ISS Gyro Fixed Via Spacewalk 143
Teahouse writes "After a failed attempt last week, the ISS Astronauts finally got to fix the external gyroscope circut breaker in the station. Tests are being run today, but it looks like the ISS is back to having attitude stability with redundancy. This is particularly significant with the Shuttle being grounded for an extended period because the ISS would have had to use thruster fuel to keep the Station's solar panels pointed in the right direction without the gyroscopes, and no guarantee when more fuel would be arriving."
Another space station dying of neglect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminds me of Galaxy Quest.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:boring ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Reminds me of Galaxy Quest.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Another space station dying of neglect? (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, the entire point of these risky, socially purposeless, complicated, budget-eating manned space missions is basically to do more things big and showy to pat ourselves on the back as a species
Just keep in mind that our planet is doomed to be sucked into the sun one day. Sure we have a fair while to get off this planet, but the sooner we start the better right?
Re:Another space station dying of neglect? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Another space station dying of neglect? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:We're going to Mars! (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA Spin-offs make the U.S. Billions Regardless (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, but what is 'practical'? (Score:2, Insightful)
Chinese economic growth (Score:3, Insightful)
You're confusing 'risk' and 'return'. People haven't put their investments into US companies because they knew their investment was safe, they did it because they felt they could get a high rate of return on their money. If they wanted a safe investment, they would buy US treasury securities, currently the safest investment on Earth.
Now, they're investing more money in the Chinese economy, because they feel that Chinese companies will grow faster (and thus provide a higher rate of return). That's not terribly surprising, as it's easy to see that China has enormous economic growth potential. Much the same occurred with southeast Asia in the early-to-mid 1990s, until their bubble collapsed.
It can do basic, medium and even some high-tech manufacturing for a fraction of the price to do so in the US.
The reason for this is not some magic, but because China has vastly lower labor costs. To some extent, this is because China uses a huge amount of slave labor.
Re:We're going to Mars! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Another space station dying of neglect? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:We're going to Mars! (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the same reason we don't leave Iraq in order to save hostages and the same reason we don't spend ten billion trillion dollars installing tons of high-tech armor on every humvee. Government is about assessing cost/benefit ratios, and when those in charge forget it, we all land in deep trouble.
What the shuttle is worth (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Problems with the Shuttle-centric approach? (Score:1, Insightful)
Many of rocket boosters can be used to launch something into LEO. No problem there. But they are NOT designed to carry human inside the loading cargo on its tip of a rocket. One consideration, which is often ignored, is a supersonic vibration within the closed cavity. [The downside of it is your gut may explode under the supersonic vibration.]
In any manned rocket design, the vibration is suppressed and is safe for human to ride inside. But not so for many unmanned rocket boosters.
Cheers,
-b
Re:Another space station dying of neglect? (Score:3, Insightful)
As for asteroids. What good is a manned space program going to do? I would imagine solutions involving long-range detection and nuclear explosions. Possibly a big frikin' "laser"... but do you really thing it'll be like the film "Armageddon"?
Please explain one thing (Score:2, Insightful)
Having a job is not important. Survival and living a happy life is. If you have enough money to survive and live a happy life, you don't need a job. If you can survive and live a happy life without money, then you don't need money.
Do you think a person's life is defined by the work he or she does? Does work equal life?
Let the robots do the boring jobs. Let humans come up with things the robots can't do.
Re:Another space station dying of neglect? (Score:3, Insightful)