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Russia's Unmanned Capsule Misses Space Station
mikesd81 writes "Russia's unmanned cargo ship Progress 38 missed docking with the ISS and sailed right on by it instead of docking on autopilot. A telemetry lock between the Russian-made Progress module and the space station was lost and the module flew past at a safe distance. NASA said the crew was never in danger and that the supplies are not critical and will not affect station operations. There will be no other attempts at docking today, and the orbit of the module raises questions of any other attempts again. Packed aboard the spacecraft are 1,918 pounds of propellant for the station, 110 pounds of oxygen, 220 pounds of water and 2,667 pounds of dry cargo — which includes spare parts, science equipment and other supplies."
But nobody said it would be easy.
The fuck?
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
the supplies are not critical
In other words, it had everything worth living for in it. You don't *need* tasty food or new videos to survive.
Is there no vehicle for the people on the space station to use so that they can nip out and catch the errant missile? Jeepers, that would have been the first thing that I would deliver. Surely, they had anticipated this happening and considered what to do about it.
It's not clear to me why we're doing this whole space station thing in such a half-assed manner. Why not think in terms of a permanent space station, and all that entails?
Best regards.
So, next up on the agenda: the ISS.
arrarrarrarrrarr
So while trying to resupply it, the 'RUSSIAN' components failed to deliver its payload. It's now a possible danger to our gov't/mil satellites.
arrrarrarrarr
What do you propose we do?
arrarrarrrarr
Well, the public isn't going to like this. Can't we use our own rockets for this? Oh, so the Russians have superior rockets. How much money are we spending on this? Oh, that's not good. Didn't we already cut the Space Shuttle program out? Oh, so we can't even get our own people or supplies up to the ISS? Well WTF CAN WE DO!???????????
arrrarrrarrrarrr
get me Bruce Willis and Steve Buschemi!
My abilities are only limited by my imagination
Well to be fair, unlike other measures in the SI system, kilograms isn't all that much better than pounds. It still isn't defined in terms of any universal constant (speed of light, properties of atoms, etc), but rather defined by the International Prototype Kilogram in France.
The most common definition of the pound is exactly 0.45359237 kilograms. The pound is abitrary but so is the kilogram.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Packed aboard the spacecraft are 1,918 pounds of propellant for the station, 110 pounds of oxygen, 220 pounds of water and 2,667 pounds of dry cargo
More like 0 pounds. Surely slugs would be a more useful measurement in a weightless environment. Or better yet: kilograms.
Even Hollywood had this one figured out.
Manual override.
Why didn't they have some sort of override for the Astronauts/Cosmonauts on board the station to correct trajectory in the last few moments? After all, they are the only ones that actually have a real eye on the situation and can react the fastest.
That must have been frustrating watching Mom's chocolate chip cookies and the latest issue of "High Times" go sailing past and not be able to do anything about it.
I wouldn't call the Kilogram "arbitrary". You are correct that it isn't defined by any "universal constant" but it is defined as being very near exactly the weight of 1 litre of water.
It's not about the story behind the unit. If the definition is arbitrary or not doesn't matter at all. What does matter is the way it works. I can tell you exactly how many grams are in a kilogram, and how many grams in a Ton. And that makes perfect sense. It's 10-base. it's metric. It's logical.
Now, try that with the ridiculous conversion ratios between ounces, pounds, stones and all that crazy mumbo-jumbo that is the imperial system.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Russians, "We are 15 centimeters from docking".
Nasa, "15 meters, rodger".
Russians, "No! 15 centimeters!"
Nasa, "How many feet is ...."
Crash!
Nasa, "Never mind".
This is NASA's way of pulling a USS Liberty incident on Russia's Aeronautical Space Ship (hereinafter A.S.S.)
I bet those asstronaughts were up there saying:
Actually, all of the SI units are arbitrary. Second and Meter were defined centuries ago and only later standardized according to "speed of light, properties of atoms, etc." when those became known and quantified. So a meter is no better than yard and a second is good only because, luckily, no one thought of another unit of time. They are now considered "better" because they are part of the SI system.
