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Astronauts Open ISS Station Room
mikesd81 notes an ABC News report that astronauts aboard the ISS have opened the new station room. Commander Peggy Whitson and astronaut Paolo Nespoli delayed their lunch so the event could happen before the station's orbit temporarily blocked the ability to send a video downlink to Mission Control. From the article: "Nespoli... joined Discovery's crew to personally deliver the Italian-made pressurized chamber... Astronauts added the school bus-sized room called Harmony during a 6.5-hour spacewalk Friday, using a robotic arm to lift it from the shuttle's cargo bay and install it on the station. The compartment will serve as the docking port and nerve center for European and Japanese laboratories that will be delivered on the next three shuttle flights. It also will be a power and thermal distribution center, providing air, electricity, water and other systems for the space station. Racks of computer and electronic equipment are already inside the cylinder, which will double as a living space for the crew... The astronauts will have to undo more than 700 bolts [which held down the equipment during flight] to free up the equipment."
Yes, they could (although, personally, explosive bolts and electromagnetically-held ROOMS of equipment would not be on any spaceship I would ever fly on... just imagine the potential for going wrong!)
But, it'll probably take a handful of man-hours and, to be honest, space agencies have trouble finding astronauts enough stuff to do to keep them busy anyway especially on "space stations" as opposed to shuttles, orbits, missions etc. Plus, you'd have to manually check everything at some point anyway - might as well be while you're "unpacking" your new space-station room (remember to keep the box it came in in case you have to send it back!).
Plus, one bolt in the wrong place, coming loose or not coming off nicely and you're in deep trouble and hardly able to pop down the local DIY store to pick up a replacement.
Astronaut missions are always rigourously scheduled and planned. You'll probably find these people have an actual list of every bolt to be taken off in what order with what tool and what to check before and after every one. Similarly, when "just" tightening a bolt, they would have data on torque, etc. which they would follow to the letter.
except they are not at zero G they are in microgravity.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
"Uh... I don't think anything was "lifted". In zero G, there is no up and down, AFAIK."
Up and down are relative terms. On Earth, for example, down to us is a straight line from the point of the sphere we're standing on to the Earth's core. If you're on a space shuttle in 'zero G', you still think of the floor of the shuttle as 'down'. When the doors on top open and the cargo is removed, it goes 'up' to exit.
The reason the phrase "there's no down in space" came about is that there isn't the pull of gravity to give you an intuitive sense of direction. If you were just free floating out in deep space in a space suit, you wouldn't know which way to go. That's all that means. It doesn't mean that you've entered some weird wibbly wobbly area of space that lacks any dimension.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
and they're at almost 1 g, force of gravity is just about as strong where the ISS is as it is on the surface of the earth. they're just falling around the earth is all.
Very little difference, IMO.
I guess you'd describe a plane in freefall as having no up and no down either then. The Earth's gravity is only about 10% weaker on the ISS than it is on the surface.Uh... I don't think anything was "lifted". In zero G, there is no up and down, AFAIK.
Since you're being a nitpick: they're not in "zero g", they're in orbit. There is a difference. One means there are no (or, in practical terms, very little) gravitational forces acting on you; the other means you're hurtling through space fast enough that you counteract gravitational forces trying to pull you down to the planet.
Please help metamoderate.
Beyond the obvious safety and power issues mentioned by other posters, may I mention that, as a general rule of thumb in engineering, the more complex your device/system, the more likely it is to break? And my own corollary to that: and the worse it will be when it DOES break.
that would be true in a uniform gravitational field, but around a planet there's a gradient to the acceleration due to gravity and thus a net small acceleration on object (we're back to microgravity)
"Unfortunately, no. The ISS requires far too much hands-on maintenance."
...ground control was in control - not the nitrogen-breathing, image conscious, time wasting, hubris-fevered staff-monkeys in the air.
:)
I happened to listen to live activity today. The pilot, a shuttle first-timer, kept asking if the stop-go incrementing counter on the fuel-cell monitoring software was awry - he wouldn't let it go, even after Houston told him they had spent enough time on what was obviously a non-issue and to move on. He kept making suggestions and they waited patiently as he chatted and rambled. It was clear they were giving into his first-time fever, just to placate him, but still, talk about a time-waster.
In addition, being as the shuttle commander and ISS in-charge are both women, making for yet another space first (?), the two were so enamored with the idea, they miscalculated the time before the big public TV presentation of the new 'Harmony' module, thinking they didn't have time to spruce their hair for the cameras - Houston calmly told them no issue, the circulation fans had been adjusted from the ground to keep everything on schedule - plenty of time.
The shuttle commandette told the ground-control guy "thanks for having our back on that one!"
So please, sell that 'too much hands-on maintenance' white-wash someplace else, thanks
Ratchet has to collect bolts. He has insufficient bolts and then begins to eye Clank. It's basically the old idea of two people marooned on an island or lost in the desert and the other person starts to look like food or drink. Although in this case, Clank really would contain what Ratchet needs. I've never played the game - so sorry if I'm wrong. But combined with the post here- I think I've got it right.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Electromagnets aren't at all a plausible solution because they would have to be powered on while in flight to the station. The explosive bolts are a HUGE safety risk. We're talking 700 explosions in extremely close proximity to computer equipment, doesn't take a scientist to figure out that's not a good idea. When you add the fact that you're in an enclosed space and furthermore that you're orbiting the earth, mentioning the idea of explosive bolts would probably get you fired had you been on the design team for this. Also, they'd have to clean up the mess after everything explodes anyway, which would probably take as much time as just unfastening all these bolts.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.