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Space Station Crew Prepare For Emergency Spacewalk
astroengine writes "After the discovery of an ammonia coolant leak supplying one of the solar arrays on Thursday (video), International Space Station managers have decided to plan for an unscheduled spacewalk on Saturday to repair the problem. The final decision about whether to go ahead with the extravehicular activity will be made late on Friday. 'Good Morning, Earth! Big change in plans, spacewalk tomorrow, Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn are getting suits and airlock ready. Cool!', tweeted the Space Station's Expedition 35 Commander, Chris Hadfield, on hearing the news an emergency EVA may be required of his crew. 'The whole team is ticking like clockwork, readying for tomorrow. I am so proud to be Commander of this crew. Such great, capable, fun people.'"
Good think Wolowitz isn't up there, or he'd be freaking out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufsrgE0BYf0
Keep that toolbox strapped to the space station.
You can't have regular solar panels; you need ammonia-cooled solar panels. You can't simply walk out and fix it, there's no air. You can't use a wrench, because conservation of momentum means you rotate around the bolt. And after all that and you fix it, a piece of junk from a Chinese satellite killer takes you and your new solar panel out.
This is why we're still whizzing around in LEO. Imagine doing this crap 100 million miles away when you can't "just" get more ammonia if you really needed it.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I wish the mechanic would get as excited when he has to put some freon into my A/C...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This isn't some sort of paid stunt to promote Sandra Bullock / George Clooney's latest movie is it?
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
no one can hear ammonia scream.
So some people are sent out within a few days which might be about as fast as you can step through all the checklists, from people only getting general training and not months of training for every single movement of this specific manevour, like they usually would. If that is not emergency then I do not know what a emergency is.
People think hyperspace persuit formulars are fun, but wait till mankind has the tech for that...
Just pop the radiator cap and drop in a raw egg; that'll stop the leak. For awhile. But hurry up and dump this lemon on an unsuspecting buyer, quick.
When you engage in the kind of planning NASA does, you typically only perform unscheduled activities in an emergency. This is especially true when in comes to EVA. If you want a good example of the level of planning, training, and rehearsal that typifies an EVA, check out a documentary of repairs on the Hubble Space Telescope.
Not every emergency requires in a split-second decision. Sometimes you actually have time to check the checklist, which usually has helpful steps to keep things calm while you deal with the situation. In this case, it's an emergency in that if they don't get it fixed soon, they are screwed. But not an "OMFG bail out" kind of emergency.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
But just because Space is hard...does not make the challenges insurmountable. Humanity's future lies in space.
A little bit off-topic, but worth mentioning, Chris Hadfield has been recording interesting short videos from the ISS about how's life over there: http://www.youtube.com/user/canadianspaceagency
They're going out tomorrow. Read that another time: TOMORROW. They found out about the problem Thursday.
You're talking about people who get years of training on every specific maneuver they have to perform in space, repeatedly, until they're so good they can do it in their sleep, blindfolded, with both their hands tied behind their back.
Keep being a stupid keyboard warrior though, it's cute.
Didn't they solve this problem on TNG? All you need to do to cope with a coolant leak is have everybody roll energetically under the descending emergency door that's sealing the affected area off.
http://epicgeordi.ytmnd.com/
(in case it isn't obvious, that link is loud, obnoxious and on a loop.)
Just a moment...just a moment...I've just picked up a fault in the AE-35 ammonia distribution unit. It's going to go a hundred percent failure within 72 hours.
I find it amusing that the best P.R. man NASA has had in recent years (Chris Hadfield) is not American.
The point is, in an emergency there is no checklist
Hey Anonymous Coward, there sure as hell is. The whole point of a checklist is you remain calm and 'work the problem.'
If you're in the cockpit of a 747 and the engines flame out at 35K feet the first thing you do is grab your checklist.
Well, jklovanc is getting hammered by the mods, but he has a point. We really aren't ready for space until you can actually do that sort of thing without a three week simulator run.
This is EXACTLY why we need to keep going round and round in LEO until it's really, really boring and second nature*. If we plan on getting past the moon, we have to develop technologies and procedures that allow us to fix things promptly.
* This is not to imply that the ONLY thing we should be doing is the ISS. We should be funding lots of other space related programs.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."
When you have an emergency of such magnitude on ISS, you don't get to wear the spacesuits, you haul your ass into the Soyuz and head back to Earth.
To the braindead mods: The parent is not a troll, just uninformed about ISS procedures. That doesn't make him a troll.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
He's joking or trolling, but he is correct about ISS dropping XP on their laptops...
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/155392-international-space-station-switches-from-windows-to-linux-for-improved-reliability
You have a point in that the word "emergency" carries a connotation of a lot more imminent danger than the situation actually seems to have. A better term for this spacewalk might be "contingency spacewalk," which was a term NASA used for similar EVAs that might have to be performed on the Shuttle to save the Orbiter and/or its crew. Or, in Star Trek terms, it's a Yellow Alert, not a Red Alert.
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Clearly you are a subject matter expert.
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...
For a while now, but it's not actually stationary
The first thing they grabbed was the "emergency checklist" and started going through ways to restart the engines while the pilot attempts to maintain control.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
How far in advance does NASA have to schedule a spacewalk for it to be a "scheduled" spacewalk? Isn't the fact that NASA is scheduling it today make it "scheduled" for tomorrow?
well it's going like clockwork at least!
it means it's unbudgeted for fiscal year 2013.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I read that as "Space Station Cow Prepares for Emergency Spacewalk" and was momentarily excited for pictures.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Why wait till tomorrow? why even ask permission to fix it? Seems to me there are decisions that should be made by the crew i mean they are experts.
Jack of all trades,master of none
It's not an emergency if you get a night's sleep first.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
For a while now, but it's not actually stationary
Well that all depends entirely on your frame of reference.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
How far in advance does NASA have to schedule a spacewalk for it to be a "scheduled" spacewalk?
Far enough that all the needed tools and equipment are packed on the ground, and the astronauts performing the spacewalk have practiced in a "zero G" dive tank.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Remember back in the pioneer days of settling North America? People crossed the ocean not because every part of the voyage was safe and comfortable and they were sure they could easily fix everything. They crossed the ocean because they'd rather die trying to find a better life than go on with their old lives.
Nothing's changed, perhaps you personally don't feel the need to take risks but space travel doesn't need to become safe, it just needs to become cheap. And as soon as that happens you'll have people queuing around the planet trying to get on board, I'll be there too, even if there's a 50-50 chance I'll never get to my destination.