I agree that part of the reason that the SI system used meters and not yards is because it is a more logical system (yes, I know, and political reasons), but that does not change the basic premise: kilograms, like meters, pounds and all the rest are arbitrary measures and the fact the kg hasn't been defined yet by other universal constant* doesn't make it less useful than other SI units.
So, I say Yes to kilograms and No to pounds!
* The funny thing is that originally a gram was defined by the weight of water in a set volume (cube of 1/100 of a meter) - so it could have been standardized with universal constants. Guess they have their reasons.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
In a few thousand years, a craft from some distant advanced civilization will arrive in our solar system loaded with their interpretation of Russian porn.
Have gnu, will travel.
This is what passes for "Progress" in space these days?
Never send a robot to do a man's job.
...folks on /. like to say "Who needs airline pilots? Those planes fly themselves."
rj
And with that, the space salvage industry was born in a rush to be the first to recover this massive payload.
Carmack - go get 'em!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
" very near exactly the weight of 1 litre of water."
which is arbitrary.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That's not exactly true. The kilogram hasn't been defined in terms of water since 1889, when officially became defined by the IPK. From 1901 to 1964 the liter was defined in terms of kilograms (the other way around), but even that is no longer true. 1 liter of water may still be close to a kilogram, but that isn't how either of them are currently defined.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Kilogram is a unit of mass...
One that hath name thou can not otter
No he isn't.
How is giving NASA more money, better goals, and scrapping parts of a program that could not work 'getting out of the space business'?
Why don't you try using the brain you probably have to look at facts instead of repeating what liars tell you?
Moron.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well I'd give it a go, but I was only taught SI in my (American) public school. :)
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
The kilogram is defined as the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram. The original definition was that of the mass of one liter of water at the melting point of ice, but there are too many variables for this. How much of the water is made up of isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen? What is the air pressure, since that affects the melting temperature and hence the density of the water, hence the number of molecules in the liter, hence the mass.
Even the IPK is a problem, since its mass varies. There are serious attempts at defining Avogadro's number exactly, which will in turn define the kilogram in terms of a number of carbon-12 atoms. Some of these attempts are through measurements, and some call for simply setting Avogadro's number to an exact value equal to the current approximation.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
It's not hard for me to comprehend. But it doesn't make things more complex than necessary.
Also, the whole world uses the metric system. Only the US uses the brain-dead imperial system. So it looks like it's you that don't have what it takes to understand a new system.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Not nearly so as you think it to be. 1000 kg is a mass of 1000 liters of water; that's a cube 1 meter on its side. Meter is derived from the size of the Earth (ancient Greeks could do it).
Yes, those are no longer definitions; but they give something very close from, as far as humanity is currently concerned, readily accesible (by unsophisticated means) constants around us.
One that hath name thou can not otter
And a foot is the length of a foot. Which most people have a spare of, and is readily accessible.
Each is equally as arbitrary. Anyone who says otherwise is biased.
Hm...should we use or not use, as a basis of our unit system, a numeral system which is unavoidably most intuitive for virtually every human? What to do, what to do...
One that hath name thou can not otter
Human feet vary far more than the mass of water in a given location.
Why should we have to deal with something as complex as the imperial system when dealing with measurements? Why should I need to use a bit of paper to work out how many 2 inch squared tiles I would need to cover a 6yard by 12 yard area? At least with the metric system the units are base10 which means that its easy to convert 10 metres to millimeters without even thinking...
Foot is defined using meters for some time now. And for much longer time is way bigger than average human feet.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Sailing right by is much better than sailing right into the space station.
4) congress is filled with stupid fuckups who can't allocate the cash to do something right...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Er, the US doesn't use stone. That's a British thing.
