Slashdot Mirror
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.
Everyone has lazy and unproductive workers. Why should any worker give half a fuck about his company if he can clearly see that even the CEOs are trying their best to milk it for all it's worth and then move on to the next corporation to pump and dump?
There is no work ethic left. On no level of the work force. What I see today in our economy reminds me in a stunningly way of what went down in the former communist countries. Same shit. Same mismanagement with the same disillusioned workforce, with everyone trying his best to waste as little energy as possible doing work, knowing that if he put in more all that would be his reward is more workload shifted onto him. Mostly because it just doesn't friggin' matter whether you try to work hard or whether you slack. Your chances for promotion are zero, your chances to get fired are not influenced at all by how you work. So why bother with anything?
There is simply no identification with your workplace anymore, and no faith in the ones steering the company's course.
And bluntly, whether you think your politicians are greedy, selfish idiots with zero qualification for their job and no well being in their mind aside of their own, or whether you think your boss is like this, where exactly is the difference between public and private sector?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
moox. for a new generation.
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?
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
latches, that need something massing close to the mass of the shuttle to engage properly.
They are also in inconvenient locations, and they need to be able to dock two crew capable vehicles at the station at all times to serve as life boats.
There are currently always 2 Soyuz capsules docked to the Station except during crew change. Each Soyuz can carry three crew members, and 2 docked Soyuz give them the ability to evacuate the entire 6 man crew in an emergency.
The new crew capsules are capable of carrying between 4 and 7 crew members depending on configuration, and that will allow them to expand the full time station crew to the full compliment of 7. But they'll need to be able to have 2 docked at all times (probably a Russian Soyuz for the Russian Crew Members and a Dragon or Boeing capsule for the US + International Crew.
The Current Dragon capsule flies close to the Station, and is then grappled with the CanadArm2 and maneuvered into docking with one of the Common Berthing Ports. Dragon Cargo flights next year will be bring up two new Common Berthing Ports to be installed for the new crew vehicles. I believe the Dragon v2 and Boeing Crew vehicles will engage in piloted/automated docking, rather than needing to be grappled with CanadArm2. There are also issues with clearance around some of the open ports, which is why they'll be reconfiguring the station (including moving the Leonardo MPLM Module to another port, and moving the PMA off the Bow Port where the Shuttle used to dock. They space walk they did today was around the PMA (Pressurized Mating Adapter) on the Bow port.