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Space Science

Space Station Slowly Falling Apart? 341

Posted by michael from the baling-wire-and-duct-tape dept.
Yoda2 writes "MSNBC discusses debris apparently seen by the crew floating away from the International Space Station. From the article, 'Such debris may include fragments of insulation, labels and possibly important components.' Yikes! Many of these quotes seem appropriate."
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Space Station Slowly Falling Apart? More

Space Station Slowly Falling Apart?

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  • Scotty quotes? (Score:5, Informative)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) * on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:09PM (#8309036) Homepage
    For the life of me, I can't comprehend why the editors front-paged a Geocities link. Special treat to subscribers, perhaps?

    For those of you who can't get to it, don't worry--you didn't miss much. It's just a compilation of Scotty quotes, and contrary to the submitter's assertion, hardly any of them apply to the current situation.

    Unless, of course, the ISS has warp drives.

    Or is in the midst of battle with Klingons.

    • Re:Scotty quotes? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:13PM (#8309121)
      Here's the geocities list before it exceeds its bandwidth:

      "It fits like a glove, Captain." -- Scotty, Where No Man Has Gone Before, stardate 1312.4, Episode 2
      "Even if we were under full scale attack I couldn't move any faster, not and maintain a safety factor." -- Scotty, The Naked Time, stardate 1704.2, Episode 7
      "That was a pretty good gamble." -- Scotty, The Galileo Seven, stardate 2821.5, Episode 14
      "I'd love to tear this baby apart." -- Scotty, Space Seed, stardate 3141.9, Episode 24
      "The warp drive is a hopeless pile of junk." -- Scotty, The Doomsday Machine, stardate 4202.9, Episode 35
      "The shape the thing's in it's hard to keep it from blowin'." -- Scotty, The Doomsday Machine, stardate 4202.9, Episode 35
      "Laddie...don't you think you should...rephrase that?" -- Scotty, The Trouble With Tribbles, stardate 4523.3, Episode 42
      "It's, uh, it's green!" -- Scotty, By Any Other Name, stardate 4657.5, Episode 50
      "Any man who could perform such a feat, I wo'd na dare disappoint. She'll launch on time. And she'll be ready." -- Scotty, Star Trek: The Motion Picture
      "It's borderline on the simulator, we need to do more tests." -- Scotty, Star Trek: The Motion Picture
      "Just a minute, Exec, we're picking up the pieces down here." -- Scotty, Star Trek: The Motion Picture
      "The engine imbalance is what caused the worm-hole in the first place. It'll happen again if we don't fix it." -- Scotty, Star Trek: The Motion Picture
      "We can't take another attack." -- Scotty, Star Trek: The Motion Picture
      "Just the batteries. I can give you inpulse power in a couple minutes." -- Scotty, Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
      "Aye. And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon." -- Scotty, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
      "A chimpazee and two trainees could run her." -- Scotty, "Thank you. I'll try not to take that personally." -- Kirk, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
      "Scotty, you're as good as your word." -- kirk, "Aye sir, the more they overtake the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain." -- Scotty, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
      "Aye. Warp drive standing by." -- Scotty, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock "I find it hard to believe I've traveled millions of miles..." -- Scotty, "...thousands..." -- McCoy, "...thousands of miles for an invited tour..." -- Scotty, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
      "A ship is a ship." -- Kirk, "Whatever you say...thy will be done." -- Scotty, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
      "I know this ship like the back of my hand (bonk)." -- Scotty, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
      "All I can say is...they don't make them like they used ta." -- Scotty, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
      "How many times da I have to tell ya...the right tool for the right job!" -- Scotty, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
      "Finding retirement a wee bit lonely, aren't we?" -- Scotty to Kirk, Star Trek VII: Generations
      "I've given her all she's got captain, and I can't give her no more." -- Scotty, (Several Times)
      "She won't take much more of this." -- Scotty, (Several Times)
      "This jurry-rigging won't last for long..." -- Scotty, (Several Times)
      "Are ya daft lad!!!" -- Scotty to Geordi LaForge, Relics
      "NCC 1701. No bloody A, B, C, or D." -- Scotty yelling at the Enterprise-D's holodeck computer, Relics
      "It's...it's... ... ...um, it's green." -- Data to Scotty, refering to an unmarked bottle of alcoholic content while with him in Ten Forward, Relics

    • Re:Scotty quotes? (Score:5, Funny)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:18PM (#8309199)
      . . .hardly any of them apply to the current situation.

      It's worse than that Jim, hardly any of them were any good.

      Not that it matters, it's dead Jim, dead Jim, dead Jim, dead.