I mostly agree with your argument, just wanted to point that out.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I cannot recall ever in my life needing to know the weight of one Liter of water. Choosing the Kilogram to equal a liter of water is as arbitrary as anything else.
Incidentally, the most common thing I need to weigh is myself. Pounds work just fine for that, and I never need to convert it to ounces or tons. For those times when Kilograms are more convenient, I use Kilograms (which is mainly when I am doing science). Otherwise, I just use pounds, which are more convenient to use around here because everyone understands them. Sorry to those Europeans who don't, though.
Qxe4
Yes but that was the equivalent of backing a car into a post - anything more than a minor impact would have smashed the entire delicate lightweight structure into pieces.
The funny thing is that originally a gram was defined by the weight of water in a set volume (cube of 1/100 of a meter) - so it could have been standardized with universal constants. Guess they have their reasons.
Actually, the mass of one cc of water is not necessarily exactly 1 gram. You need to account for the concentration of hydrogen and oxygen isotopes in that water which will alter the mass. You can get a cc of water that weighs about 1.2 grams if you mix deuterium and oxygen-18.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Ya, well, I can see my foot. I can't see 1/10,000th of the circumference of the earth.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
You'd think the difference would have been obvious to Mr. AC when he decided to stick his foot into his mouth and couldn't get it a whole foot in there.
The enemies of Democracy are
it's no more mumbo jumbo then the metric system
It is. It freaking switches whole *numeric bases* every couple units, for God's sake! it makes an even bigger mess than computational units, and without the mathematical reasons to do so.
The only 'Imperial' unit I know worth preserving is the Fahrenheit/Rankine, I still prefer Celsius/Kelvin but it's not bad either. But yards, pounds and all that crap need to die a quick and very painful death, they deserve nothing else.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
I know. You'd think they'd be on the Euro at this point.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
You mean the low mass structure....
Good-bye
Actually, his proposed budget for NASA involves increasing its budget slower than inflation. Which, technically, makes it "giving NASA less money".
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Actually, the Metre was "Originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole"
The gram: Originally defined as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to the cube of the hundredth part of a metre, and at the temperature of melting ice"
Compare this to some imperial units:
The foot:
The popular belief is that the original standard was the length of a man's foot. [...] Some believe that the original measurement of the English foot was from King Henry I, who had a foot 12 inches long; he wished to standardize the unit of measurement in England.
The acre was approximately the amount of land tillable by one man behind an ox in one day.
A grain is a unit of measurement of mass that is based upon the mass of a single seed of a typical cereal.
My conclusion: SI units are based on less arbitrary (original) definitions than imperial units. The new definitions using "speed of light, properties of atoms, etc." didn't really change their magnitudes, they just reduced the tiny variations.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
unless of course, it is only the fourth most common. Wikipedia, like statistics, can be manipulated enough to prove any side of any argument -- which makes pendantries double the fun.
Most americans who _need_ to know the difference between weight and mass use kilograms to distinguish the two. (despite the french) - Mainly because explaining the difference between ft-ibs. and ibs-ft to someone who doesn't is exasperating and futile. Besides the fact that saying pounds-feet in english makes you sound like an idiot just because it is awkward.
What the fuck are you talking about? Pounds is debatable but kilograms always means mass. Things have mass in space.
If you are smart enough to think that you know the difference between mass and weight, then you sure as shit should be smart enough to know that kilograms is a measure of mass.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I can see lots of things around me that would make very poor standards for measurement. :)
The enemies of Democracy are
Even "The Bad Astronomer" agrees with Obamas space policy. Now go away Glenn beck watcher or I will pull out a cross and onion!
http://wwww.zerospeaks.com
That's 27 gallons / 100 liters. I don't know how the water recycling works on the IIS, but I find it interesting that they send up a seemingly small amount...
OK, so you need to cover a 5.4864 meter by 10.9728 meter area with 5.08cm tiles. Compute! Do you need paper?
