unit which the ISS crew will be configuring and using for years to come. the ISS is doing most of the ongoing science up there. the shuttle exists to resupply, and most importantly to FINISH the damn ISS so we can actuually get more done up there.

Do they not trust the shuttle?

[jurt1235]

To take trash back instead of important results is a sign of mistrust. It is for a part ofcourse not really trash (like researchers might want their stuff back) but still, me no like.

Re:Risk your life for Garbage??

[Guano_Jim]

It cost so much to get the pre-garbage up there... shouldn't we be looking at ways to recycle trash in orbit?

Cradle to cradle has some interesting ideas on designing items so they never truly become garbage, they just get fed back into the manufacturing process.

A SMEGGING GARBAGE POD!!

[infonography]

LISTER: Quagars?
RIMMER: Quagaaaars! It's a name I made up! Double A, actually! I believe the Quagaars have the technology to give me a new body!
LISTER: The perfectly preserved remains of a Quagaar warrior!
LISTER: Yeah, right, Rimmer. Absolutely.
RIMMER: They must have looked something like ... a roast chicken.

RIMMER: IT'S A SMEGGING GARBAGE POD!!

Re: A SMEGGING GARBAGE POD!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Very amusing. :)

ISS/NASA astronauts chores for 2005

[vchoy]

Seems more like an 'itinerary'...but anyways...

-Go out shopping for food, supplies *tick*
-Take vehicle for preventative repairs/maintenance (done...sort of)
-Fill up vehicle *tick*
-Check tires (give it a kick)
-Blast off *tick*
-arrive at camp site
-Unload food and supplies *tick*
-Check vehicle still okay (done...issues found)
      * had to go underbonnet to remove some stuff
      * inspected paint job near windscreen?
-Clean up room
-Bag trash-rubbish, put back into vehicle *tick*
-Depart camp site *tick*
-Arrive home

(and that's the weekend!)

Third option

[HangingChad]

Once back on Earth, the items would either be disposed of or returned to researchers.

Or sold on eBay.

How much would YOU pay

[MajorDick]

For a pound of space Trash ?
 
Put it on ebay and let the bidding begin....
My Bid for toiletry FREE trash starts at 50$ a pound.....
Lets see 50$ /3000 lbs , hey the goverment could buy a new hammer AND toilet seat and still have $12 left over...

Garbage Scow Shuttles

[ACK!!]

Wow.

That is a terrible lot of pain just to get some trash.

They had to do more than that on this mission.

Besides tugging at fabric and picking up the trash....

What are some other things they accomplished?

Re:Garbage Scow Shuttles

[Zen Punk]

Tested new shuttle repair techniques.
Installed a new gyroscope on the ISS.
Fixed a faulty one.
Hauled up a few tons of supplies for the ISS and her crew.
Hauled down a few tons of junk.
Did a photo-op of the ISS.

Re:Garbage Scow Shuttles

[janek78]

Can't you people read?
From the NASA website:
----------
Discovery's seven-member Return to Flight crew arrived at the International Space Station on July 28, primarily to test and evaluate new safety procedures.

There have been many safety improvements to the Shuttle, including a redesigned External Tank, new sensors and a boom that will allow astronauts to inspect the Shuttle for any potential damage.

Two crewmembers, Steve Robinson and Soichi Noguchi, will venture outside the Shuttle three times on spacewalks. The first will demonstrate repair techniques on the Shuttle's protective tiles, known as the Thermal Protection System. During the second spacewalk, they'll replace a failed Control Moment Gyroscope, which helps keep the Station oriented properly. Finally, they'll install the External Stowage Platform, a sort of space shelf for holding spare parts during Station construction.

STS-114 is the third trip of the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) named Raffaello to the Station. It's essentially a "moving van" that transports supplies to the orbital outpost.
---------

Plus, they installed another piece of the MISSE experiment. And brought supplies to the crew of ISS. That is a bit more than just garbage collection.

One question that must be asked:

[bogaboga]

I wish the astronauts a safe return however, once they are on the ground, this question must be asked:

1: How can the USA spend close to 2 billion dollars and have so little to show for it? The shuttle underwent so many upgrades but all in the industry were surprised that stuff was falling of the shuttle.

