Astronauts Fix Phantom Space Station Ammonia Leak

astroengine writes "During an unscheduled spacewalk on the space station's exterior on Saturday morning, NASA astronauts Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy carried out the mother of all plumbing jobs: They detached a suspect ammonia pump, replaced it with a spare and watched for any further ammonia leakage. The emergency spacewalk was carried out in response to a troubling ammonia coolant leak that was discovered on Thursday. The coolant is used to maintain the temperature of the vast solar arrays the space station uses to generate electricity for its systems. 'It will take some diagnostics, still, over the course of the next several days by the thermal systems specialists to fully determine that we have solved the problem of the ammonia leak," said NASA commentator Rob Navias during the live NASA TV spacewalk broadcast. 'But so far, so "good."'"

Comments

Chris Cassidy is a fucking hero

[cachimaster]

Meet him once, he's awesome, very humble and funny in person. There is a documentary about him even before he became an astronaut. He certainly have the right stuff.

Re:Chris Cassidy is a fucking hero

[cachimaster]

He is great but he doesn't make miracles ;)

Re:Chris Cassidy is a fucking hero

[demachina]

There has been massive hero inflation in recent years. Heroes have been devalued to the point you need a train load of heroes to save a little old lady from an out of control semi.

Not sure if the devaluation was due to 24/7 news networks, unscrupulous policians or social networks. Probably some of each.

Re:Chris Cassidy is a fucking hero

[baegucb]

Two Bronze stars as a Navy SEAL might qualify him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Cassidy

Imagine a day

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Imagine a day when a ship springing a leak would have been international news, commented upon by the wise and witty. Now imagine a day when such an event was too commonplace for even the crew to comment upon it around the watercooler.

That day will come.

Re:Imagine a day

[VortexCortex]

Simmons, you can't write it up in the incident report as an "ammonia leak" when you miss the evacuation pipe. If you can't hold it in use the gelatin, man. We've all got to breathe this air dammit. You just bought a replacement scrubber cartridge.

Phantom?

[sylvandb]

We have a phantom space station now?

Or was it a space station phantom leak?

I wonder where/why Discovery came up with "phantom" ? Really poor editing, Discovery!

Re:News for nerds

[wonkey_monkey]

Oh, really? You read, two days ago, about how they fixed the ammonia leak this morning? You're a freakin' genius, you idiot.

Wetware Controller advantages

[ThePeices]

This is why having humans onboard beats robotics. An event like this on an unmanned craft could be crippling. With humans onboard, it was quickly found and fixed.

Though it is only a question of time before robotics will be dexterous and smart enough to go out and replace a broken module like what just happened. In the meantime, Humans +1 | Robots +0.

Re:Wetware Controller advantages

[pehrs]

If you remove the humans you can also remove the large, heavy and complex life support systems they need. The life support systems are a major consumer of power on the ISS, and a reason they have so many solar panels that can fail, as well as a constant source of small and large breakdowns in itself.

In the end it is a matter of what you want to do with the spacecraft. Unmanned spacecraft are cheap and reliable. Manned craft are a little more flexible, but expensive and unreliable. Even with the ability to repair stuff humans have they are hampered by the lack of tools and spare parts in space, so it's very unlikely that manned spacecraft will ever be as reliable as the simple robotic probes.

Re:Wetware Controller advantages

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why having humans onboard beats robotics.

On the other hand we've dumped robots on Mars, flung them around the Moon and shot them far out into the depths of the solar system for decades without having to worry about food, water, or suicide due to sheer boredom.

The right tool for the right job and all that.

Re:Wetware Controller advantages

[R3d M3rcury]

In the end it is a matter of what you want to do with the spacecraft. Unmanned spacecraft are cheap and reliable. Manned craft are a little more flexible, but expensive and unreliable.

Unmanned spacecraft are cheap and reliable? Not really. We've had plenty of accidents. Keep in mind that up to the year 2000, the US, Soviet Union, and Japan had launched 43 probes to Mars and 13 were successful. That's a 30% success rate. Not all that hot.

In 2012 dollars, we've spent 12.5 billion--with a B--dollars on Mars exploration. And we've learned a lot. Now, we'll say that a manned mission costs 1000x that, or 12.5 trillion--with a T. The interesting question is, would we learn 1000x more about Mars than we've learned in the last 50 years of throwing the occasional probe out there?

Let's be honest--we've sent probes to Mars because we want to do something to figure it out and the American people aren't going to spring for the money for a manned mission. So probes are the next best thing. And they're pretty good. But are they "better" than manned exploration? No.

Re:Wetware Controller advantages

[kermidge]

Good info, good question - would we learn 1000x more.

"But are they "better" than manned exploration? No."

And that's the thing - we won't know until humans go there to answer it. I suppose, did we wait long enough, say, fifty to a hundred years, with robotic missions every few years, with increasingly robust packages for sampling and analysis, it might reach a point that sending humans to Mars will require a purpose other than exploration.

  (for the grammar nazis, yeah, too many commas; sorry, I tend to write as I speak.)

Re:Phantom?

[itsdapead]

Or was it a space station phantom leak?

Pro-tip for astronauts: If the ISS computer suggests another spacewalk to put back the original part so they can wait to see if it fails... watch your back!.

Re:Phantom?

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Also, ask for a raise. Plumbers on Earth make way more than you for way less risk.

Re:Phantom?

[Mystakaphoros]

On the other hand, the sagging pants would lead to explosive decompression. So it's a toss-up.

Re:Phantom?

[Runaway1956]

Phantom implies that it's not been identified.

In maintenance, we have problems all the time. I've referred to not-yet-identified or intermittent problems as "phantom" problems in the past. One such problem was finally identified just yesterday. The machine did some simply crazy shit from time to time, suggesting some kind of electrical supply problem. We've crawled all over that machine, testing boards and cards, probing all the electrical supplies, everything. Finally - the 460 volt transformer crapped out. I can't explain how or why the transformer was doing weird shit intermittently, but we're all sure that replacing that transformer will cure all the phantom problems we've been having.

We should know for certain by the end of this coming week . . .