      KFG

    • Re:Scotty quotes? (Score:5, Funny)

      by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) * on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:38PM (#8309449) Homepage Journal
      For those of you who can't get to it, don't worry--you didn't miss much. It's just a compilation of Scotty quotes, and contrary to the submitter's assertion, hardly any of them apply to the current situation.

      Unlucky me, I fell in Geocities' good graces and was welcomed by an auto-playing sound file. I'm supposed to be in the middle of a big project, typing away furiously, and suddenly my speakers burst out with "Hello, Computer"!

      Now, people are looking around the cube wall seeing me surfing Slashdot.

      Oops, gotta go.

  • So... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:09PM (#8309045) Homepage Journal
    So what we're saying is, Mir was actually pretty damn good.

  • What would Scotty say... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gil2796 ( 585952 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:10PM (#8309065)
    ... if the Enterprise were ever let to run down to such a state?!

    It wouldn't be pretty...

  • POSSIBLY important (Score:5, Funny)

    by Deraj DeZine ( 726641 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:11PM (#8309078)
    and
    possibly important components

    Is this a nice way of saying that a slothful astronaut got sucked out into space?

  • Race: Payload checklist. IRS surveillance satellite --
    Buzz: Check.
    Race: Ant farm --
    Buzz: Check.
    Race: Children's letters to God --
    Buzz: Check.

    --- Deep Space Homer

  • Labels... (Score:5, Funny)

    by addie ( 470476 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:11PM (#8309082)
    include fragments of insulation, labels and possibly important components

    Labels? Like "Canadarm" or "U.S.A." ? Please don't tell me there's a Taco Bell billboard up there too!

    • Re:Labels... (Score:3, Funny)

      by shotfeel ( 235240 )
      I'm picturing labels like "Don't Ever Push This Big Red Button" floating off into space.

      Or the "Pull" label next to the hatch.

      Those kinds of labels.

  • Remerbers.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by derphilipp ( 745164 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:11PM (#8309084) Homepage
    Remebers me of the "Armageddon" movie - the "russian" kind of repair-method
    *kick*slam* hey ! it works !

    The line between trolling and humor is thin.

  • Oh no... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bendebecker ( 633126 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:12PM (#8309090) Journal
    There goes the $10,000 wrench. There goes the $20,000 hammer...

    • Re:Oh no... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Boglin ( 517490 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @06:30PM (#8310107) Journal
      Except, on the space station, you might actually need a $10,000 screwdriver. After all, you don't have the ground to leverage yourself against, so it's quite possible with a simple screwdriver to rotate there in space while the damn screw doesn't move at all. I remember that NASA found a way around this and that it wasn't cheap (though I don't think it was ten grand).

  • In Soviet Russia (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:12PM (#8309095)


    America pays all the bills!

  • Fun and Games on the station (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:13PM (#8309112) Homepage Journal


    Cosmonaut : [peering out window] I spy vith my leetle eye.. something that is yellow.
    Astronaut : Hey, we have this game in the US too! Umm yellow.. a sticker?
    Cosmonaut : Be more specivic.
    Astronaut : A sticker that says "Outer Hatch"?
    Cosmonaut : Da! You wi.....
    21908uje12~~!~~~

    [END TRANSMISSION]

  • Just me? (Score:3, Funny)

    by CaseM ( 746707 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:14PM (#8309122)
    Did anyone else read that as "the crew was floating away from the space station"? I thought "Damn, things *are* getting bad..."

  • hmm (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rotting ( 7243 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:14PM (#8309131)
    I wonder if it is all coming from the space station. There must be a lot of crap up there now... unless decaying orbits take care of that sort of thing?

    Perhaps it is a sneaky astronaut out there snapping pieces off to frighten the others... All in good fun.

    • Definitely ISS debris (Score:5, Informative)

      by Buran ( 150348 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:20PM (#8309233)
      Yes, it is station debris. The odds of anything passing within view of the crew is very, very small unless it came from the vehicle they are in. The kind of debris that is being talked about here (possibly launch stow clamps for Progress/Soyuz solar panels) is quite small and would be extremely difficult to see from greater distances. These parts are used to hold the solar panels in the folded position during ascent and are no longer needed once the spacecraft is in orbit and the panels unfold.

      The station normally has a Soyuz docked (for crew escape) and a Progress docked (for resupply and refuelling and trash stowage.) That's four solar panels right there. In addition, the Russian station modules (except for the Pirs airlock) have their own solar panels, as they operated autonomously at first, and provided power to the US modules earlier in the assembly sequence before the larger US array was added.

