Unmanned Cargo Ship Reaches ISS On Resupply Mission (telegraph.co.uk) 51
An anonymous reader writes: NASA partner Orbital ATK reports an unmanned cargo shipped has successfully docked at the ISS, delivering 7,900 lbs (3.6 metric tons) worth of supplies for the crew of six astronauts. The supplies consisted of food, water, clothes, and materials needed for scientific research such as a new 3D printer and Gecko Gripper. The operation was over by 1452 GMT as the space station's robotic arm, operated by crew members, captured Cygnus and guided it into its berthing port. Orbital has launched five supply missions to the ISS as part of a $1.9 billion contract with NASA. "Our flexible Cygnus spacecraft has a lot of work left to do. Following its stay at the ISS, and for the first time, we will undertake three experiments onboard the unmanned spacecraft," said Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK's Space Systems Group.
shameful (Score:1, Funny)
We should not be supplying anything to ISIS. I hope none of 'their kind' are allowed to go there.
The Donald
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They have been in the game for over 30 years, so they don't need to blow their own trumpets like the new guys do.
And yet - we are reading this article.
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ULA apparently spends all of their marketing money on shills.
First post? (Score:5, Insightful)
That this is first post is awesome. It has been here for a while and nobody has commented.
Why is that awesome? It is so routine that we don't even get excited any more. I was a kid when we walked on the moon. Now, it's trivial to dock with a space station that's been in orbit for years and continuously occupied for the duration.
That's kind of neat. (I have no idea if this is still first post.)
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Nope, someone beat me to it. Ah well... It's still really kind of neat that there's so little excitement about this sort of thing. This would have been televised, across the globe, not that many years ago. Now, it's a thirty second blurb on the television news - if you're lucky and there's nothing major going on.
I find that incredible and inspiring.
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7,900 lbs of potatoes.
In comparison (Score:3)
Ah well... It's still really kind of neat that there's so little excitement about this sort of thing.
I would agree with you if it were for the fact that people are more interested in the latest Kardashian family hijinks or whatever drivel Donald Trump is spewing recently. I find it depressing that genuinely valuable engineering and science research is considered uninteresting in comparison to most of the nonsense that does actually make it into the news cycle. Of course engineering companies have never been very good at public relations so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
I find that incredible and inspiring.
I find it depressing and patheti
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The ISS is our best way of gaining experience with daily life in microgravity: cooking, cleaning bathrooms, responding to leaks and breakdowns, maintaining health over periods of a year or more. There is no other way of being sure about how such things will work when we take longer voyages. The latest finding, which was totally unanticipated, is that microgravity affects the rate at which certain bacteria grow. This will be a problem in some cases and a solution in others.
Filling in the cracks (Score:2)
The scientific ROI is too low. I'd much rather see more planetary or soar observation missions if there has to be a choice.
Those missions are valuable but they will tell you close to nothing about how to have living organisms (including us) living and thriving in space. You're comparing apples to oranges. Sure there is lots of value to a project like New Horizons but the second probe we send will have marginally less ROI and the third still less. This is because we've already learned some stuff and now our questions become more specific and nuanced. That's where we are in LEO manned space flight. We've figured out a lot of
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Nope, someone beat me to it. Ah well... It's still really kind of neat that there's so little excitement about this sort of thing. This would have been televised, across the globe, not that many years ago. Now, it's a thirty second blurb on the television news - if you're lucky and there's nothing major going on.
BREAKING NEWS: Attempted Docking of First Post a Complete Failure
Details at 11.
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I think anyone who really cares knows the advances being made and is excited. We humans, we'll be fine. So far, so good. So, I can see why you'd think it disconcerting but I don't see it that way. I see it as awesome. Wait until it won't even remotely be a novelty to have gone to space.
