On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 02:31:19 -0500, John Doe wrote:

Sir Frederick wrote:
Thanks. So why the Spacehab this flight, when the MPLM
in the past?

MPLM takes up a large part of the Shuttle's cargo bay. Spacehab takes up
less space, so there is more space for cargo.

The last flight of Columbia had a large spacehab that was outfitted as a
lab with lost of research equipment inside.

But for station-bound flights, Spacehab brings no special functionality
compared to existing lockers inside the shuttle because everything must fit
through the narrow hatch between shuttle and station.

Also, in the past, Spacehab brought certain restrictions when EVAs were
performed from the shuttle. The shuttle was isolated from the station so it
could lower its air pressure, AND the spacehab was isolated from the
shuttle because the tunnel between the two was also the airlock. So ducing
periods of EVAs, the transfer of goods could not proceed.

With an MPLM, the unit was transfered to the station with the arms, and
while the shuttle was isolated to conduct its EVAs, the station crew had
access to the MPLM to move the supplies out of the MPLM (and stuff destined
back to earth into the MPLM).

However, with the station's airlock now used, the shuttle is no longer
isolated for days during EVAs and this is no longer an issue,



I think the logic is that when the Shuttle is bringing up a station module
that is too large to co-exist with an MPLM, but leaves enough space to fit
a Spacehab. The spacehab is then loaded with various sundry supplies for
the inside of the station.


I think that there are also contractual issues between NASA and Spacehab
Inc where NASA committed to a certain number of flights using Spacehab.


Personally, with the number of shuttle flights finite, wouldn't it be
better to see NASA dump spacehab flights and replace spacehab with some of
the smaller modules such as cupolla , perhaps bring back EAS ?

I realise that in the original assembly plan, Spacehabs were planned as
fillers because those smaller modules would not have been delivered to KSC
yet, but in the current schedule, everything is sitting in a wharehouse
waiting to be launched. So why not put a few smaller modules in the cargo
bay instead of a spacehab ?
Thanks.
Instead of a touch of class, we have a touch of
bureaucracy.