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Russian Resupply Crash Could Mean Leaving ISS Empty
astroengine writes "In the wake of the Russian Progress vehicle crash shortly after launch on Aug. 24, a chain of events has been set into motion that could result in the decision not to fly astronauts into orbit. If this happens, the ISS will be temporarily mothballed before the end of the year to avoid landing astronauts during the harsh Kazakh winter."
Oh if only some other nation had something spaceworthy... Like a shuttle or so...
In the face of money spent on financial disasters and wars your comment seems a bit less then "well-justified".
So basically, you're saying that spreading away from a ball on which humanity would otherwise forever be trapped is a total waste of money?
Ensuring the continuity of life on Earth is a waste of money?
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And the era of human spacetravel came to an end. Not from discovery or war or any disaster. But simple greed. Greed that says using our resources to take what others have or wasting those resources for entertainment are more important than the spread of the species.
Trapping us all on this tiny blue planet until the inevitable end comes.
So we wait for the next global disaster to wipe us all out in one swipe. Be it a germ, comet, meteor, pole shift, solar flare, gamma burst, supervolcano or the unwise use of technology itself.
Perhaps if another species arises on this planet it will be a little more intelligent and not keep all their stuff in one place.
It's ok tho. It seems to be a common mistake given the emptiness of the universe. So don't sweat it too much. Go have a beer and some fast food, sit down and watch tv. That's whats important after all.
According to a prior slashdot article, SpaceX is slated for another demonstration launch late November, this time docking with the ISS. Yes, it is a demo flight so, yes, you can't trust it to succeed. Still, is there any reason they cant load up the Dragon capsule with [critically required items]?
Russia has had fewer astronaut fatailities than the United States, and all of the fatalities Russia has had have been less recent than any of the US's fatalities (those occurring in space, not on the ground). Although it would certainly be a tragedy if people died on a Russian spacecraft, please remember that the reason we now rely on Russian spacecraft is because people died on American spacecraft, and NASA responded by retiring all of the spacecraft involved in the human space program (without developing replacements).
Just dunk the damn thing.. Wall Street isn't interested anyway.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
We're all cosmonauts now, comrade.
First, please note that this is not about supplying the ISS, it's about getting the crew there. NASA is worried about the safety of Soyuz.
Also, note that the flight of the Soyuz is not dependent on NASA. NASA doesn't get that call, although they could yank their astronauts from the vehicle, they can't ground it.
So, there is little to no chance that the ISS will be abandoned. I predict the Russians will keep a crew there, regardless of NASA's decision.
Your comment and others like it remind me of some wisdom gleaned from xkcd:
"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."
Right now, our grasp of space exploration is still quite limited. In my opinion, the state of space exploration today is to its potential as alchemy was to modern chemistry. Nonetheless, alchemy represented the first baby steps toward real chemistry. I think that a lot of people recognize this and look at space exploration with the same disdain that they would an institute of alchemy. They key difference is that we don't do alchemy anymore because we outgrew it as it evolved into modern chemistry. Space exploration hasn't evolved into something useful and profitable yet but if we don't keep at it, it never will. (Note, I'm NOT equating space exploration with the ability to merely put things into orbit.)
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
In Soviet Russia, ISS abandons YOU!!
Note that if the station is left unmanned, it will be the end of an 11-year run of humans continuously in space, starting with the October, 2000 arrival of the Expedition 1 crew at ISS.
By the way, the Chinese are still flying their man-rated Long March.
Humans need life support, robot do not.
I do not agree with the GP, but this is the usual reason.
If we are going to colonize a new planet at some point we will need to know how to get humans to this new planet. Practicing in earth orbit for how to keep humans alive and healthy in low || 0 G environments is useful science. About the only way i can see to test long term effects is to actually do the tests in a real low G environment with real people.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
. Practicing in earth orbit for how to keep humans alive and healthy in low || 0 G environments is useful science. About the only way i can see to test long term effects is to actually do the tests in a real low G environment with real people.
