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Space Science

NASA Engineers Question ISS Safety 247

Posted by michael from the in-the-event-of-a-water-landing dept.
Atryn writes "New Scientist is reporting concerns over deteriorating equipment on ISS. ISS will celebrate another anniversary on Nov 2 marking its 3rd complete year. This story was also covered on CNN International and covered on Space.com."
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NASA Engineers Question ISS Safety More

NASA Engineers Question ISS Safety

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  • I heard... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sir Haxalot ( 693401 )
    New Scientist is reporting that concerns over deteriorating equipment on ISS
    I heard a program was being put in place to get together new equipment, repair old equipment etc a while back, I wonder what happened to that?

    • Re:I heard... (Score:2, Informative)

      by bombadillo ( 706765 )
      "I heard a program was being put in place to get together new equipment, repair old equipment etc a while back, I wonder what happened to that?"

      Dick Cheney's New America is what happened.

    • Re:I heard... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by BillFarber ( 641417 )
      poll:

      1) Bush administration cut funding for my tax cut.
      2) Congress people too stupid to care about space. 3) Russian components
      4) Liberals that want to give poor people more benefits.
      n) NASA shouldn't have given CmdrTaco the helm.

      • 2) Congress people too stupid to care about space.

        The scientific justifications for the ISS were primarily bullshit in the first place. If Congress weren't so useless much of the time, they'd never have poured money into it to begin with; that they did suggests that either they really are stupid, but not the way you meant, or that they voted for it to make the defense contractors happy.

        I work in a field which is being touted as one of the reasons why we need space-based research, and it just makes me hy

  • They just don't make em like they use to.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by reality-bytes ( 119275 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:26PM (#7293861) Homepage
    Good grief, safety concerns over equipment after just three years!

    Its not like back in my day (Mir era) - All they had to do back then to keep things ship-shape was to put a coin in the meter and remember to wind up the master computer every day.....

  • Too bad (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bigjnsa500 ( 575392 ) <bigjnsa500@@@yahoo...com> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:27PM (#7293877) Homepage Journal
    Too bad there isn't enough interest in space research anymore. Everybody is too focused on their lattes and PDAs. You gotta look UP people! Where do you think Velcro came from?

  • Odd... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hookedup ( 630460 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:27PM (#7293878)
    The Washington Post reported Thursday, however, that two officials overseeing health and environmental conditions on the space station didn't sign off on the launch, instead signing a dissent that warned about ``the continued degradation'' of the environmental monitoring and health maintenance systems and exercise equipment vital to the astronauts' well being.

    Shouldnt these people _have_ to agree that it's safe in order for it to keep operating? They, after all, are the "officials overseeing health and environmental conditions". Who has to say 'yes' or 'no' and have it mean something?
    • And, as the Columbia report made it VERY obvious that management ignoring technical advice led to the disaster, don't you think the NASA managers would heed the warning _this_ time?


      Dumb and dumber...

      ---rhad

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Objections to launch are weighed, and if necessary a launch will be cancelled. The objections this time seem to be concerned with the ability to live on the ISS. If life support systems fail, there's always the Soyuz escape vehicle available. There are different ways of looking at what is safe. Safe enough is what counts.

  • There's a lot more CYA going on at NASA nowadays (Score:5, Insightful)

    by monkeydo ( 173558 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:28PM (#7293881) Homepage
    The next time something goes wrong no body wants to be the engineer who didn't warn management. Look far a lot more of these announcements of engineers predicting bad things, just in case.
    • The next time something goes wrong no body wants to be the engineer who didn't warn management.

      It sort of defeats the purpose of Professional Engineers being able to take responsibility of things. It sounds like NASA culture encourages top-down managment, which is bad for something as complex as what they do.

    • The next time something goes wrong no body wants to be the engineer who didn't warn management.

      A very telling point, but...

      The problems isn't informing management, that happened in both the Challenger and Columbia accidents. But in niether accident did the engineers make the risks and level of danger clear to management. I know it's fashionable to blame the PHB's, but both the Rodgers and CAIB reports make it abundantly clear that when push came to shove, the engineers depended on veiled innuendo rathe

    • There will be a space accident threat index, that never, ever goes down to green, and will go up to orange during space shuttle landings.

