Discovery To Bring "Plug and Play" Micro-Lab To ISS 43
astroengine writes "In an effort to standardize the way we do microgravity experiments, a Kentucky-based non-profit organization has developed the 'CubeLab' (a modular, miniature laboratory) that can be plugged into a rack of 15 other CubeLabs. The first set of micro-labs will be carried to the space station by the shuttle Discovery on Monday morning's launch. The CubeLab's small design allows it to be easily shipped to and from the space station, providing a faster pace of experimentation. Also, its 'plug and play' interface means installation is a breeze. Even better is the fact the CubeLabs are developed by Kentucky students, university researchers and enthusiasts. Now they've teamed up with the Houston-based NanoRacks LLC; could this be the future of space research collaboration?"
Interesting... (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like MS has done some amazing things with Internet Information Systems... it's a shame really. This stuff seems like it's work better on the International Space Station. Oh well!
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A cash bounty is availible from the Jobs estate to whoever is first to update all wikipedia articles to this change.
What do they do up there? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, I'm curious here. Don't they already have like a dozen modules for doing experiments that they hardly use?
What exactly are they doing up there that they'll need these new cubes for?
Re:What do they do up there? (Score:4, Funny)
Don't they already have like a dozen modules for doing experiments that they hardly use?
Seems like IIS and ISS have more in common than you'd think.
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It's been awhile since I've been in the program, but the idea is that racks with experiments come and go via Shuttle. With the demise of Shuttle, they'll bring smaller on-orbit replaceable units. Experiments on ISS have a longer lifetime than a lot of geeks' attention span, so they get lost in the background noise. Also, it's, well, science. Often, they're long-term experiments and have to be allowed to run during the course of the experiment, but don't require a lot of tweaking.
At the cost of space up ther
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The existing lab racks are being regularly used, but their schedule is full and thus cannot support rapid turn around experiments which these cubes can do.
Which pretty much is explained right in TFA.
Re:Why the tortoise loses in real life (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it's amazing how private enterprise, only 50 years after NASA first put someone in space has managed to build a spaceship that hasn't actually put anyone in space yet. Hooray for the free market!
Re:Why the tortoise loses in real life (Score:5, Informative)
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In Soviet Russian, space travels to you!
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Yes it's amazing how private enterprise, only 50 years after NASA first put someone in space has managed to build a spaceship that hasn't actually put anyone in space yet.
The Apollo 11 project [wikipedia.org] costed $355 million (1969).
The SpaceShipOne project [wikipedia.org] costed $25 million (2004).
What's your point?
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Ah, my apologies. I misread PP.
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Thanks for your reply.
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Biggest problem with the shuttle is that by commercial airline standards there are so few flights they are still in about the third month of prototype testing - the two mishaps showed that quite well!
Any commercial spacecraft is going to have to do much more extensive testing than the shuttle has received even at "end of life".
Sheer madness (Score:1)
To throw this marvelous STS capability away and all of the 1000's of skilled NASA engineers with no replacement in sight is sheer madness. But the government will be hiring 16000 new IRS agents to make sure I buy state approved health insurance. My God this country has fallen low.
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My apologies. I mis-read your post. You're right.
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I think you're on to something there.
The problem is the current focus of non-commercial spaceflight--science. That is, pure science for its own sake. We spend billions of dollars on flights (manned and not) for the sake of "Doing Science and Research". Now, I like science as much as the next guy--its a great thing. But spending our billions of spaceflight dollars to launch a mission just so we can watch worms wriggle around in zero gravity is a waste. It's one thing to run such experiments in the course of
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Uh oh, a full blown Space Nutter. There is no way any of this adolescent sci-fi jizz is going to happen in the next hundred years, if at all. We don't have the energy to do it. Plus the fact that humans just aren't meant to be in space. End of story.
You really, and I mean REALLY need to sit down and do some basic math. Space is BIG. There is NO ROOM for failure, AT ALL. You can't just "mine the asteroids". Figure out how much energy you'd need to do so. And remember, it's all oil-based energy, and we'd need
Not much choice but to go small (Score:5, Informative)
The Shuttle is going away, and with it one of the very few ways of transporting big equipment racks up & down.
All current vehicles servicing ISS don't have the large berthing ports; Shuttle also doesn't have one...but it could carry multipurpose cargo module (equipped in one) in its bay. Soyuz, Progress, ATV, upcoming Orion...their docking ports are small. Japanese transport vehicle does have the big berthing port (and also upcoming Dragon & Cygnus), but it's good to have options...
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but it's good to have options...
Sure, but the Shuttle is too expensive. At two launches a year (which would be the frequency that the Shuttle would launch at), you're looking at costs somewhere above a billion dollars a launch. That can buy a lot of shiny.
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Uhm, in above case "good to have options" was meant to relate to smaller lab modules, which can be transferred through the hatch of all (hence giving more options) vehicles docking with ISS.
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Moderators, this user is a troll. Please mod accordingly so that we can all have a little sanity on Slashdot. Thanks! :)
Oh dear, people calling me names on the internet! What will I do? What will I do?
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The Shuttle is going away, and with it one of the very few ways of transporting big equipment racks up & down.
Up, not much of a problem. Progress hauls 2400 Kg up per shot (plus or minus a Raduga capsule, depending on particular variation launched, etc). That's enough for a rack full of stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_(spacecraft) [wikipedia.org]
Down, BIG problem. Raduga hauls 150 Kg per shot and is physically much smaller. Also, despite being a simple reentry vehicle, vaporizes on re-entry about 1/4 of the time. Makes you wonder how reliable are soviet ICBMs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VBK-Raduga [wikipedia.org]
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Yes, it can haul the weight - but you can't fit standard ISS cargo rack through it's docking port!
And Raduga seems to had better odds than you claim. Also, remember it started from higher, almost orbital, velocity; plus depended on proper ejection from Progress.
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"But... it's not the size of the port, it's the force of the thruster!"
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There is no upcoming Orion. Obama cancelled it along with the rest of the Constellation program. NASA, and with it the US space program, is adrift and will be gutted - unless congress opposes him and reinstates things.
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If this indeed will prove to be the case (not that Constellation is in trouble; that Orion will never fly), there's still the possibility of Orion Lite.
The real question is... (Score:1, Offtopic)
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Heh... Yeah, I was wondering the same thing.
Slashdot editors: It's ISS , which stands for International Space Station . This is not to be confused with IIS, which stands for Internet Information Server/Services.
Homeworld2 (Score:1)
Headline Pedanticism (Score:1)