Space Station Crew Forced to Cut Calories 434
gollum123 writes "CNN and others are reporting that food is running so low aboard the international space station that both the crew members have been asked to cut their calories, at least until a Russian supply ship arrives in a little over two weeks. The situation is so bad that if a Russian cargo vessel scheduled to arrive on Dec. 25 has a mishap or is significantly delayed, the astronauts, one American and one Russian, will have to abandon the station and return home months ahead of schedule. An independent team is looking into how the food inventory ended up being tracked so poorly and how it can be improved in the future."
And there's no real science going on... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sick joke... (Score:3, Informative)
Q: Why do they only drink Sprite at NASA?
A: Because they can't get 7-Up!
And the Challenger didn't go up, it went down. Fuck dude...get it straight. The Iraqi Information Minister's second cousin was more funny than you.
Re:This is really bad (Score:4, Informative)
Without the corner-cutting Russians they would have to wait for the next Space Shuttle for food... could be a long hungry wait. (yes, I know that they have a Soyus capsule for emergencies, which incidentially also is Russian).
Re:Space Takeout?? and From the Article (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't bother with the Russian food jokes. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Interesting and worrying too! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Weightless Weight Loss (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, thats a Myth (Score:3, Informative)
This is just like the story of one of the very first modal imapact hammers. A modal impact hammer is used for vibration testing. It contains a force transducer in the head of the hammer so you can measure the excitation force applied to the structure you are hitting with it. Anyway, it one of these efforts to trim the fat on government spending (ie. $10,000 toilet seat type stuff), they were attacking the use of a $5,000 hammer. It turned out to be a $5 hammer and a $4,995 force transducer! So try getting the facts straight before you go spouting off so you don't end up with egg on your face like those guys.
Also, the Fisher space pen did not have a pump. It contains an ink that when at rest is too thick to squeeze around the roller ball of the pen. However, when the ball is in motion the shearing force applied to the ink allows the ink to flow and the user to write.
Re:Weightless Weight Loss (Score:3, Informative)
So if no need to maintain the muscle, muscle mass will decrease.
Re:This project needs to be put out of its misery. (Score:3, Informative)
The problems, beyond the expeted small technical ones, have all been due to America not having a worthwhile launch system to do their end of the job.
I like how you left out the part about Russia not being able to pay for their modules so they could be completed and sent up on time.
Re:Only 2 astronauts (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why Base it on Calories? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:And there's no real science going on... (Score:3, Informative)
And while you're happy trolling on Astronomy, I'm satisfied with: discovering new planets around other stars, determining the source of all the elemental building blocks of our planet, determining that complex organic molecules are cosmically common, determining that the laws of physics apply everywhere we can look. Trivial things like that. The vast majority of people see astronomy as useless? Fine. It doesn't mean the vast majority is right.
Re:This is really bad (Score:0, Informative)
Because it wasn't the Russian government.
Re:next generation soyuz seats six (Score:3, Informative)
While obviously Soyuz inspired, the Chinese design is home grown and features a number of design improvements over the Soyuz: it's larger, and most notably, the orbital module is, unlike the Soyuz OM, capable of independant flight.
There's a good article [ieee.org] by James Oberg about it in IEEE Spectrum.
Re:there is no measureable total weight loss (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is really bad (Score:3, Informative)
The Russians did, with decades of research on space stations and on MIR that reduced the cost of the life support systems down to something the Americans could actually afford for the ISS.
And then along comes NASA; boo-hoo we need a lifesupport and we can't afford to develop it...