      The biggest worry is that one of these pieces could impact the station and damage it.

  • It's not from the Space Station (Score:5, Informative)

    by hcg50a ( 690062 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:17PM (#8309170) Journal
    The article clearly states the piece was from the Progress or Soyuz spacecraft docked to the Space Station. It is a part that locks down the solar panels on these craft.

    • Re:It's not from the Space Station (Score:4, Informative)

      by Bendebecker ( 633126 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:21PM (#8309247) Journal
      "The article clearly states the piece was from the Progress or Soyuz spacecraft docked to the Space Station. It is a part that locks down the solar panels on these craft."

      In other words the next part we shoudl expect to hear floating off the station is the solar panels. Uhhh, if the solar panels go, what will keep the capsule powered (I assume it has something running that the solar panels power)???

      • It's actually... (Score:5, Informative)

        by AzrealAO ( 520019 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:24PM (#8309273)
        part of the explosive restraining bolt assembly, that keeps the solar panel stowed during launch. Once it get's into orbit, the bolt's are blown apart, and the solar panel's deploy, so they're not needed once the Progress is in orbit.

        The pieces of the bolt are supposed to stay secured to the spacecraft with restraining wire (so that you don't have bolts and stuff tumbling around in the same orbit with you). The article says they're going to move the Canadarm into position to check to see if one of these restraining bolts is missing.
  • Abort the mission.
  • faster than an old rusty valiant. We need to send some duct tape up there pronto!

  • Ok ok -- here we go... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:19PM (#8309215)
    1) I always knew that such an international collaboration is succeptible to fragmenting.

    2) Someone send in Tom Ridge with plastic wrap and duct tape.

    3) In ISS, the computers defrag you!

    4) The ISS -- Modular programming at its finest.

    5) ISS -- I could have sworn it was Apache Station

    6) NASA is waiting for an official patch for ISS

    7) Aussie quoted: "pull yourself together, mate! Yer fallin apart!"

    8) ISS -- where do you want to fragment today?

  • Try what they did on MIR (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:21PM (#8309250)
    On MIR, when this happened, they just shipped up more vodka from the gravity well.

    Pretty soon, no-one cared that they were floating in a tin-can far above the world.

    Problem solved.

  • Nature Calls (Score:2, Funny)

    by tds67 ( 670584 )
    During a spacewalk in early 2001, a dropped tool drifted away from the station..

    It must be cold in space for that to happen. But when you gotta go, you gotta go!

  • Warning: (Score:5, Funny)

    by mark0 ( 750639 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:23PM (#8309266)
    Objects in Mir are closer than they appear.

    Ooops. Wrong station.

  • What happens when.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by acadiel ( 627312 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:23PM (#8309267) Homepage
    Just another day on the ISS when...

    (Carl) Hey, Herb - there's something floating outside

    (Herb) Well, take a picture of it with the camera on the robotic arm, for goodness sake!

    (Carl) Uh, Herb, we have a problem. It *IS* the robotic arm.

  • it's what you expect when... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:25PM (#8309287)
    everything these days is built to the minumum specifications by the lowest bidder...

    Now who's up for that one-way trip to Mars???

  • Moon station... (Score:2, Funny)

    by avc ( 621144 )
    Now I see why they want to build the next one on the moon. No parts lost in space, just collect and reassemble...

  • Labels? wtf?! (Score:4, Funny)

    by DR SoB ( 749180 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:33PM (#8309401) Journal
    "the International Space Station. From the article, 'Such debris may include fragments of insulation, labels and possibly important components.'"

    Anyone else curious why they would put LABELS on the outside of ISS? (THIS SIDE UP!)? I wonder how many UFO's have read them yet..
    • I dunno about UFOs, but maybe docking space craft from Earth might find it useful...

    • Re:Labels? wtf?! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by M1FCJ ( 586251 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:59PM (#8309707) Homepage
      Something people don't understand is once you've been up there, most probably you won't go back again unless you are lucky/have a good relationship with management. Most people go to space for at most three times, only one has been there for seven times. Russians have a smaller cosmonaut team. This means they can actually have people experienced with the actual thing. Two years of training and two weeks on the shuttle is nothing compared to the russian cosmonauts' flying time experience.

      As a result, when you are in the station, you won't be able to find anything. This was a major issue with Mir and Skylab, probably it was with Salyuts as well. No one stows the experiment equipment once they use it, just straps it into a convenient location. If you do a space walk, the chances are it will be your first time outside of the space station and you will get lost, won't find what you are looking for and won't remember the training session you had a year ago in a boring, hot Texan day.

      Labels are for convenience.

