ISS Crew Install Cables For 2017 Arrival of Commercial Capsules

The Associated Press, as carried by the San Francisco Chronicle, reports that NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Terry Virts have attached more than 300 feet of cable to the exterior of the International Space Station in a series of three planned spacewalks; in total, the wiring job they're undertaking will involve 764 feet of power and data cables. The extensive rewiring is needed to prepare for NASA’s next phase 260 miles up: the 2017 arrival of the first commercial spacecraft capable of transporting astronauts to the orbiting lab. NASA is paying Boeing and SpaceX to build the capsules and fly them from Cape Canaveral, which hasn’t seen a manned launch since the shuttles retired in 2011. Instead, Russia is doing all the taxi work — for a steep price. The first of two docking ports for the Boeing and SpaceX vessels — still under development — is due to arrive in June. Even more spacewalks will be needed to set everything up. Mission Control left two cables — or about 24 feet worth — for the next spacewalk coming up Wednesday. Four hundred feet of additional cable will be installed next Sunday on spacewalk No. 3.

Comments

Re:Why do the tax payers have to pay for all this?

[Fwipp]

The left is cutting NASA's budgets?
http://www.space.com/22023-nas...

Re:So how about the core Russian module?

[Hadlock]

They made a formal announcement that they'll be disconnecting from the US half of the ISS at the end of 2013 after approximately 10 years of talking about it. And now they're courting the Chinese, the Japanese and the ESA to go in with them on their own ISS, leaving the ISS with... The US and South Korea.
 
It's not a rumor, it's "when". They have a webcam setup showing construction of their new spaceport built to support the "new" spacestation in it's new orbit. They plan on doing their first launch by the end of the year.

Fact Check.. Ahem.

[See Attached]

Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... It was formally scheduled for mandatory retirement in 2010 in accord with the directives President George W. Bush issued on January 14, 2004 in his Vision for Space Exploration.[20] Unless maybe GHWB was a closet Left-sider? So. whats the vision he had? Dumping our leadership position?