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I feel the opposite way. I'm disappointed with how things have turned out. A launch of a cargo ship should be so routine that a news article isn't even written about it. In the 1970s people were walking on the moon and now it's still news to have a satellite launched or it we sent supplies to the space station that's been inhabited for 15 years. Christ we can't even launch a rocket if the weather isn't good enough! How are we supposed to go to the stars when our capabilities are regressing?
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MRA (Score:4, Funny)
The feminists have really gone too far now. They've even unmanned the space ship that resupplies the ISS.
Can't Wait To Watch The Control Burn (Score:2)
Aren't almost all the deliveries unmanned ? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Progress-M has been doing this since the 90s. Is there something extra special about this delivery ?
Re: Aren't almost all the deliveries unmanned ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sad but true, they are updating the saturn F1 engines for the SLS. Which is likely to be the most expensive launch system ever conceived
http://arstechnica.com/science... [arstechnica.com]
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The SLS is using the space shuttle engines (RS-25d from the space shuttles...the new ones will be RS-25e and are planned when NASA uses up all the remaining space shuttle engines currently). The uprated F1 is still in "maybe" mode to replace the solid boosters the SLS is going to start out with. But ATK is throwing a fit at the F1 idea currently. The tests of the F1 are for liquid strap on boosters for the SLS.
Re: Aren't almost all the deliveries unmanned ? (Score:3)
It was launched by an Atlas 5, that one uses new Russian engines.
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Re:Aren't almost all the deliveries unmanned ? (Score:5, Interesting)
As I understand it, this is also the heaviest load ever delivered to ISS. [spaceflightinsider.com] Not sure that's a big deal, but...
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It's the heaviest Cygnus launch so far.
As far as I've been able to find, the heaviest cargo load delivered to the ISS is the ESA ATV 5 mission (Georges Lemaitre [wikipedia.org]), which carried 6600 kg.
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How to make it more exciting/timely (Score:4, Funny)
The editors simply need experience:
Drone buzzes Space Station; drops off package
Amateurs.
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Getting better, but I'd go with Space Station Captures Drone: You'll Never Guess What's Inside!
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Much improved, i agree, but let's embellish it just a tad:
Space station captures small drone with BIG package, ALL ON VIDEO, video goes viral
Is ISS useful? (Score:1)
Are we getting useful scientific information? Stuff we could not get by other means?
Re: Is ISS useful? (Score:1)
Can't grow plants in 0G here.
Can't study.chemical reactions in 0G to see if useful compounds and such can be made in space for medicine
Cant cast metals in 0G (which we are not yet but should on ISS) to say, better metals like, let's say someone has an idea that a certain mix of metals or dirt or piss forms a unique lattice structure that allows room temperature superconductors, but the theory goes that that structure only forms in micro gravity, again, can't test it in 0G without a space station.
I am sure I
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Without that gov work they may enter the real private sector. Govs and mil regulators dont like that idea of "their" nations very smart people just wondering around finding work with anyone who has cash and some related big project.
It also keeps very advanced generational skill alive that would have to be re created if lost to budget cuts within a few decades.
Nations get to work together and get to be seen to share funding and the science
Clothes (Score:4, Interesting)
The mention of clothes got me wondering about laundry on the ISS. So I looked it up and there is no laundry on the ISS. Everything they wear is delivered to the station and once it becomes to pitted out to wear they put it in the trash which is loaded in a Progress capsule. Once the Progress capsule is full it is deorbited to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. So I guess we're all breathing the ISS's burnt up dirty laundry.
Anyway they apparently have enough underwear to change it every 3 or 4 days but I have to think it smells like a gym in the ISS. Here's a story about the astronauts dirty laundry. [nasa.gov]
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A vacuum would certainly remove any water but I think grease and oil have nonvolatile components that would remain behind.
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Does the dirty laundry burn up though?
At some point the capsule defragments and its contents are spilled out. I can only guess what happens to underwear doing several thousand miles per hour in the upper atmosphere.
Gecko gripper? (Score:1)
Why do they need to grip geckos? In space, no one can hear you grip geckos...
"Metric tons"? (Score:1)