      "Orange" means "we didn't know what bad thing might happen, but we did know a bad thing would happen." If the bad thing doesn't happen, credit the "Orange" condition for preventing it.
  • They simply need to upgrade to the latest version of windows to have 99.999 uptime! ;-)

  • Keep the ISS manned (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sssmashy ( 612587 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:29PM (#7293901)

    There is believed to be tension within NASA between safety experts who fear the ISS is becoming dangerously dilapidated and astronauts and managers who do not want to leave the outpost unmanned for fear it could become vulnerable to an accident that would make it spiral out of control.

    Space travel is generally acknowledged to be risky. The astronauts are certainly aware of this. NASA should do all they can to repair the ISS, but it makes no sense to jettison a project that cost tens of billions of dollars (not to mention millions of man-hours) simply because the risk levels have increased.

    • Re:Keep the ISS manned (Score:4, Insightful)

      by brulman ( 183184 ) * on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:39PM (#7294013)
      At the same time, I think we have to ask ourselves if the ISS is worth the tens of billions of dollars paid, the billions yet to be paid, as well as the potential risks to the lives of the brave men and women we place there. The ISS has never lived up to the research potential promised when it was sold to the taxpayers.

      • Come on! The ants of the world need us! How welse wil they ever get to enjoy the joys of zero gravity?


      • I think they said the same thing about Hubble after it's little mishap. But after the first in focus images came back I don't belive there was a single critic who voiced a negitive opinion. Truth is space is deemed an accumplishment by man. We all by instinct are driven to survive and procreate. However Space exploration is like that one accumplishment that has a mesure of honor about it. and yes I know about the starving children in africa.... when was the last time yo made a donation.
        • The difference is there was a problem with the hubbles mirror and after fixing it it worked as it was supposed to function and was great. The ISS works as its supposed to now and we are still getting jack shit from it.
          • It has been greatly cut down from what is supposed to do, it is also not even finished being built.

            We are getting jack shit from it because folks don't have the guts to stay the course in under taking sich a major task.
          • In addition, the science behind Hubble was realistic to begin with. None of this microgravity ant farm bullshit. As someone else pointed out, the Columbia disaster is even more tragic when you consider how worthless many of the mission goals were - seven people died for an elementary school science fair project.
      • The ISS has never lived up to the research potential promised when it was sold to the taxpayers.
        It's hardly suprising that an * unfinished * facility isn't living to it's promises.
    • No one shoudl be ssuprised its taken ten billion dollars so far. $250,000 for a wrench, $10,000 for a hammer...
    • ISS does nothing. All it does it float around. No one is breaking down the door to do research up there. When is the last time you heard a researcher remark that they wish ISS would be completed so they could get their project up? This is not a risk issue, its an issue of admitting that this project is a drain of resrouces and a waste of time.

  • The Shuttle and Station are guaranteed to have a perfect safty record if no one uses them. I't time to shrug of the Columbia funk and light candle!

  • I don't know what's so shocking... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Not_Wiggins ( 686627 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:32PM (#7293928) Journal
    *Any* complex machinery/construction/whatever is going to need maintenance over time. What I find irritating isn't so much that NASA thinks pieces need to be replaced, but the public's reaction to such news. "What?!? You want more of my money to *repair* the darn thing before it is done being built?"

    Just because it is in space things doesn't mean things won't wear out. This isn't the Star Trek Universe.

    Although, it should be interesting to see how the need for maintenance will affect the development of the spacestation. Sometimes it seems like it was projected based purely on a "best-case" scenario (ie, everything works right the first time and works right until all the work is done).

    I'd like to see how this impacts projected missions to the ISS... if they don't step up the number (of missions), will this lead to an escalating decay in productivity (ie, every flight will be just to bring repair parts for what has been built already?).

  • Oh, Yeah. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by moehoward ( 668736 )
    I'd say we're getting our money's worth out of this thing....

    Between the 2 guys, they can barely keep the thing operational, let alone do anything of value. We are learning nothing except that we suck at living in space. Abandon ship.

    Where's the leadership in congress, the executive branch, NASA, or the scientific community? Who's gonna step up? All are capable. All are too busy with self-congratulations and ass-covering.
    • People need to give up the Star Trek fantasises. We have learned conclusively that space travel is toxic. If not zero G, then radiation. And where would you go? Mars? You would leave Earth for Mars????? I like getting water from the sky periodically, and food from the ground. Very convenient.

