ISS may be abandoned in november

Just how "hard" is the expiration date on a Soyuz capsule? Are we
talking something rather binary, or is it a case of where the line is
drawn along a continuum of probabilities?

rick jones
--
No need to believe in either side, or any side. There is no cause.
There's only yourself. The belief is in your own precision. - Joubert
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

In article 7f586d50-addf-4739-ad42-0ee020506cc5
@a13g2000yqd.googlegroups.com, says...

On Aug 30, 4:44*am, Alan Erskine wrote:

Why do I get the feeling someone at NASA said this was going to happen
but they were ignored - similar to the guy warning of the SRB problem
before Challenger....

Incidentally, some people would blame Obama for cancelling the Shuttle
program.

The Shuttle fleet was kept running longer than it was really
appropriate to operate it from a safety viewpoint. So it wasn't
Obama's fault.

In fact, the Obama administration added extra flights to the end of the
shuttle program.

And it is now too late to build more Shuttles.

It was too late to build more shuttles after all of the structural
spares were used to build Endeavour (to replace Challenger).

This doesn't mean that I'm necessarily putting the blame on Bush.
Those who wish to blame the Democrats for everything may take solace
in the possibility that this threshold was crossed back under Clinton.

True. Blaming the Columbia disaster would be more appropriate than
blaming any one administration. Without a second shuttle loss, it's
conceivable that the shuttle program would still be flying today, driven
mostly by political and economic inertia.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker

Jeff Findley sent the following on 8/30/2011 12:50 PM:
Without a second shuttle loss, it's
conceivable that the shuttle program would still be flying today, driven
mostly by political and economic inertia.

Given that the second loss was much more of a management failure than an
engineering one, it makes the entire second loss that much harder to
take--both then (in terms of lost lives and down time for the program)
and now (in terms of possibly having an unmanned ISS).

--
Jim G.
Waukesha, WI

On Aug 30, 5:18*pm, "Jim G." wrote:
Jeff Findley sent the following on 8/30/2011 12:50 PM:

Without a second shuttle loss, it's
conceivable that the shuttle program would still be flying today, driven
mostly by political and economic inertia.

Given that the second loss was much more of a management failure than an
engineering one, it makes the entire second loss that much harder to
take--both then (in terms of lost lives and down time for the program)
and now (in terms of possibly having an unmanned ISS).

--
Jim G.
Waukesha, WI

both lost vehicle and crew were clearly management failures........

o ring burn thru was ignored before challenger loss

Pat Flannery wrote:
On 8/30/2011 7:56 AM, Rick Jones wrote:
Just how "hard" is the expiration date on a Soyuz capsule? Are we
talking something rather binary, or is it a case of where the line
is drawn along a continuum of probabilities?

I think it is a case of "We know it's considered safe up to this
point, but afterwards we don't make any guarantees." At some point
in time beyond that of course it would fail.
I would imagine decay rate of the propellant system parts is pretty
consistent, as is the breakdown of the H2O2 in the descent capsule
RCS storage tank into water.
One thing that's playing a part in all this is that they don't want
to land in mid-winter, and a wait for spring could be considered too
long. Sure didn't take much to screw the whole ISS program up, did
it?

Weren't we all just talking the other day about the wonderful
robustness of Russian space vehicles?

If the second Soyuz capsule on station has an expiration date that
goes into mid-winter (what is the definition of mid-winter here? -
January? February?) then it would seem there would be more than enough
time to get sufficient landing support folks to somewhere in the
Southern Hemisphere where it will be mid-summer and land the thing
there. Australia as some have suggested, or somewhere else I suppose
- and in the Northern Hemisphere is the aforementioned North Dakota
worse than the steppes? It is, after all, supposed to be the
*International* Space Station. And if the United States can take
eating some crow/losing some face from terminating the Shuttle
program, shirley the Russians can handle a Soyuz capsule landing
somewhere else. Heck, where it would land normally isn't part of
Russia anyway right? (Even though it is former Soviet).

rick jones
--
web2.0 n, the dot.com reunion tour...
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

NASA always looks at contingencies like this. *Hopefully it won't be
necessary to leave ISS unmanned, but it's preferable to leaving
astronauts on ISS without a way to get back. *Marooned is the term for
this, and it's not a good thing deliberately put yourself in that
situation.

Jeff

nasa never planed for a shuttle stuck at station till after columbia
disaster........ so they didnt look at that contigency.

is it better to have a unmanned station with no control dropping
modules all along its ground track.

or 1 or 2 astronauts marroned at station thats still under control?

On 8/30/2011 7:56 AM, Rick Jones wrote:
Just how "hard" is the expiration date on a Soyuz capsule? Are we
talking something rather binary, or is it a case of where the line is
drawn along a continuum of probabilities?

I think it is a case of "We know it's considered safe up to this point,
but afterwards we don't make any guarantees." At some point in time
beyond that of course it would fail.
I would imagine decay rate of the propellant system parts is pretty
consistent, as is the breakdown of the H2O2 in the descent capsule RCS
storage tank into water.
One thing that's playing a part in all this is that they don't want to
land in mid-winter, and a wait for spring could be considered too long.
Sure didn't take much to screw the whole ISS program up, did it?