2: Would it be a better idea to let those who can do much with so little (read Russians), do our space work since they can do precisely that? After all, a good number of our industrial base is being out-sourced.

Boy there's some asshole moderation going on today

[Anonymous Coward]

Humor-impared, uptight jerks the whole bunch of them

But...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care about the astronauts, you sensitive clod!

There's a way to make billions from trash!

[Tipa]

One word: eBay.

Space exploration funding for the new millennium!

Ha ha the joke's on you

[zippthorne]

It all goes into the same landfill. Even takes the same truck. Just like the post office.

Metamoderation and SPACE DRAMA

[SuperBanana]

Come home safe (Score:5, Insightful)

How the hell is this insightful? Even a "talking head" reporter on TV wouldn't say this drivel.

Anyone else just immediately get the urge to metamoderate, every single day?

God, I am so SICK of the space opera that is NASA. I don't give a god damn FUCK about the shuttle, and the only reason the networks are covering it so closely is because if the shuttle does disintegrate (thus becoming a major repeat "disaster") they'd be caught with their pants down if they didn't.

Every local nightly news report the last couple of days has opened with "breaking news" about what Astronaut Bob is doing. "oh, he pulled on a piece of fabric." "Oh, he might have damaged something else." "oh, here's the crew, are they doomed? Let's ask them." "oh, here they are collecting trash from the station, how exciting."

Re:Metamoderation and SPACE DRAMA

[Transcendent]

Even a "talking head" reporter on TV wouldn't say this drivel.

Don't you watch Fox?

Re:Metamoderation and SPACE DRAMA

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent down... this drivel is disrespectful and disgusting.

A rocket to nowhere

[Allen Varney]

The best and most bracing recent analysis I've seen of the Shuttle and its current situation is A Rocket to Nowhere by one Maciej Ceglowski. "The goal cannot be to have a safe space program -- rocket science is going to remain difficult and risky. But we have the right to demand that the space program have some purpose beyond trying to keep its participants alive. NASA needs to take a lesson in courage from its astronauts, and demand either a proper, funded mandate for manned exploration, or close down the program. By NASA's own arguments, the commercial, technological and intellectual allure of manned space exploration are so great that it will not be a hard case to make. But even if the worst happens and the Shuttles are mothballed, with the ISS left abandoned, the loss to science will have been negligible. That is the great tragedy of the current 'return to flight', and the sooner we force the agency to confront its failure, the greater our chances of salvaging a space program worth keeping out of the current mess."

will post-shuttle be able to bring stuff back?

[Harlan879]

One question I haven't seen answered about the proposals for post-shuttle spacecraft is whether or not there will be the capability to return significant amounts of equipment for orbit? And not just trash from the space station, but also completed experiments, things like that. One of the big advantages of the shuttle system is that it can return large payloads to earth without particularly strong G forces during the de-orbit. What's the station going to do without the shuttle, even if we can send people up there, if it can't bring stuff back?

Leave it as extra Shielding

[DumbSwede]

I have seen a couple of posts recommending souvenir sale or recycling in orbit of the trash. I would propose bagging it up and storing it against some side of the ISS as added shielding during solar flair events. There is also some hope of some means of recycling some of it in the future, and there it will be for the picking -- sort of an extreme form of Dumpster diving.

There are plans to recycle urine, but we haven't been doing this up to date. Solid human waste matter is definitely not recycled, and while a few people might bid for this on Ebay.com I would think it more valuable for future agricultural use in space if we ever get that far with the ISS. No doubt some medical researchers will pore over the fecal matter, but I still think it would be better used as potential fertilizer. Granted there is a fuel cost to keeping the extra weight in space, but if the weight is negligible compared to the ISS why bother returning it? If the weight is not negligible then it would probably make and excellent adjunct to shielding the solar storm shelter portion of the ISS.

Re:Risk your life for Garbage??

[THINK ABOUT YOUR BRE]

Well they're going home anyway

Yeah, in several million flaming pieces across several continents.

---
THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING

Garbage scow

[isomeme]

Their most difficult task before leaving the station was the maneuvering of a huge cargo container filled with 2 1/2 years worth of trash into the shuttle's payload bay.