It's derived from a division of planet circumference in a way which was one of few sensible ones, given size of humans and that decimal numbering system is most intuitive to them (likely due to anatomy). And seriously, kilogram is the base SI unit.
One that hath name thou can not otter
In soviet Russia, a space station misses you.
...The only 'Imperial' unit I know worth preserving is the Fahrenheit/Rankine...
The pint?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Which is probably why they stopped using the above definition. Thank for the info.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Designed to be light in weight obviously when manufactured on the ground so that it was easier to get off the ground, so no correction is required. Points for trying in whatever game you are playing however.
I should have used the word "aluminium" so you could needlessly attempt to correct the spelling as well.
I agree they are less abstract definitions, but still: Why one ten-millionth and not one millionth? Why equator to pole and not pole to pole? Why temperature of melting ice and not room temperature?
No, I'm not trying to nitpick, and I do believe the SI/Metric system is a lot more logical than the imperial definitions, but since less arbitrary is (too me) like less pregnant, I still believe both systems have some basis that is arbitrary (just not the king's stinking foot).
P.S. I hope I rationally disagreed. (re: sig).
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Actually, his proposed budget for NASA involves increasing its budget slower than inflation. Which, technically, makes it "giving NASA less money".
Exactly. You have to look at "Constant Dollars" - He's cutting NASA's budget by X constant dollars, where X is some number greater than zero.
spire3661: you can turn in your pedant card at the door
http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif
...The only 'Imperial' unit I know worth preserving is the Fahrenheit/Rankine...
The pint? Anyone? Bueller?
So what would you rather have, a pint of beer (even if it is full-sized imperial one), or a liter of it? (Hint: Oktoberfest)
It is pole to pole; one twenty-millionth (or forty-millionth, if "between" the same pole). The ratio being chosen quite nicely - not only one of the few beautifully fitting with human love for base 10, also the unit ends up very human-scale. And you really need explaining why the temperature of melting ice and not "room temperature"?
What is such argument about anyway? Cleansing from any vestiges of human ambiguity? Tough luck, even Planck units are "unpure" like that...
One that hath name thou can not otter
I'd much rather have a pint of beer in a pub than I'd have a liter of anything at the Oktoberfest.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
...and hence another possible Mars Climate Orbiter in the making.
Really, as a scientist you don't appreciate units which are probably damn close to (except meter, now, but sorting it out is in the making) "as near to natural units as possible while at the same time remaining convenient for daily use"? That what it is about water, 1 = 1, for property of most common chemical compound in the Universe and volume quite directly derived from the size of this planet; you're doing science and don't see some elegance of it / it's "as arbitrary as anything else"? Incidentally, the only reliable way to describe daily units you use is via SI... (and you not "needing to know" how much a liter of water weights is the point)
PS. Europeans? More like "practically whole world."
One that hath name thou can not otter
Well, compared to 1k - 2k years in the future, probably. You're just alive at the wrong time.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
You Sir, make a powerful argument. I propose that we all agree on a definition of a universal unit for mass based on your weight. Just don't be porking out now...
I can see it now....Russian supply vessel goes off course and gets stuck in an eccentric orbit. Some future post apocalyptic race of humans or visiting aliens finds the pod and assumes it's a type of time capsule filled with holy relics. Theologians / scientists study it day and night for generations trying to figure out what it all means, and how it applies to the looming disaster that threatens their race...
... a definition of kilogram that was abandoned in the 19th century! That was many, many, many dog-years ago, dude!
Not to mention your quaint definition of meter: the meter is actually defined in terms of the distance light travels in vacuum.
I can't see your foot. :-)
On board are:
And suddenly, those numbers have lost their fake precision. Nice, hm?
At the very least the larger/smaller units of ton (1000kg) and gram (0,001 kg) are easily computable with each other, rather then the an ounce being 0,0625 pounds or the two varying definitions of the non-metric ton.
It might very well be arbitrary (as is pretty much any unit), but it is easier in use.