    • LABELS???? (Score:2, Funny)

      by DOCStoobie ( 731093 )
      Yeah, you know, the "caution, reading this from outside the space station amy cause you to implode." and the "Unleaded Fuel Only." and of course the "Oxygen in use, avoid all sparks or open flames." Oh, and the bumper sticker"My other shit can doesn't orbit."

  • Shaking it up? (Score:5, Funny)

    by MrEd ( 60684 ) <`ten.liamliah' `ta' `godenot'> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:34PM (#8309411)
    In the past, during periods of strong rhythmic thumping on an exercise device, the solar arrays on docked Soyuz and Progress craft can be observed to jiggle.

    ... okay, guys, lay off the rythmic thumping, ok?

  • The real conclusion (Score:5, Informative)

    by Zebra_X ( 13249 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:38PM (#8309456)
    That first paragraph prented as the headline is a bit inaccurate. Basically the article goes on to explain that the part in question is part of an explosive bolt, read, disposable. The space station is not falling apart as out slashdot editors would have us believe.

    Images of the object were sent to the Russians, and the boltlike object looked familiar. "Preliminary info from Moscow indicates that the eyebolt may be from the Soyuz solar arrays," the NASA report said. "Four of them are used to safe the [solar array] during launch with a hook mechanism, which is released via [explosive bolt] after insertion [into orbit]. The bolts are secured with a nut and a locking wire, and apparently one of them came free."

    The same bolts are used both on the Soyuz crew transport spacecraft and on Progress, the Russian-built cargo-only ship. Both vehicles are currently docked at the station, and NASA sources said Tuesday the Russians now believe the piece actually came off the Progress, which arrived at the space station at the end of last month. In the past, during periods of strong rhythmic thumping on an exercise device, the solar arrays on docked Soyuz and Progress craft can be observed to jiggle.
  • Stay back 200 ft. Not responsible for broken windshield.

  • Open the podbay doors, Hal. (Score:5, Funny)

    by nphillips ( 321320 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:45PM (#8309529)
    I'm sorry Dave, I can not do that. It fell off already.
  • They are not going to bring the thing down.

    They are not going to close it and bring the crew home.

    There is too much American pride wrapped up in this thing even if it servers not purpose, and that means it will stay up there no matter what.

    Some have theorized that the entire moon/Mars thing is simply a glorified plan to wrap ISS in some purpose people can grasp.

    In any case, the Boeing gravy train will continue to orbit for some time.

  • Oh great (Score:5, Funny)

    by Savatte ( 111615 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:49PM (#8309571) Homepage Journal
    my head injury from Skylab just cleared up 3 days ago, now I have to worry about this.
  • I dont mean to be offtopic or seen as a flamebait, but where are all the slashdotters clamoring for the scrapping of the ISS program, in order to save the Hubble satellite?

    I think a great way for NASA to get out of its current catch-22 would be to fake a disaster, get the astro/cosmonauts to evac in the soyuz, and de-orbit the station with a big bang and lots of sparks and contrails...

  • if it's true that pieces are falling off... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ZipR ( 584654 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:59PM (#8309698)
    and if these pieces are coming to earth... I think it may be time for me to add an extra layer of protection to my tinfoil hat.
  • The debris seen floating away from the ISS pales in comparison to the latest piece of ejecta.

    Apparently, the communication module for the ISS broke away last week, and was large enough to survive re-entry to the earth's atmosphere.

    Officials tracked the piece via radar until it impacted somehwere in NYC.

    Officials now say they have located the piece, which is in the possession of a street rapper named J-pod. When asked if he would return the piece to scientists for further investigation, he replied,

  • And that's just... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LooseChanj ( 17865 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:14PM (#8310623) Homepage
    ...the stuff we know about. We had a discussion about this at work recently, and noted that if you wanted to point a camera looking *forward* and *below* for any departing debris.

  • "Aggressive safety program" -- what happened? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Shakrai ( 717556 ) * on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:48PM (#8310942) Journal

    I'm surprised that nobody else noticed this (too busy making Scottie jokes) but read this paragraph from the end of the MSNBC article:

    During the Apollo missions, debris flaking off spacecraft became such a common occurrence that astronauts and ground controllers nicknamed them "moon pigeons." At that time, NASA created an aggressive safety program to detect and identify all such objects in case any were indicative of some unexpected failure mode of the space vehicles.

    So, what happened? Was this "aggressive safety program" discontinued after Apollo or just ignored when chunks of foam [newsday.com] fell off the fuel tank and hit Columbia?

  • I sure hope they don't lose the Blue Alert bulb.

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