Refilling Quest's tanks post Shuttle

Has NASA given any hints on what they intend to do with Quest after the
Shuttle stops visiting the station ?


Currently, only the shuttle is able to refuel the O2 and N2 tanks in
Quest. However, Quest has its own high pressure pumps to pull the gases
from shuttle and load them into the high pressure tanks outside of
Quest. Are there thoughts of outfitting Quest or Node2 with plumbing
that would allow portable O2/N2 tanks to be plugged in and then Quest's
pumps could suck these dry ?

If they can't find a way to refuel Quest, it not only puts that airlock
out of comission, but also jeoperdises distribution of O2 and N2 to the
"far away" modules such as Node 2, Columbus and Kibo who may not be
getting much O2 from Zvezda far away.

Is it feasable to run temporary flexible hoses from the russian segment
to Quest so that Quest could suck gases from the russian tanks (which
are refilled by Progress/ATV) ? Once the refilling is done, they roll up
the hoses and stow them.

John Doe wrote:
urrently, only the shuttle is able to refuel the O2 and N2 tanks in
Quest. However, Quest has its own high pressure pumps to pull the gases
from shuttle and load them into the high pressure tanks outside of
Quest. Are there thoughts of outfitting Quest or Node2 with plumbing
that would allow portable O2/N2 tanks to be plugged in and then Quest's
pumps could suck these dry ?

Nah, Len Cormier is going to send up tank stages that have the
Shuttle-side hardware built-in. ;-) -- but not a bad idea, actually.

/dps