People, what a bunch of bastards
Did anybody think of that possibility? A perfect chance to obtain fresh earthling artifacts w/o disturbing the population with the loss of a human - they just targeted the tractor beam on it and diverted it off course.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Just out of curiosity, is the 1 meter cube defined at a particular temperature?
Seriously.
Assuming, of course, that we get the automated docking working, this could be a significant step forward. Launching people into space just to bring up supplies is very expensive and risky. If we can do it auto-magically with robots and computers instead, we would be wise to do so. We will certainly need to still bring people up and back often, but this could be a significant cost (and life) saving change.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
There must have been an enormous amount of them, given those weights in near-zero G! Seems like they should really be trying to dock on its next orbit.
I've always been a supporter of defining units of weight/mass with a quantifiable number(# of C-12 atoms for example). A number of people thought themselves so intelligent that they bash the idea of a Kilogram down, yet none have presented a better measurement. It is plain and it is simple, for the time being: You are on Earth. At room temperature, in liquid state and under "typical" atmospheric pressure a litre of water will weigh(fairly accurately) 1 Kilogram. It doesn't matter if you can't tell. It also doesn't matter if you want to know or not. Even if we established a 100% accurate measurement of mass to compare, you still wouldn't use it. Do you have the equipment to count Carbon atoms(example) to see water's mass? No, you'd still be filling a 1 litre bucket of water to set your comparison weight. Or more realistically, you'd be here posting troll comments on /. instead of performing any manner of learning that would require you to know the weight of any particular object.
The current kilogram is established as a measurement for everyone to use. Having a SI kilogram based on constituent atoms does nothing for a great deal of average people (read: Slashdot posters).
If we keep it as it is, I'll bet you make it through life no differently.
Not exactly, considering the bounds in which this old definition was used.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Sure, they're not used, but by simple means give values close enough for almost anything in daily life. In contrast, the only way to get decent imperial units is by...deriving SI units first and hoping to remember some weird ratios (that's really arbitrary), because that's how they are defined for some time now; objects around being mostly useless as a reference (except via the SI route) - see how long it will last before you'll find anybody, out of random group of people, with feet even close to 1 foot.
One that hath name thou can not otter
When it is at its densest point, 4 degrees C; it's nearly exact then. Which means either that you need a thermometer calibrated in this scale (easy enough with Celsius), or...simply fill the container with ice first (which you would need to do anyway, in most cases, to have 4 C after some time). When there's still a lot of ice, at 0 C, it will be also quite exact (or you might hunt for the moment "just after"); and the way buoyancy works means that the level of waterline will be the same even with some ice flating in it.
(damn lack of Unicode (and degree symbol) on /.)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Actually, I would say that the imperial measurements are less arbitrary, as they are more or less designed that anyone could approximate a measurement using either common items or easily understood concepts (at least back when the system came into being - some of those concepts are outdated now).
For example, if I knew nothing about any measurement system, and someone told me a foot was about the size of an adult male foot, I would instantly know about how big a foot was. If someone told me a meter was one ten-millionth the distance from the Equator to the North Pole or that it was the distance light travels in one three-hundred thousandths of a second I would still have no idea how big a meter is (outside a very rough sense) because those definitions would be meaningless to me.
Mostly because it was realized that using a tug to recover cargo was an expensive, difficult, and dangerous process. It was much simpler to deliver the cargo directly.
With a Saturn V class launcher, we'd have a station at... roughly the same altitude and would still require regular reboosts. (E.G. Skylab.) A Saturn V could place a space station at an altitude that would (for all intents and purposes) not require any reboost... but that 'station' would be roughly the size of a single ISS module. (I.E. essentially useless.) Such a station would also be horrendously expensive, not only because of the vast expense of the launch but also because of the vast expense of keeping the Saturn V infrastructure alive during the years between launches.
Yeah, that's why we keep losing comsats to collisions with space junk. Oh, wait - we don't.
Most of the area between LEO and GEO is also a high radiation area.