Craig writes:

Who Needs Fender? wrote:

bob haller wrote:

imagine what sort of structure could be in orbit if most of the ETs
had been assembled into a station

Interesting idea--I wonder if it would be possible to reach orbit with
the ET still attached (e.g. how much extra fuel would be required at
OMS-2)...

You could have a very massive structure up there by lashing several
together... now, how useful would it be based on the structure of the
ET... I guess it could be used as a storage facility... or refilled on
figure flights and used as an orbiting refueling station for later
deep-space missions...

Yeah, we would have a Space Station with two, three or four times the mass.

Is mass by itself a particularly interesting quality for a space
station to have, or should it be restricted to mass which provides some
useful purpose?


Available volume to would be huge.

Is volume by itself a particularly interesting quality for a
space station to have, or should it be restricted to volume which provides
some useful purpose?

Safety Factors on all the aluminum parts could meet civil engineering
standards.

What are the relevant civil engineering standards to be met, and
is ``meeting them'' compatible with the requirements of the external tank
to serve as an external tank?


Yeah, lots of excess aluminum would be available for lunar/mars
exploration.

Is there a shortage of available aluminum in the space program?


Of course, this would have required the development and early launch
of some spacebots to reprocess the aluminum into more useful Space
Station structures.

What sorts of human-performed work are necessary to turn aluminum
into useful space station structures presently, and how difficult would
it be to make automated, or at least tele-operated, all of those tasks?


I can imagine the first spacebot developed would have be to simply cut
most of the aluminum into wire for storage. Or, melt it into a great big
raw materials blob.

Is there a shortage of available wiring for the space program
presently?


Reducing drag and stripping all the foam in a high drag orbit.
I wonder if the foam would melt or sublime first in a vacuum?

What does the foam presently do? Why would it be expected to
change by having its drag reduced?


If it melts, it could be reused.

As what?


If it sublimes, it could provide thrust.

How much thrust, and what would be required to use it as a
directional thrust, and what would be the usability and cost penalties
of that adaptation?


I can imagine a fifth or sixth generation Space Station that might
actually be built out of upper stages.

What generation space station are we presently on?


The spacebots would be really
busy keeping up with each launch.

What is a likely launch rate for human-carrying space expeditions
for the coming five years? Ten? Twenty?

--
Joseph Nebus
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