      We need to realize manned space travel is not going to happen. There is nowhere to go, and getting there would kill you (if you could even stay alive long enough to get anywhere useful). Manned space travel is one of th

        • A few points worth pondering.
        • The earth's mineral resources (a natural resource for sure, but not to be confused with hydrocarbons) are finite. There is only a certain amount of mineral deposit available to the planetary inhabitants and processes, even through recycling efforts. There is a finite amount of nickel, iron, aluminum, sodium, etc... harvestable from our planet. They do not get replenished. We will need to locate an extra-terrestrial replacement for our mineral resources.
        • Hydrocarbon deposit

        • Still we are not leaving (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @06:36PM (#7296146)
          Just because we are turning Earth into a garbage dump, that doesn't mean manned space travel is any more viable.

          I am not saying it "shouldn't" be done, I am saying it cannot be done.

          Point 1 - where to go? Mars? You would need massive external support to live there. Can't happen if by your arg Earth is gone. Anywhere worth going (Earth like planet) is so far away it is not worth considering given our understanding of physics.....leading to

          Point 2 - don't believe in "warp speed" or some other fantasy that instantly lands you on a paradise in another galaxy instantly. The reality is that even at very high speeds we can conceive of producing, it would take so long to get anywhere useful that you would run out of food, go insane, or get irradiated.

          Robotic life will be the only view of Earth aliens ever see. That wil have to be good enough for our legacy - our organic systems are completely unsuited physically and mentally for long term space exposure. If we want to destroy Earth then we are going to have to deal with having NOWHERE to live.

          • "Point 1 - where to go? Mars? You would need massive external support to live there. Can't happen if by your arg Earth is gone. Anywhere worth going (Earth like planet) is so far away it is not worth considering given our understanding of physics.....leading to"

            I agree we are going the wrong route. But remember, no small portions of our current physics are simply theories dreamed up by someone who was bored one day and only justification for being bought into is they sound reasonable and nobody has come u

          • Just because we are turning Earth into a garbage dump, that doesn't mean manned space travel is any more viable.

            Nobody has made the claim that the state of Earth implies any viability of space travel. You just made up a straw man argument to knock down. Congratulations.

            I am not saying it "shouldn't" be done, I am saying it cannot be done.

            We (international scientific community) are currently exploring whether or not it can be done. We will know it cannot be done when we stop trying and pull res

          • Like many people, you have no concept about space colonization beyond your emphatic bias towards planetary surfaces. By this narrow view, there will never be an attempt to leave Earth, since there's no other surface with such hospitality within any sensible reach. And, of course, the "nowhere to go" mentality leads to the action of "nothing to make". Without a planetary surface waiting for you at the end of the journey, you aren't going to construct one in whatever sense (terraformation, space colonies, etc

  • Poor Michael Foale... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hpulley ( 587866 ) <hpulley4.yahoo@com> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:33PM (#7293953) Homepage

    On the one hand it's great that Michael is doing something many of us only dream of but if the engineers' worries come true then he might be able to take part in disasters on the ISS just like he did on Mir [bbc.co.uk]. Says it didn't put him off long-term space travel though and still wants to go to Mars. Good for him!

  • How Safety works. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mumblestheclown ( 569987 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:35PM (#7293966)
    1. Something gets designed and deployed
    2. For each time interval from initial design to infinity, some engineer is complaining that it's not safe enough and that a more expensive solution or complete redesign is necessary.
    3. For each complaint, managers, who are not technically illiterate, but not as "into it" as the engineers, need to evaluate risk based on imperfect information.
    4. Usually, system robustness and other factors dominate. the system is just fine. the engineer's complaints fade into obscurity, even though "deep down" the engineer knows he was right.
    5. But, occasionally, something goes wrong. Instantly, the managers become know-nothing literature-major innumerate MBAs. The engineer who picked the "winning" flaw gains fame.
    6. Therefore, claiming that something will go wrong with the ISS is a good way as any to win the lottery.
    7. The problem MUST be that managers are unschooled in dynamic systems theory, right? Because they don't understand complexity, probability, and risk---right?
    8. But wait, that's wrong! Today's managers ARE trained in those things - i mean, that is the very basis of being a technical manager today! what's the problem then?
    9. could it be that the engineers are trained in engineering and don't know how to effectively communicate and QUANTIFY their risk assessments? nobody at /. will agree to this, but imho, that view is easily at least half right.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • From the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report:

      "Two years after the conclusion of that study, NASA wrote to Pate'-Cornell and Fishback describing the importance of their work, and stated that it was developing a long-term effort to use probabilistic risk assessment and related disciplines to improve programmatic decisions. Though NASA has taken some measures to invest in probabilistic risk assesment as a tool, it is the Board's view that NASA has not fully exploited the insights that Pate'-Cornell's
      • Richard feynman was a great man. His lectures on physics are amazing.

