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Comments: 219 +- Science: Minor Leak Being Investigated Aboard the ISS on Friday November 30 2007, @04:00PM
Posted
by
Zonk
on Friday November 30 2007, @04:00PM
from the wasn't-aware-there-was-such-a-thing-as-a-minor-leak-in-space dept.
from the wasn't-aware-there-was-such-a-thing-as-a-minor-leak-in-space dept.
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Josh Fink writes "Space.com is reporting that the International Space Station has a minor atmosphere leak. 'An inspection of a vestibule bridging the station's new Harmony connecting module and NASA's Destiny laboratory indicated a slight air leak of about three pounds (1.3 kilograms) per day ..A close-up inspection of the vestibule seal by the station's three-astronaut Expedition 16 crew using an ultrasonic leak detector found no trace of a leak on Wednesday, [NASA spokesperson Lynette Madison] said. Studies of the station's overall internal pressure also found no signs of decay, she added.' While this is yet another technical issue with the ISS, when will this end? I am all for the space program, but there have been some major issues lately."
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The bogosity meter just pegged.
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Comes with the territory (Score:5, Interesting)
KERMIt, a "Kit for External Repair of Module Impacts", is one of those simple systems being developed at Marshall Research to seal punctures in the ISS. It will enable crewmembers to seal punctures from outside damaged modules that have lost atmospheric pressure. Delivery of the kit is scheduled for next year. KERMIt is also useful for sealing leaking atmospheric seals as TFF article describes (more info here [nasa.gov]).
Problems never end (Score:5, Insightful)
When you encounter a problem you fix it, it's that simple.
Remember: "The perfect is the enemy of the good." -- Voltaire
Parent
Re:Problems never end (Score:5, Insightful)
And more importantly, you get better at fixing them. That's really why we're out there after all. We're gaining experience that can only be gained the real way.
Parent
Re:Problems never end (Score:5, Interesting)
It's too low as it is --- there's enough air resistance that it has to be reboosted at intervals to keep it in orbit. (It has to be that low because otherwise the shuttles can't get there. They have lousy range.) Lowering the orbit any further would be very dangerous.
As for spinning it (you did mean bola, right? Unless you were actually thinking of giant robotic tanks, which I will admit would be quite cool), not only is it not designed for that and would fall apart, but if you want gravity there's plenty on Earth, where it's quite cheap. One of the main purposes for getting into space is to get free fall.
I rather regret that Mir was destroyed for purely political reasons. If the ISS was built as a set of add-on modules to Mir, gradually superseding Mir's own modules as they began to break down, construction could have gone a lot faster. Even if the Mir modules stopped working completely, they'd still have considerable value as salvage.
I want a balloon. A ten or twenty metre inflatable habitat module, semitransparent hopefully, in which plants a grown. Inflatables and plastics are the future of spaceflight; look at the cool stuff that Bigelow Aerospace are doing. But even they are simply replicating existing modules using inflatables. It ought to be possible to use the new materials to radically change the way space stations are built. How about a 100m wide spherical envelope, full of air, with your space station built inside? Now, that would be cool, particularly once you have a decent amount of plant life in there...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or even the n th time. A system as large and complex as the ISS will always have problems. Period.
these problems are the reason we need ISS (Score:5, Insightful)
And the biggest thing that amazes me is that these problems are the biggest reason to have the space station!!! We have to learn how to fly in space long term... and fix problems just like these!! what kind of problems do you think we will have when we go to the moon and mars?? do people honestly think if we just drop what we are doing and took off trying to get to mars, we would find out just how much learning we have left to do.
overall, i think the american public is left feeling ashamed of the problems they see on the ISS, instead of being proud of the accomplishment because they don't really comprehend just how insane the Apollo successes were, and how ahead of their time they were. We really do have a lot left to learn about flying in space and fixing things in space with the materials in place, and unless we want to take insane risks and costs like were done in the Apollo program, we need to do that with the space station.
these problems... their detection, isolation, and recovery, are the greatest asset of the space station.
Parent
Re:these problems are the reason we need ISS (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
2nd [wikipedia.org]?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:these problems are the reason we need ISS (Score:5, Funny)
Please come down to my office right away.
Parent
Re:Comes with the territory (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not kidding. The submitter's complaint is like bitching about the Wright Brother's airplane not being able to fly 100 people across the Atlantic by the end of 1904. The thing is an experiment, ok? Some problems may be due to poor decision making, but I think we can still cut them some slack here. This is not like the Challenger disaster where I believe upper management committed criminal negligence for political expediency. They were warned about that impending failure to the point that the TV news reporters were discussing it before launch. So they got a leak. Use it to ventilate the bathroom.
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Re: (Score:2)
Re:Comes with the territory (Score:4, Funny)
The kit contains foil and a pack of Tropical Fruit Bubbalicious...
Parent
Re:Comes with the territory (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
ultrasonic leak detector? (Score:3, Funny)
I Agree! (Score:5, Funny)
What is up with that?
