"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
I'm not assigning blame. I'm evaluating the impact of the Elektron
failures on station operations. You keep handwaving those impacts
away, and taking sideswipes at the US.

The impact is the same as it was on Mir. My point is that this is nothing
new. The Russians work the issues when they arise. I doubt they care much
about the impact to the "science" program on ISS (same as Mir). How many
times did we hear about how little science was done on Mir due to the crew
spending all of its time fixing broken hardware like the Elektrons?

However, it's not like NASA was blindsided by the Elektron problems.
They
knew what they were getting into based on their experience with
Shuttle-Mir.

The evidence is abundant that NASA learned little if anything from
Shuttle-MIR or studying the Soviet programs. Hell, they don't even
seemed to have learned much from Skylab.

My point exactly. In many respects, ISS is being run just like Mir. Is it
any surprise that the (two or three man) crew spends most of its time fixing
things?

The popular press may think its news every time Elektron goes down and a
"backup" O2 supply has to be used, but to the Russians, it's just business
as usual.

Jeff
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