        But as far as challenger goes, he was being a pompous self-righteous ass.

        He singlehandedly invented the idea of a "management culture" at NASA. he found a few examples of places where risk numbers were inappropriately glazed over and then proceeded to paint the entire NASA management community with this paintbrush that made them look like retards. well, they weren't retards. the bulk of managers well understood the realistic risks

    • You certainly have a good point. But it's more complicated than that. People fall into group-think. People's thought patterns get stuck in a groove and discrepant information gets ignored. People pre-filter information based on experience that may or may not be appropriate. People are just plain dumb. Or too harried to think straight. Or they perceive that they are between a rock and a hard place and just elect to take a risk. Sometimes those risks pay off, sometimes you get clobbered. With the Shuttle it w
  • In the print version of the Washington Post today, there is a picture of the signatures recommending Americans go back up to the station, and two dissenting ones (environmental control guy and health guy). Why, with the supposed new focus on safety at NASA, are we sending these people up when there are any dissenting signatures on that sheet? If some system fails and someone dies, what is NASA going to say? "Duh, we still haven't gotten the whole safety picture thing yet, we'll try to focus more on safet
    • Nothing in this world can be accomplished if you wait for unanimity. Nothing.

      Why would the environmental control guy and health guy sign off? Why should they? Their job is to make sure things DON'T happen, think about that. Certainly they should be heard, but at the end of the day, all they want is to avoid disaster, and the safest thing is never to take off at all.

      That said, the ISS should be deorbited because it's a useless money-pit.

  • IIS Safety (Score:2, Funny)

    by Brandybuck ( 704397 )
    Am I the only one who read the headline as "NASA Engineers Question IIS Safety," and said to himself, "Duh!"

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:47PM (#7294100)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Will the Chinese Space Station work better? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by randall_burns ( 108052 ) <randall_burnsNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:48PM (#7294123)
    Personally, I suspect it will-and the ramifications to the US power structure will be tremendous. The US elites expend a lot of energy to maintain the image that the US is _the_ technological superpower. Problem is, the US government isn't run by men like Franklin and Jefferson any more(guys that got fame by being scientists/inventors)-the congress today is composed almost entirely of a bunch of lying weasels that spend much of their time begging for money from corporate oligarchs and planning their eventual "cash out".

    So can China beat the US in space? At this point, I suspect it can. The US elites are so rapicous they can't provide technical incentives to maintain the present industries in the US without liquidating resources-let alone build new space industries.

    Besides, folks like Bush/Clinton are both kept in office by a steady stream of credit from China and other far eastern countries. Sooner or later that will come to an end. The Chinese leaders strike me as much more cagey than the old Soviet elites-they won't make a really big splash until they think it is too late for the US elites to do anything about it.

  • A few more links (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aengblom ( 123492 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:59PM (#7294248) Homepage
    I always find it interesting when Slashdot links to everyone, but the actual source. The Washington Post, which broke the story [washingtonpost.com] has an article as well as a followup [washingtonpost.com] on how the ISS crew reacted to the news. The reporter also gave an interview [washingtonpost.com].

  • Please scrap the ISS (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Saeger ( 456549 ) <(farrellj) (at) (gmail.com)> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:59PM (#7294250) Homepage
    In the place of the wasteful ISS (which needs to stay porky to keep the budget), we should build a new station that pushes more important boundaries than station maintenance, politics, inchworm robotarms, or microgravity research on snail sex in space.

    We should be focusing on a station that:

    1. Is a self-contained system. (reduced dependence on Earth for supplies lost to inefficiency and leakage).
    2. Rotates for artificial gravity. (don't have to return to the gravity well to restore wasted-away bodies).

    IMHO.

