"Mike Walsh" wrote:
[...]
if their Elektron fails then they might have to burn one of their
oxygen generating "candles" that have worked so well in the
past, at least if they didn't cause a major fire.
AIUI, those "candles" are similar to US oxygen generators, including
the one that left a hole in the Everglades that included a bunch of
human remains.
It looks like The Atlantic Monthly has started to require logins for
their archives of William Langewiesche's articles, but
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98mar/valujet1.htm is still a good
reference.
Russia has no lock on mistakes with these familiar and well-understood
devices, but they do lead in micro-g experience with uncontained
flame; one hopes that the lessons learned from that incident are
still learned.
But the articles (JO's and the AP one) suggest that the Progress and
Quest supplies will cover quite a period of the Elektron being down.
/dps
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