Various bits about iss and Shuttle
Brian Gaff
retro the whole thing seemed after the Shuttle evas with their helmet
cameras and robot arms etc.
So we have really bodged fixings for all sorts of clutter fitted to the
outside of the craft, Suits that seem to have very old fashioned controls
etc. It just all sounded so much more strenuous than the US versions.
Also, the comms were so dire in some parts of the orbit (it sounded like the
relay was via a microphone layed in front of a speaker) that the translator
could not understand anything!
The concept of a crane in space, from what I'd describe as a crane, seems
counter intuitive to me. Its more like a strong version of a microphone
boom.
On the Shuttle, in yesterday's press briefing, I had some questions I'm sure
people here will know the answer to.
Where is Endeavour? it was not even mentioned yesterday.
What is this 'thing' that Atlantis has, that makes it better for certain
missions than discovery? IE why swap orbiters?
What was all that about the cost of the Hubble flight the longer after 07
they leave it all about? I thought Hubble would be falling out of orbit soon
after that anyway.
Nobody mentioned gap fillers. I suppose we must await yet another committee
to look into what happened there as well??
Re the foam, I was gratified to hear them basically own up to the blind spot
about the foam in the past, and this makes it all the more amazing that it
went so long without a problem, or to put it another way around, maybe its a
much smaller probability than one is led to believe.
I think what happened here is that its just counter intuitive to accept that
a piece of foam could brak a piece of reinforced carbon/carbon, so nobody
bothered to check.
I do think though, that all the things they are now finding out should have
been what they should have been doing all along, and feeding it back into
new designs. If they had, then a new craft would have been a heck of a lot
nearer than it seems at the moment.
Lastly, why does the 747 which is carrying the Shuttle have to refuel so
often?
Brian
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Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
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______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Jochem Huhmann
> So we have really bodged fixings for all sorts of clutter fitted to the
> outside of the craft,
That's one of the features of a space station (where there is no concern
for aerodynamics and no need for re-entry). That's a good thing, even if
it may look odd. On this EVA they dealt with a lot of experiments which
expose things to open space for extended periods of time and this is one
thing the station was specifically designed for.
> Suits that seem to have very old fashioned controls etc.
Fashion is irrelevant here. The russian suits may look funny, but
they're not bad at all. They're harder to work with, because they run at
higher pressure than the US ones, but on the other hand for the very
same reason they require much less pre-breath time, which is a good
thing on a station where crew time is a valuable resource.
> It just all sounded so much more strenuous than the US versions.
It sureley was less finely trained than the EVA's from the Shuttle.
EVA's from the ISS are more of the type "you have to get this and that
done, work out how to do it". Well, more or less.
> Also, the comms were so dire in some parts of the orbit (it sounded like the
> relay was via a microphone layed in front of a speaker) that the translator
> could not understand anything!
Maybe communication was directly down to Russia and this may work better
on some parts of the orbit than on others (and not at all on still other
parts).
Jochem
--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Jorge R. Frank
news:tniNe.92003$G8.8...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk:
> Where is Endeavour? it was not even mentioned yesterday.
It's down for an orbiter major modification (OMM) period, should be back in
service by the end of 2006.
> What is this 'thing' that Atlantis has, that makes it better for
> certain missions than discovery? IE why swap orbiters?
More accurately, it's what Atlantis *doesn't* have: it's slightly less
heavy than Discovery.
> Lastly, why does the 747 which is carrying the Shuttle have to refuel
> so often?
It burns fuel a lot more quickly with a shuttle on its back.
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Andrew Gray
>
>> What is this 'thing' that Atlantis has, that makes it better for
>> certain missions than discovery? IE why swap orbiters?
>
> More accurately, it's what Atlantis *doesn't* have: it's slightly less
> heavy than Discovery.
Any particular reason? I was under the impression Atlantis and Discovery
were the most similar of the orbiters, since they were mostly built
together...