    --

    • Re:Rotates for Artificial Gravity (Score:5, Informative)

      by DanielRavenNest ( 107550 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:16PM (#7295625)
      As I write, I'm in the computer lab where we're
      testing the software for the "Centrifuge Module",
      which is in the queue to be attached to the
      station eventually. The centrifuge will be
      able to spin lab animals at various levels of
      gravity so that we can learn what happens to
      them beween 0 and 1 gee.

      So far we know that at 1 gee, everything is
      normal, and at zero gee your body figures it
      doesn't need bones anymore, so they atrophy.
      What we need to find out is what happens at
      1/6 gee (Moon), 0.38 gee (Mars), and various
      levels of gravity up to 1 gee spinning (because
      that might be different in its effects than
      1 gee not spinning here on Earth).

      With this knowledge we will have some idea
      how to design for lunar bases, mars bases,
      and long duration travel (mars and asteroids).

      Daniel

  • People like O'Keefe are the real problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kneels_bore ( 692208 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @03:03PM (#7294292)
    The following extract from the Columbia report speaks volumes for sort of politically expedient trash which is allowed to "Administer" this once great institution:( cf.Section 5.8 p117)
    "Testifying the same day,Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Sean O'Keefe indicated the Administration's agreement with the planned performance gate:
    The concept presented by the task force of a decision gate in two years that could lead to an end state other than the U.S.core complete Station is an innovative approach,and one the Administration will adopt.It calls for NASA to make the necessary management reforms to
    successfully build the core complete Station and operate it within the $8.3 billion available through FY 2006 plus other human space flight resources. If NASA fails to meet the standards, then an end-state beyond core complete is not an option.The strategy places the burden of proof on NASA performance to ensure that NASA fully implements the needed reforms.
    Mr.O'Keefe added in closing:
    A most important next step -one on which the success of all these reforms hinges is to provide new leadership for NASA and its Human Space Flight activities. NASA has been well-served by Dan Goldin. New leadership is now necessary to continue moving the ball down the field with the goal line in sight.The Administration recognizes the importance of getting the right leaders in
    place as soon as possible,and I am personally engaged in making sure that this happens.
    A week later,Sean O'Keefe was nominated by President Bush as the new NASA Administrator." End of extract
  • If the system addy here can keep a pdp-11 just by working on it during his spare time, i don't see why tehy can't handle the ISS with what they have.
  • ISS takes the cake for the greatest white elephant project since Star Wars. I have to hand it to Boeing - they really played NASA and the government like fiddles on this one, resulting in a massive transfer of funds with practically nothing of lasting scientific (or industrial, or commerical) value being returned.

    We have all the science from ISS we will ever need- prolonged exposure to zero-G environments is toxic. None of the other science promised in the 80s is worth pursuing in zero-G anymore - computer

  • Leave space to the professionals... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <`imipak' `at' `yahoo.com'> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @03:21PM (#7294516) Homepage Journal
    ...like the various X-Prize teams.


    If a NASA shuttle blows up, they just have a public enquiry. If an X-Prize rocket blows up, the team loses all their bragging rights. Hey, that's a lot of incentive.


    For those who've followed my previous posts on space travel, I have always contended that amateur and semi-professional ventures will ALWAYS out-pace both the commercial and Government sectors.


    This is what we're seeing. The ESA, the Russians and the Chinese are mostly into commercial space work. The ESA is only just about at the moon, and there's no evidence any of them are interested in going further. This after two decades of effort by all concerned.


    At the Government/National/International level, everything is either dead, dying or very likely to start dying in the near future. This, after over three decades of effort by all concerned.


    The X-Prize contestents have not seriously been working on any large-scale rocketry, with the exception of the Australian OzRoc team. The UK's Starchaser group looks promising, but until they started into the X-Prize, they were not doing much beyond high-altitude rocketry for photography and other basic commercial work.


    The serious amateur work has been done in the past three to four years. In that time, amateurs have gone from sending up cameras to being within a year of sending 3-man crews into space. The Chinese only managed a single man crew, in decades of work at space research.


    I really and truly believe that by 2100, the aerospace engineers working -on- Mars will be the philosophical descendents of people like Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox.


    Those working on putting pop-up ads into Mars orbit will be the commercial sector. (Apart from those putting pop-up ads into Earth orbit.)


