What all big dieal about Soyuz?

In article , James Oberg wrote:

if the russians hadn't been partners, ISS would have looked different (and
yes, i argue it would have still existed) -- and maybe the shuttle upgrades
and safety projects wouldn't have been stripped bare to pay for 'surprise'
overruns caused by russian non-performance.

I don't think that's an entirely fair comment. RKA (the Russian Space
Agency for those here who don't know) may have made their fair share
of bungling... but I don't think NASA exactly comes out smelling like
roses -- for instance, Henry Spencer once pointed out that NASA hadn't
done actual integration tests between two nodes of the ISS until close
to launch time after someone belatedly suggested it.

Very fortunate this happened because I seem to recollect that they found
(and fixed) a serious issue that may have had been a show-stopper in space.

I can't seem to find that post right now - it was several years ago.

There's also a certain amount of natural tendency to publically assign
blame to partners but then play down any public view of one's own faults -
typical jockeying-for-power in any human relationship; in marriage or
in running an international space station. :-)

I should also point out that the U.S. entered into this multilateral plan
for ISS well knowing the capabilities of the various partners based on
years (and in some cases, decades) of historical experience with various
now-ISS-partners; *especially* the Russians, and were also aware that in a
post-Cold War economy, they had some real funding issues (for starters)
along with political and cultural approaches to space programs.

-Dan

"Dan Foster
NASA hadn't
done actual integration tests between two nodes of the ISS until close
to launch time after someone belatedly suggested it.

Likewise no end-to-end test was done on Hubble because, in their world, it would
have added ten or twenty million to the cost.

Now they are going to launch the infrared Webb Telescope into a LaGrainge orbit
that canned be reached for service. If experience is any guide, one or two of
the optical detectors aren't going to work when it gets there.......we need
Hallerb to weigh in on this.

Now they are going to launch the infrared Webb Telescope into a LaGrainge
orbit
that canned be reached for service. If experience is any guide, one or two
of
the optical detectors aren't going to work when it gets there.......we need
Hallerb to weigh in on this.

It better work or nasa will look bad. We really need something more than LEO/

Now they are going to launch the infrared Webb Telescope into a LaGrainge
orbit
that canned be reached for service. If experience is any guide, one or two
of
the optical detectors aren't going to work when it gets there.......we need
Hallerb to weigh in on this.

Oy..."Hubble had problems so any other telescope NASA launches will". You are
aware Compton GRO and Chandra had no crippling problems after being
deployed...?

-A.L.

(MasterShrink) wrote in
:

Now they are going to launch the infrared Webb Telescope into a
LaGrainge orbit
that canned be reached for service. If experience is any guide, one
or two of
the optical detectors aren't going to work when it gets there.......we
need Hallerb to weigh in on this.

Oy..."Hubble had problems so any other telescope NASA launches will".
You are aware Compton GRO and Chandra had no crippling problems after
being deployed...?

Weeeelllll.... Compton GRO *did* have that little problem with the antenna
not deploying. Had there not been a crew handy to go EVA and deploy it
manually...


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Weeeelllll.... Compton GRO *did* have that little problem with the antenna
not deploying. Had there not been a crew handy to go EVA and deploy it
manually...

True. But that was before the thing left range of the Shuttle.

-A.L.

Its a interesting question to ponder, should things be serviceable?

IF Webb fails to function what effect will this have on NASA?

It would be great if it could be serviced, however what kind of orbit will Webb
be in? If similar to HST's then yes, it could easily be serviced. If you're
talking about something like Chandra, which I understand is in a pretty high
orbit, beyond the shuttle's reach, then your options are limited.

-A.L.

"MasterShrink" wrote in message
...
Weeeelllll.... Compton GRO *did* have that little problem with the
antenna
not deploying. Had there not been a crew handy to go EVA and deploy it
manually...

True. But that was before the thing left range of the Shuttle.

Which is one possible argument for shuttle deployments of sats. (As I
recall that's not the first one astronauts have "fixed").



-A.L.

(MasterShrink) wrote in
:

Its a interesting question to ponder, should things be serviceable?

IF Webb fails to function what effect will this have on NASA?

It would be great if it could be serviced, however what kind of orbit
will Webb be in? If similar to HST's then yes, it could easily be
serviced. If you're talking about something like Chandra, which I
understand is in a pretty high orbit, beyond the shuttle's reach, then
your options are limited.

Webb will be even farther from Earth than Chandra. It will be placed at
the Earth-Sun L2 point, mainly for thermal conditioning (Webb will do a lot
more infrared work than Hubble, and needs to be kept cold).


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

You are aware Compton GRO and Chandra had no crippling problems after
being deployed...?

Compton's data recorders dies quite early - it was only useable because
it could be configured to run in real-time down-link mode.

Jan