When, at the age of seven, I sat enthralled by the Apollo XI landing in 1969, I would never have believed that our most sophisticated space vehicle in 2005 would be an aging garbage truck traveling a couple of hundred miles from Earth to visit a space station with no purpose.

I can't even think about this for too long; I start shaking with the force of my anger and disappointment.

Re:Garbage scow

[spav]

Yes...because all the science and experiments that are on the space station have no purpose.

Re:Garbage scow

[isomeme]

Pretty much true. Look at some of the analyses done on the scientific value of the space station. Other than as a place to examine the effects of long-term living in space, it's pretty much useless. And even at that task it's suboptimal.

NASA fundraising

[Kizor]

What? They have a huge container filled with trash, and they're apparently throwing it away?

No, bear with me here. This trash has been on the International Space Station, and on a shuttle on two occasions. What does that make it? Space trash!

How many people would pay for junk that has genuinely left the planet and support the space program at the same time? I'm thinking quite a few... it's not as if most trophies and decorations are more useful.

- Kizor

Auto-return is not a good bet.

[jpellino]

They still hand-fly the landing for two reasons - the trivial one is it gives the pilots something to "do". The non-trivial one is the landing programs have never been certified for flight. Given the bucks, they could do so, but last I'd checked it's still an option but not a good one.

Re:Auto-return is not a good bet.

[vsprintf]

Ya learn something every day - thanks. I had always thought the shuttle pilot was just a backup for the landing computers, but that's not true. It appears that the landing computers give up control at 25 miles out.

Garbage Scow

[myowntrueself]

Ok, so Scottie started a fight with the Klingons when they referred to the Enterprise as 'a garbage scow'.

But now the term honestly applies to the Space Shuttle.

Return?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure Wal-Mart is going to take it back in that condition?

So the shuttle does have a purpose!

[autopr0n]

Their most difficult task before leaving the station was the maneuvering of a huge cargo container filled with 2 1/2 years worth of trash into the shuttle's payload bay. The billion dollar garbage truck! woohoo!

Good Ol' Buzz

[nastro]

He's never been one to bury his feelings deep deep down inside. Like when he beat up the moon landing conspiracist. That was awesome.

http://www.csicop.org/articles/20021018-aldrin/

Here's a link. This guy's my hero.

Re:How bout an auction of the Space returned garba

[vsprintf]

Would be any takers if NASA were to auction the space returned garbage on ebay ?

That depends. I'd bid on a burned out circuit breaker or something like that, but forget the wool socks that were worn for three months.

Discovery and the Prandtl-Glauert cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

On the return flight home, will we see STS-114 create one of those cool transonic vapor clouds it generated during the July 26 liftoff? Boing Boing called the shuttle Discovery's transonic Prandtl-Glauert condensation cloud "spooky-cool" (with more details including video links here).

A still image of the Prandtl-Glauert cloud accompanies the "Discovery's clouds of glory over" story at the MSNBC.com "Cosmic Log." And on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket was photographed wearing a splendid white condensation cloud, possibly of the Prandtl-Glauert type. Seeing stuff like this sort of makes you want to take a course in fluid mechanics.

"Spooky" is what happens in the transonic regime (speeds hovering just above and below Mach 1). "Cool" is the visible stuff that sometimes pops out and, if lucky, is recorded for the rest of us to see and marvel at.

Re:Discovery and the Prandtl-Glauert cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the Saturn V link: http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2000-000627. html

Unmannned flights

[Merl3]

Nice to see Soyuz mentioned. Lots of press this AM about US and UK rescuers of the Russian mini-sub. But what about the Russian rescue of the ISS when Columbia went splat on re-entry? With all the attention on nationalism/religious fanaticism/etc. let's not overlook how fragile our own lives on this little blue planet really are. "How Right we are - How Wrong they are" thinking doesn't get food water and O2 up to the ISS, warmth and O2 to submarines, or crewmembers home safe from either up or down missions. As long as guy-geeks & gal-geeks explore stuff (from new code to 10th/11th plants) we'll need open hearts to each other. If that's the real lesson of "manned" ("womaned?") flight, maybe sending ourselves into the hostile up and/or down occasionally isn't such a bad idea.