    Those working on a white paper speculating on the number of votes the last accident cost the President or Prime Minister will be employed by the Government.


    The bottom line is this. Rocks in space aren't on the electoral register and don't have money to spend. Until someone gets there first and creates a reason for others to follow, they won't. This has always been true in exploration. Geeks Lead, Leaders Follow.

  • Next Story: NAZI Party Officials Blast SS Deathtroops for human rights violations
  • yet no years complete!
  • Would someone please remind me what exactly is going on up there that is worth risking lives and spending money to continue? ISS in its current condition (of repair and staffing) is doing effectively no research or engineering work beyond "Let's put some guys in space and see if they get sick", and that's been done previously and with more functional medical gear.

    What, at this point, is ISS for?
  • Manned space flight is the wrong way to go. If it were all machines, nobody would be perceiving any serious problems here. Not to mention far more bang for the buck, pay as you go, don't worry about anyone getting stranded or hurt, etc.

    Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot. If there are no people there, then we aren't exercising our adventurous human spirit, expressing our curiosity, daring to do eexciting things, being spiritually aware (or whatever), making startling new advances in medical technology, and all those g

  • I remember one thing about US vs. RSSR.
    It's the pen in space story.
    The US spent about 50000 to find a pen that would work in space, the lack of gravity posed problems for the ink. Once NASA and the russian team started to work together, the NASA guys wondered how they managed the ink problem. Russian's wondered what it was about. They were using 1000 years old technology: the pencil. A pencill can work underwather and into space without some complex system putting pressure for the ink.
    I think this is a good
  • Sheesh, everybody else already knows the IIS is hopelessly bugridden and the very definition of security hole.

    You might as well allow telnet access to your machine via the guest account and give the guest account administrative privlages... ok that wouldn't be quite as insecure, but you might get close if you posted the fact you did this as an article on slashdot and invited everyone to tear up your stuff, putting it in writing that you have 12million credit card numbers on the box, the exact path, and exp

  • NASA didn't have a choice (Score:3, Interesting)

    by igny ( 716218 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @09:26PM (#7297074) Homepage Journal

    Besides the prime crew (M. Foale, A.Yu. Kaleri, P. Duque) there was a backup crew (W. McArthur, V.I. Tokarev, A. Kuipers) of the Soyuz TMA-3 ship. If, for any reason, NASA backed out, but Russians (and probably ESA) did not share the same concerns, they would have sent Tokarev instead of Foale. For the first time ever, the ISS team would have been %100 Russians, thanks to whistle-blowers in NASA. Then the American Public asked NASA "Ahem, did you just spend some $30bln+, and then backed out, giving the way to Russians?" And then what? Will NASA just write off ISS, and let other nations use it? Or NASA will sabotage any such use, possibly by disassembling or destroying american parts of ISS or making them uninhabitable or otherwise offlimit to visitors? I know that is ridiculous, but so are any demands to abandon the project.

    For your information. Russians can build Energias, which is a monstrous rocket booster capable to lift huge fully automated cargo vessels. In contrast to american shuttles, Buran, the russian shuttle, did not have to use engines for the lift off, all the heavylifting work was done by Energia. Buran's engines were used primarily for maneuvering on orbit and deorbiting. Its only flight has been fully automated. That would have been an ideal tool to bring pieces of ISS up there. In fact Russians proposed use of Energia/Buran for ISS construction, but NASA, of course rejected the plan. Russians did not have enough money, and NASA wanted to sponsor its own technologies, and use american labor. It cost a lot more, but helped Boeing, other NASA's contractors, and, probably, american economy in general. More was spent, but more was spent in US, not in Russia.

    Of course, despite evident capabilities of Russians, they are not able to build or to use ISS without NASA, even with cooperation with Europeans and Japanese and Chinese. Not yet anyway.

    Russian Space Corporation Energia [energia.ru]
  • Safety issues on the ISS? Who the hell cares about that, anyway? The ISS's only purpose is to hang there for a few years before NASA declares it defunct, lets it burn up in the atmosphere, and then makes grandiose plans for the next-generation, multi-billion-dollar, goddamn boondoggle. We let Skylab and Mir fall and burn ... so what makes you think the ISS will end up any different?

    We spend $10K per kilogram or pound (I forget) to hoist entirely reusable stuff to orbit, but that's still not enough money

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