Pat

On Aug 28, 8:43*pm, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote:
On 08/28/2011 09:11 PM, Matt Wiser wrote:

On Aug 28, 6:52 am, bob *wrote:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/statio...27unmannedops/

I think they should immediately return as much crew as possible to
minimize consumption, and have that commercial delivery take essential
supplies to give the russians more time to fix the soyuz booster
issue.......

The last thing we need is a unmanned ISS that has tech troubles and
gets out of control. dropping station modules all over its ground
track worldwide.......

Given the bobbert's opposition to any form of HSF, his post doesn't
surprise me at all.

Besides, he's addressing the wrong problem: ISS has plenty of supplies,
the problem is that the Soyuz spacecraft currently docked to ISS won't
last nearly as long as the supplies.

Commercial supplies won't solve that problem at all.

My only out of the box solution for this mess would be to risk an
unmanned Soyuz spacecraft on a booster, and jettison the old one after
it docks to ISS. Of course that would mean extending the three-person
crew's stay possibly up to 6 more months, which I don't know if the
various space agencies are willing to do.
-Mike
-Mike

On 8/30/2011 4:14 PM, Rick Jones wrote:
Pat wrote:
On 8/30/2011 7:56 AM, Rick Jones wrote:
Just how "hard" is the expiration date on a Soyuz capsule? Are we
talking something rather binary, or is it a case of where the line
is drawn along a continuum of probabilities?

I think it is a case of "We know it's considered safe up to this
point, but afterwards we don't make any guarantees." At some point
in time beyond that of course it would fail.
I would imagine decay rate of the propellant system parts is pretty
consistent, as is the breakdown of the H2O2 in the descent capsule
RCS storage tank into water.
One thing that's playing a part in all this is that they don't want
to land in mid-winter, and a wait for spring could be considered too
long. Sure didn't take much to screw the whole ISS program up, did
it?

Weren't we all just talking the other day about the wonderful
robustness of Russian space vehicles?

It's been a lot better than the Shuttle in regards to weather related
launch and landing delays.
Something that wasn't taken into account regarding weather and a Shuttle
launch is that the weather not only had to be acceptable at KSC, but at
the launch abort landing sites.
That's a hard-learned lesson that any future winged space vehicle would
be wise to study in detail, particularly if its got a fragile TPS like
Shuttle did.
Even passing through rain during ascent or descent could do terrible
damage to the Shuttle TPS tiles if it was flying over Mach 1.

If the second Soyuz capsule on station has an expiration date that
goes into mid-winter (what is the definition of mid-winter here? -
January? February?) then it would seem there would be more than enough
time to get sufficient landing support folks to somewhere in the
Southern Hemisphere where it will be mid-summer and land the thing
there. Australia as some have suggested, or somewhere else I suppose
- and in the Northern Hemisphere is the aforementioned North Dakota
worse than the steppes?

Almost identical to Kazakhstan up here in North Dakota; virtually flat,
with very few trees or buildings, all grassland and fields with high
winds and blizzards during midwinter.
Hot and thunderstorms in summer.
If you descended at random in the state, your chance of hitting a tree
or building would be around 1/100; as far as any sort of dangerous
terrain, around 1/10,000.
It's great for starwatching, as the horizon is damn near as flat as if
you were at sea, with almost no light pollution once you are a few miles
outside of the cities or towns.

It is, after all, supposed to be the
*International* Space Station. And if the United States can take
eating some crow/losing some face from terminating the Shuttle
program, shirley the Russians can handle a Soyuz capsule landing
somewhere else. Heck, where it would land normally isn't part of
Russia anyway right? (Even though it is former Soviet).

Yeah, that's why they want to move their new launch site up into eastern
Siberia.
Kazakhstan hits them up for a fortune ever time a Proton does wrong and
dumps hydrazine on their land.
This is a fun photo series:
http://www.eurasianet.org/department...v041902.shtml#
I take it the dead cattle in #11 are something to do with hydrazine.
Landing them in the Australian outback is a very clever and inventive
idea, and who knows? They might actually go for it if they have to.
Soyuz can actually land at sea also, though it's not favored.
The crews do train for that scenario though.

Pat

On Aug 31, 2:14*am, Mike DiCenso wrote:
On Aug 28, 8:43*pm, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote:





On 08/28/2011 09:11 PM, Matt Wiser wrote:

On Aug 28, 6:52 am, bob *wrote:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/statio...27unmannedops/

I think they should immediately return as much crew as possible to
minimize consumption, and have that commercial delivery take essential
supplies to give the russians more time to fix the soyuz booster
issue.......

The last thing we need is a unmanned ISS that has tech troubles and
gets out of control. dropping station modules all over its ground
track worldwide.......

Given the bobbert's opposition to any form of HSF, his post doesn't
surprise me at all.

Besides, he's addressing the wrong problem: ISS has plenty of supplies,
the problem is that the Soyuz spacecraft currently docked to ISS won't
last nearly as long as the supplies.

Commercial supplies won't solve that problem at all.

My only out of the box solution for this mess would be to risk an
unmanned Soyuz spacecraft on a booster, and jettison the old one after
it docks to ISS. *Of course that would mean extending the three-person
crew's stay possibly up to 6 more months, which I don't know if the
various space agencies are willing to do.
-Mike
-Mike- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

they would only need to extend the stay till the tech troubles were
solved, so it might be less than 6 months.

there should always be extra soyuz in the pipeline in case of any sort
of trouble