Re:I Agree! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
"when will it end?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"when will it end?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Going to space is hard (Score:5, Insightful)
Going to space is hard. It shouldn't stop us from doing it. Issues will crop up.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
pin sized hole hard to reach (Score:5, Informative)
Re:pin sized hole hard to reach (Score:5, Informative)
Needles to say, the effusion equations have various assumptions built into them, and I had to make all kinds of assumptions about the values... but at least to within order-of-magnitude, this suggests a pinhole-sized leak.
Details for anyone who cares: The effusion equation can be derived similar to the conventional gas law expressions, by calculating the number of molecules per unit area that impinge on a wall section of a certain size (the hole). (We assume a container in vacuum, so that any molecule that impinges on the hole is lost irreversibly to the outside.) The equation, as you might expect, turn out to be exponential decays (since the derivation incorporates the decreasing internal pressure as air is lost):
N(t)/N_total = exp( -(A/V)*sqrt(k*T/2*pi*m)*t )
or
t = ( -(V/A)*sqrt(2*pi*m/k*T) )*ln(N(t)/N_total)
where:
t, time (until the given loss of atmosphere)
V, volume of container
A, surface area of hole
m, mass of gas molecules
T, temperature (~300 K for room temperature)
k, Boltzmann constant [wikipedia.org]
N(t), # molecules at time t
N_total, total # molecules (initial quantity)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyways, I am sorry for not being very clear in my previous post.
Here is the reasoning: number of molecules that escape depend on the opening area, the time, and the number of collisons. The collisions depend on the pressure, temperature, and the molecular mass only (the formula is p * sqrt(1/(2 k T m)) where P
Gotta take a leak (Score:2, Funny)
3 lbs a day!? (Score:2)
Re:3 lbs a day!? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Cues (Score:3, Funny)
Cue government space programs vs private space programs debate.
(At least the breathing oxygen vs breathing vacuum debate would be short.)
End debate (Score:4, Insightful)
Both.
"Cue government space programs vs private space programs debate."
Government for pushing new boundaries, private for established routine stuff.
"
(At least the breathing oxygen vs breathing vacuum debate would be short.)"
I can't weigh in on this one because I couldn't hear what the guy in vacuum was saying...
Parent
Technical issues? (Score:2)
Good they're in Earth orbit ... (Score:2)
Space is hard (Score:5, Insightful)
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." - JFK
http://www.quotesandsayings.com/sjfk.htm [quotesandsayings.com]
Yeah, it's hard and complex. We will learn how to make maintenance of those systems routine and automated. We will continue to look forward, we must less we stagnate and die. The fate of the Dinosaurs will be our fate as well if we don't diversify off this rock. There are a lot of steps between here and the next habitable planet. Whether it's habitable because nature forms more planets like ours, or habitable because we terrorformed it makes no matter.
Pound != 0.454 Kilogram on the ISS (Score:5, Informative)
I hate to break it to this reporter, but on the ISS, a pound is a large number of kilograms, since they are in microgravity. Pound is a unit of weight, and gram is a unit of mass. The conversion between them depends on the gravity that the object is experiencing, which in this case is almost none, so the 1.3 kilograms of air is almost 0 pounds.
Mod parent up! (Score:2)
-Rick
Re:Mod parent up! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Pound != 0.454 Kilogram on the ISS (Score:5, Informative)
Pound is a unit of weight, and gram is a unit of mass.
My dad, who is from the Olden Days when people used pounds and inches, and an Engineer, says that there exists a "pound-mass" and a "pound-force" and the reader is expected to have the wit, depending on context, to distinguish between them.
Parent
Re:Pound != 0.454 Kilogram on the ISS (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Too bad we can't moderate the TLP as "troll". (Score:3, Insightful)
Full Machine Shop (Score:2)
Simple fix? (Score:2)
Send 'em a can of industrial grade great stuff [dow.com].
(ducks)
Movie-inspired salvation (Score:5, Funny)
Let's give up on all research. (Score:5, Funny)
Yet another round of bugs were discovered in several major operating systems and userland packages. I'm all for operating systems, user software, and advances in computing technology. but there have been some major issues lately. I vote we give up and go back to the abacus and using smoke signals to communicate.
failure is not an option? (Score:5, Interesting)
Examples:
Gemini 8 thruster stuck. Armstrong was able to regain control and return safely home.
Apollo 11 landing 1201 and 1202 program alarms. Programmers on the ground and flight engineers were able to rapidly determine that the alarms posed no threat and the landing continued to success.
Apollo 13. Catastrophic explosion disabled the service module. The astronauts returned home safely using the LEM as a lifeboat and some creative navigation.
Skylab launch: Ripped off a solar panel and part of the outer skin. Astronauts were able to rig a replacement screen to cool inside of the lab and open the other solar panel that was stuck partly open. Three expeditions extended the time in space records and recorded what was then the most detail solar observations ever.
STS-49: Multiple attempts to capture and return an Intelsat satellite failed, but a final attempt involving the shuttle commander flying directly to the satellite and it being hand-captured by 3 spacewalkers succeeded.
There are plenty more, including the recent working solving problems with stuck and torn solar panels.
Incidentally, these kinds of things are why I favor human spaceflight over robots for complex and difficult challenges.
Idiot OP? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a minor leak, but it's very expensive air (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Each module was independantly sealed as the station was built. Would it not be possible to 'close the door' on each module, all at once or by turns, and locate, at least generally, the leak?