--
-Andrew Gray
andre...@dunelm.org.uk
John Doe
>
> Hi folks, I heard a fair chunk of the EVA yesterday, and I was struck by how
> retro the whole thing seemed after the Shuttle evas with their helmet
> cameras and robot arms etc.
The russian EVA equipment definitely has a low tech appearance compared
to the NASA ones. But in the end, they work and are easy to maintain,
whereas the USA suits on the station haven't been used in a long long
long long time because either the suits were broken or some Quest system
to support the suits were broken.
The lack of lights on the russian suits is perhaps a bonus for the
crewmembers who get to spend time doing nothing and admiring the view,
while on USA EVAs, every second of an EVA is prescripted and filled with tasks.
In terms of the strella boom: with only 2 crewmembers on board, both can
go out and do stuff on the russian side since the boom is manually
operated from the outside. The great canadarm would be rather useless
because there would be nobody to control it from the inside.
In terms of comms, you are right. The russian comms system is not as
good (by far).
Once the USA abandons ISS, I wonder if the remaining partners would see
the need to launch their own TDRS equivalents to be able to provide full
coverage for their space endeavours in orbit.
Brian Gaff
news:pan.2005.08.19....@is.invalid...
> Op Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:20:09 +0000, schreef Brian Gaff:
>
>
>> Lastly, why does the 747 which is carrying the Shuttle have to refuel so
>> often?
>
>
Ah, right, I see...
Quick, nurse, the screens!
Jorge R. Frank
news:slrndgc9vc.ot...@compsoc.dur.ac.uk:
AIUI, it's a bunch of little reasons that have accumulated over the years.
And the difference is slight, compared to Endeavour. Discovery and Atlantis
are as close to identical twins as you will find in the fleet, past and
present. But 115 and 117 are very performance-critical flights and every
little bit helps.
DarkD
"Brian Gaff" <Bri...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:TxqNe.92378$G8.8...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> "nmp" <add...@is.invalid> wrote in message
> news:pan.2005.08.19....@is.invalid...
> > Op Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:20:09 +0000, schreef Brian Gaff:
> >
> >
> >> Lastly, why does the 747 which is carrying the Shuttle have to refuel
so
> >> often?
> >
> > Er... because without fuel, it would drop out of the sky?
> >
> Ah, right, I see...
>
> Quick, nurse, the screens!
>
> Brian
There is massive drag on the plane, so even though the combined weiight is
less than a 747 can take they still need less weight than normaly and have
to run the engines well beyond what would be considered optimal fuel
effeiciency level
DarkD
"Jorge R. Frank" <jrf...@ibm-pc.borg> wrote in message
news:Xns96B75784...@204.52.135.8...
> "Brian Gaff" <Bri...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in
> news:tniNe.92003$G8.8...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk:
>
> > Where is Endeavour? it was not even mentioned yesterday.
>
> It's down for an orbiter major modification (OMM) period, should be back
in
> service by the end of 2006.
>
> > What is this 'thing' that Atlantis has, that makes it better for
> > certain missions than discovery? IE why swap orbiters?
>
> More accurately, it's what Atlantis *doesn't* have: it's slightly less
> heavy than Discovery.
Slightly? Isn't it like 2 tonnes? What exactally causes this 2 tonne
difference?
Jorge R. Frank
$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au:
No, about an order of magnitude less than that. Insignificant in the big
scheme of things, but significant to missions on the edge like 115 and 117.
(Columbia was about 3 tons heavier than the other three; that was the only
truly significant weight different among the fleet.)
kenb
> Lastly, why does the 747 which is carrying the Shuttle have to refuel so
> often?
I saw a documentary on TV recently (Rocket Science maybe?) where one of
the pilots of the SCA commented on the fuel economy while toting a shuttle
around. He stated that a 747 gets just over 1.5 times its own length per
gallon of fuel with a shuttle on board.
Cheers,
kenb
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