Astronauts Open ISS Station Room

mikesd81 notes an ABC News report that astronauts aboard the ISS have opened the new station room. Commander Peggy Whitson and astronaut Paolo Nespoli delayed their lunch so the event could happen before the station's orbit temporarily blocked the ability to send a video downlink to Mission Control. From the article: "Nespoli... joined Discovery's crew to personally deliver the Italian-made pressurized chamber... Astronauts added the school bus-sized room called Harmony during a 6.5-hour spacewalk Friday, using a robotic arm to lift it from the shuttle's cargo bay and install it on the station. The compartment will serve as the docking port and nerve center for European and Japanese laboratories that will be delivered on the next three shuttle flights. It also will be a power and thermal distribution center, providing air, electricity, water and other systems for the space station. Racks of computer and electronic equipment are already inside the cylinder, which will double as a living space for the crew... The astronauts will have to undo more than 700 bolts [which held down the equipment during flight] to free up the equipment."

Re:700 bolts!

[Airw0lf]

WTF are they using manual labor for everything ? just get explosive bolts and use charges to cut em lose. or electromagnets and cut the power to release equipment. 10 seconds and youre done.

They may have issues with explosive bolts in oxygenated environments... As for electromagnets, I think you would need power to keep them going on the way up. The whole point of bolting the equipment would have been to prevent them from flying all over the place during launch/orbit.

Re:700 bolts!

[Plutonite]

And now the super funny moderator-sans-grey-matter mods me down. Lets see how long we can play this game, asshole. Parent has been modded up thankfully. I love slashdot.

Re:Thrice-damned multi-billion dollar rathole

[damburger]

Like the shuttle, the problem isn't the project itself, its the lack of imagination in using it. The ISS could be a launchpad for manned missions to the planets. If you want to assemble a interplanetary craft in space, a long-term human habitat could house your construction crew whilst the bits are being sent up. This eliminates the need to rush them all up over a week or so.