Re: What all big dieal about Soyuz?

[Dan Foster]

In article >, James Oberg > wrote:
>
> if the russians hadn't been partners, ISS would have looked different (and
> yes, i argue it would have still existed) -- and maybe the shuttle upgrades
> and safety projects wouldn't have been stripped bare to pay for 'surprise'
> overruns caused by russian non-performance.

I don't think that's an entirely fair comment. RKA (the Russian Space
Agency for those here who don't know) may have made their fair share
of bungling... but I don't think NASA exactly comes out smelling like
roses -- for instance, Henry Spencer once pointed out that NASA hadn't
done actual integration tests between two nodes of the ISS until close
to launch time after someone belatedly suggested it.

Very fortunate this happened because I seem to recollect that they found
(and fixed) a serious issue that may have had been a show-stopper in space.

I can't seem to find that post right now - it was several years ago.

There's also a certain amount of natural tendency to publically assign
blame to partners but then play down any public view of one's own faults -
typical jockeying-for-power in any human relationship; in marriage or
in running an international space station. :-)

I should also point out that the U.S. entered into this multilateral plan
for ISS well knowing the capabilities of the various partners based on
years (and in some cases, decades) of historical experience with various
now-ISS-partners; *especially* the Russians, and were also aware that in a
post-Cold War economy, they had some real funding issues (for starters)
along with political and cultural approaches to space programs.

-Dan

[Kent Betts]

"Dan Foster
> NASA hadn't
> done actual integration tests between two nodes of the ISS until close
> to launch time after someone belatedly suggested it.

Likewise no end-to-end test was done on Hubble because, in their world, it would
have added ten or twenty million to the cost.

Now they are going to launch the infrared Webb Telescope into a LaGrainge orbit
that canned be reached for service. If experience is any guide, one or two of
the optical detectors aren't going to work when it gets there.......we need
Hallerb to weigh in on this.

[Hallerb]

>
>Now they are going to launch the infrared Webb Telescope into a LaGrainge
>orbit
>that canned be reached for service. If experience is any guide, one or two
>of
>the optical detectors aren't going to work when it gets there.......we need
>Hallerb to weigh in on this.
>
It better work or nasa will look bad. We really need something more than LEO/

[MasterShrink]

>Now they are going to launch the infrared Webb Telescope into a LaGrainge
>orbit
>that canned be reached for service. If experience is any guide, one or two
>of
>the optical detectors aren't going to work when it gets there.......we need
>Hallerb to weigh in on this.

Oy..."Hubble had problems so any other telescope NASA launches will". You are
aware Compton GRO and Chandra had no crippling problems after being
deployed...?

-A.L.

[Jorge R. Frank]

(MasterShrink) wrote in
:

>>Now they are going to launch the infrared Webb Telescope into a
>>LaGrainge orbit
>>that canned be reached for service. If experience is any guide, one
>>or two of
>>the optical detectors aren't going to work when it gets there.......we
>>need Hallerb to weigh in on this.
>
> Oy..."Hubble had problems so any other telescope NASA launches will".
> You are aware Compton GRO and Chandra had no crippling problems after
> being deployed...?

Weeeelllll.... Compton GRO *did* have that little problem with the antenna
not deploying. Had there not been a crew handy to go EVA and deploy it
manually...


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

[MasterShrink]

>Weeeelllll.... Compton GRO *did* have that little problem with the antenna
>not deploying. Had there not been a crew handy to go EVA and deploy it
>manually...

True. But that was before the thing left range of the Shuttle.

-A.L.

[MasterShrink]

>Its a interesting question to ponder, should things be serviceable?
>
>IF Webb fails to function what effect will this have on NASA?

It would be great if it could be serviced, however what kind of orbit will Webb
be in? If similar to HST's then yes, it could easily be serviced. If you're
talking about something like Chandra, which I understand is in a pretty high
orbit, beyond the shuttle's reach, then your options are limited.

-A.L.

[Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)]

"MasterShrink" > wrote in message
...
> >Weeeelllll.... Compton GRO *did* have that little problem with the
antenna
> >not deploying. Had there not been a crew handy to go EVA and deploy it
> >manually...
>
> True. But that was before the thing left range of the Shuttle.

Which is one possible argument for shuttle deployments of sats. (As I
recall that's not the first one astronauts have "fixed").


>
> -A.L.

[Jorge R. Frank]

(MasterShrink) wrote in
:

>>Its a interesting question to ponder, should things be serviceable?
>>
>>IF Webb fails to function what effect will this have on NASA?
>
> It would be great if it could be serviced, however what kind of orbit
> will Webb be in? If similar to HST's then yes, it could easily be
> serviced. If you're talking about something like Chandra, which I
> understand is in a pretty high orbit, beyond the shuttle's reach, then
> your options are limited.

Webb will be even farther from Earth than Chandra. It will be placed at
the Earth-Sun L2 point, mainly for thermal conditioning (Webb will do a lot
more infrared work than Hubble, and needs to be kept cold).


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

[Jan C. Vorbrüggen]

> You are aware Compton GRO and Chandra had no crippling problems after
> being deployed...?

Compton's data recorders dies quite early - it was only useable because
it could be configured to run in real-time down-link mode.

Jan

[James Oberg]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Foster" >
> I should also point out that the U.S. entered into this multilateral plan
> for ISS well knowing the capabilities of the various partners based on
> years (and in some cases, decades) of historical experience with various
> now-ISS-partners; *especially* the Russians, and were also aware that in a
> post-Cold War economy, they had some real funding issues (for starters)
> along with political and cultural approaches to space programs.


Point out all you like, there's no evidence that the NASA officials involved
in the bring-on-the-Russians plan had any knowledge of real Russian space
experience aside from clippings from AvWeek. In fact, the Russian side
explicitly demanded that NASA only use officials who HAD no such
knowledge,,. and NASA complied.

[James Oberg]

"rk" > wrote in message
> Ignorant question: Were any of the ASTP engineers and managers around
> for the "bring-on-the-Russians" plan? There was quite a bit of insight
> into technical, procedural, and management approaches learned there.
> This is clear from reading ASAP reports from the 1970s. Good insightful
> references on ASTP would be appreciated.

Well, I could write a book on this subject... No, wait,
I already did.

'Star-Crossed Orbits' (McGraw-Hill, 2002)

Read the chapter on the birth of the partnership, and see if it answers your
questions,
and provides clues on the distribution of ignorance.

[OM]

On Thu, 07 Aug 2003 05:30:53 GMT, "James Oberg"
> wrote:

>Read the chapter on the birth of the partnership, and see if it answers your
>questions, and provides clues on the distribution of ignorance.

....Must locate a copy of this one, then. I suspect you've got some
notions that might be a good addition to my ASTP page :-)

OM

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