Brian Thorn wrote:
On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 22:00:55 -0800, Sir Frederick
wrote:


Thanks. So why the Spacehab this flight, when the MPLM
in the past?

Spacehab is about half the size of an MPLM, thus NASA can get both a
resupply function (using Spacehab) and a large piece of the Space
Station (Segment P-5) on the same mission.

The alternative, I suppose, would be to launch both P-5 and S-5 on the
same mission, and use the other mission to launch the larger MPLM. But
this way, NASA gets to send some supplies up a little at a time,
instead of waiting for the one MPLM flight. They also spread out the
spacewalks by sending up P-5 and S-5 on separate missions.


There is also nowhere to put the S-5 truss section since the S-3/4
truss segment has not yet been brought up and integrated with the
station as the P-3/4 has.
-Mike