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Old February 19th 08, 05:58 PM posted to sci.space.policy,sci.space.shuttle,sci.space.station
John Doe
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Posts: 1,134
Default 80's style Stations Modules...

Jeff Findley wrote:

From the "interactive" bit on the webpage, it looks like Destiny has room
for a total of 24 racks, so launching with only 5 racks installed is
launching the module mostly empty, at least in my book.



Destiny is the "brains" of the ISS. IT is the core for command and
control, communications, the US ECLSS etc. The "science" racks came
later, and remember that in the plans, the MPLMs would continually bring
new racks and return scientific racks that are no longer needed.

The priority was to outfit Destiny with the ISS core systems first.
Science came later.

And with the shuttle soon to be grounded, it is doubtful that Destiny
will ever be outfitted with 24 racks unless they decide to leave one or
more MPLMs at the station as storage bins, and those would be launched
with empty racks. They could then install empty racks in Destiny and
elsewhere, and later on use progress/atv to send components small enough
to fit through the small russian hatches to populate those empty racks.