0G = bad stuff. If we were really interested in colonization and establishing a presence in space, we would have built a spinning space station with artificial gravity. That's the only way we'll be able to endure long stays in space.
Dunbal-"Actually you can." (... justify a bad investment by point to an even worse investment.) By bad investment he might have meant an investment with a negative overall outcome, which really shouldn't happen at all. How about something that actually isn't bad investment at all then? Like an investment into the search for alternative energy sources? Through the global economy it would make even the space flight cheaper, not to mention that it would also solve many other problems, like the next big problem - material production crisis (think about bauxite or silicon for example) and give rise to a new economic fluctuation (so that some "economic geniuses" could throw away their "communists were actually right about capitalism" thesis and concentrate on another stupid theory far from reality). Ok , now I went a bit off topic, but I am not going to delete it either. Thank you.
"Class M" is a fictional Star Trek term. I think what you meant to say is that there are no nearby planets in the habitable zone.
It's likely that "Class M" is more widely recognized than the scientific term "habitable zone". Even on Slashdot.
This isn't the sig you're looking for... Move along.
There's no reason to think we'll be sending humans other stars anytime in the near future.
Before we can even think about it we need a whole new propulsion system. We could be working on that with the money we save by abandoning the ISS.
No sig today...
"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."
There's sooooooooo much work to be done before we can think about going out into space. The ISS is a joke is this is its purpose... ...and it's funny how the stated purpose of the ISS keeps changing, it's almost as if it's got no real reason to exist!
Me? I say the ISS has done everything useful that it's going to do. Time to turn it into a museum for rich kids (who'll advance science much more by trying to get there than the ISS ever will).
No sig today...
A spinning space ship to make artificial gravity for humans is a tricky and very expensive task. It would probably need to be much larger than the one in the movie 2001. There are issues of motion sickness etc that would need to be worked out
However, General Relativity states that a spinning system can be the same as gravity. It is the constant change in direction that does the trick. The same as centrifuges here on Earth work.
I haven't noticed the Chinese scaling back. Granted, they're not as far along.
I think they still count as part of humanity, so human space travel wouldn't come to an end even if both the US and Russians stopped.
I don't like the possibility of mothballing at all but I think you're being a little breathless.
"open the pod-bay doors! open the pod-bay doors! Crap. Stupid ISS doesn't speak Chinese."
The funny thing is, the docking collar that the Chinese use is compatible with the ISS docking collar. They technically could do it. I wonder if the International Maritime Salvage laws would apply in space?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
For more fun and to find out how it works, check out the Spin gravity calculator.
In a nutshell, if you can't built a space station half a mile in diameter, don't even bother thinking about it.
Cool page, but it doesn't really agree with you. Note its quote:
In brief, at 1.0 rpm even highly susceptible subjects were symptom-free, or nearly so. At 3.0 rpm subjects experienced symptoms but were not significantly handicapped. At 5.4 rpm, only subjects with low susceptibility performed well and by the second day were almost free from symptoms. At 10 rpm, however, adaptation presented a challenging but interesting problem. Even pilots without a history of air sickness did not fully adapt in a period of twelve days.
This suggests anywhere from 1-2 RPM could probably be workable, suggesting a practical radius of as little as 0.15 miles, or diameter of 0.3 miles (~241/482 meters). Further, this assumes 1g. It's highly unlikely that 1g is necessary.
Mars is one of the most likely targets for extended-duration missions, and has a surface gravity of 0.376g. So let's say 0.4g. This lowers the diameter to as little as 180 meters (~0.11 miles).
If you bring it up to 400 meters in diameter, or less than 1/4th of a mile, you can have 1 1/3rd RPM at better than Mars-equivalent gravity.
Finally, diameter/radius can be a deceptive way of looking at this, since a basic spinning station need not be circular. A first pass need be little more than a room attached to a counterweight with cables.