On 10/27/2011 07:49 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In , bthorn64
@suddenlink.net says...

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:31:24 +1100, Alan Erskine
wrote:
There's another point to this. If anyone wants to build a
replacement
for ISS, they will be able to use Falcon Heavy - more than twice the
payload of Shuttle.

What would perform the control, communications, rendezvous and
docking? Could a Dragon fly around with 35,000 lbs. of module on its
nose?

Possibly. If it doesn't have the fuel capacity needed, you could stack
two Dragon service modules top of each other. Falcon Heavy gives you
plenty of options to "throw mass" at this problem.

I already addressed part of this in my other reply, but if you're going
to use two Dragons for this task, you need two Dragon *capsules* (Dragon
doesn't have a service module) and the capsules would need to be on
opposite ends of the module to provide sufficient control authority.

Another possibility is the satellite bus that Orbital Sciences is using
for their COTS station resupply spacecraft.

Ditto here, unless you plan to mount RCS clusters to the other end of
the module, as Orbital is doing with Cygnus.