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Additional Lab To Be Added To the ISS
Matt_dk writes "Apparently the International Space Station is going to get bigger. NASA and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) are preparing to sign an agreement to add another laboratory to the ISS by using a modified multipurpose logistics module (Raffaello) during the final Space Shuttle mission. It will be attached in September 2010 during Endeavour's STS-133 mission. The idea had originally been rejected, but earlier this year ISS program manager Michael Suffredini said using an MPLM for an additional module was being reconsidered."
I don't get why we're not planning to dock the shuttles to the ISS and leave them up there, too, with their useful engines, robotic arms, and so forth. The space museums would be sad, but someone would undoubtably think up some cool things that could be accomplished with them up there.
Nice idea in theory, but the practicalities make it next to impossible. Maintenance, costs, complexity etc. If you fly it up there then you need to keep it in working order, potentially for years - and that would mean costs in flying up spare-parts, engineers, undertaking safety inspections - essentially it would require setting up the first spaceship yard - costs NASA no doubt don't want to be liable for. The alternative is to fly it up and then simply agree not to service it, but at that point its usefulness would be virtually zero, as it couldn't even be sued as an emergency escape as they can't put people inside something that isn't being serviced. Then when the space station is decommissioned (whenever that is) they will be unable to bring it back down to earth so it will be burnt up upon re-entry with the station - a bit of a waste.
I don't get why we're not planning to dock the shuttles to the ISS and leave them up there, too, with their useful engines, robotic arms, and so forth.
Duct taping the remaining shuttles to the ISS, arkansas style up on concrete blocks, has the following problems:
1) There's not enough space on the truss to leave them bolted on and still have space for resupply missions to dock.
2) They will rapidly permanently break down and become more or less useless. Either leave the fuel cells running, in which case they run out of H2 in about a month with no was in space to refuel and no in-orbit liquid H2 transport available (at least they "could" refill the O2 tanks, in theory), or shut them off and let the electrolyte and water exhaust freeze in place, cracking the lines. When the freon leaks out of the coolant system, no way to refill... Most of the onboard systems are like that, limited on-orbit lifetime and no on-orbit maintainability, at all.
3) So, they're deadweight, whats the loss? Well, they need to boost the station so it doesn't reenter, and boosts are expensive. Plus it adds surface area to speed reentry so you need MORE reboosts but just BIGGER reboosts.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Sounds like a joke, but it's not -- the world is more likely to look favorably on a country that uses its wealth for cultural progress like significant science. (
Ironically spending $10 billion on the space program would contribute *far* more to US national security than an extra $10 billion to the military.