The Big Space Station

It must have been fun to build,and it is going round and round,doing all
those weight less experiments,but the public has lost interest in it.
It not in the news. Why not give it the best equipment to study Jupiter
and its watery moons. Put it in orbit around Jupiter. It could send
back such great pictures. It could give life to a dying NASA. Seems
most of the hard part is done. It could be our robot space station
for the outer planets. Lets do it for 4th of July 2005 Bert

On Fri, 4 Jul 2003 14:14:59 -0400 (EDT),
(G=EMC^2 Glazier) wrote:

It must have been fun to build,and it is going round and round,doing all
those weight less experiments,but the public has lost interest in it.
It not in the news. Why not give it the best equipment to study Jupiter
and its watery moons. Put it in orbit around Jupiter. It could send
back such great pictures. It could give life to a dying NASA. Seems
most of the hard part is done. It could be our robot space station
for the outer planets. Lets do it for 4th of July 2005 Bert

That's a good plan! Each mission to re-supply would take months
(possibly longer if they've got to swing past planets to pick up
speed). The shuttle can't get there.

I'd rather see some serious dollars spent on putting a base on the
moon (on the far side maybe?) from where future aspirational missions
could be launched. That's potentially do-able in the near future, and
a lot of the infrastructure could be put up there without a manned
mission.

Andrew

Do you need a handyman service? Check out our
web site at http://www.handymac.co.uk

I know it will never be done,but its an idea that I like. NASA has to
scrape those old shuttles,so lets attach them to the space station,and
use them to push the space station to Jupiter. their pay load just has
to be extra fuel. It is better than putting them on display,for they
have a sad history,and beside the awesome Saturn V they look Micky
Mouse. Bert

How long do you think it would be before the public lost interest in geat
pictures of Jupiter? A month or two....

Of course that's totally ignoring getting it there to start with. Even if it
could be done, it would cost so much more that if the public thinks it's
expensive now .....
--

Regards,

Eddie Trimarchi
~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.astroshed.com
http://www.fitsplug.com

"G=EMC^2 Glazier" wrote in message
...
It must have been fun to build,and it is going round and round,doing all
those weight less experiments,but the public has lost interest in it.
It not in the news. Why not give it the best equipment to study Jupiter
and its watery moons. Put it in orbit around Jupiter. It could send
back such great pictures. It could give life to a dying NASA. Seems
most of the hard part is done. It could be our robot space station
for the outer planets. Lets do it for 4th of July 2005 Bert

Hi Eddie The public lost interest in the Rube Goldberg shuttle because
it went round and round. They lost interest in the space station the day
it was completed,for it goes round and round. We the public like to go
places,and explore. We have seen the surface of Venus,and Mars,and can
save the pictures. Having the space station orbiting Jupiter
would be a great accomplishment. I think 3 of its moons are more
interesting than Jupiter,or any other objects in our solar system.
I know the space station would still have all of its inertia,but it is
in orbit already. Would like to hear from an engineer if the shuttles
can be used as tug boats in space. Bert

On Sun, 6 Jul 2003 09:07:54 -0400 (EDT),
(G=EMC^2 Glazier) wrote:

in orbit already. Would like to hear from an engineer if the shuttles
can be used as tug boats in space. Bert

I am aware from recently reading up on the space shuttle re-entry
tragedy that one of the more important things the space shuttle does
when it goes aloft is push the space station into a higher orbit.
Without that taking place the space station would eventually re-enter
the earths atmosphere.

I don't know about being used as a "tug boat" because that implies
connecting a line and pulling. But it sure as heck can be used as a
push vehicle - albeit that I don't think shuttle has anywhere near the
capacity to send the space station off to Jupiter.

For that job you'd most likely need a rather powerful rocket to break
it away from the earths gravity. And seeing as the space station
hasn't been designed as a navigational craft I think it's a non
starter anyway.

It would be better to build a suitable vehicle (or vehicles) which
found its way to Jupiter or its moons, and then made itself into a
habitable space station. I don't actually see that happening this
century unless the world gets a wake-up call from a fly-by asteroid
that could anhiliate earth if on a slightly different trajectory (that
is, unless earth is nearly destroyed). Our politicians aren't smart
people, but they will wake up to the fact that maybe there are other
things to worry about which are a damn sight bigger than Al Queda and
drug smuggling, etc.

Andrew

Do you need a handyman service? Check out our
web site at http://www.handymac.co.uk

In message , Andrew McKay
writes
On Sun, 6 Jul 2003 09:07:54 -0400 (EDT),
(G=EMC^2 Glazier) wrote:

in orbit already. Would like to hear from an engineer if the shuttles
can be used as tug boats in space. Bert

I am aware from recently reading up on the space shuttle re-entry
tragedy that one of the more important things the space shuttle does
when it goes aloft is push the space station into a higher orbit.
Without that taking place the space station would eventually re-enter
the earths atmosphere.

I don't know about being used as a "tug boat" because that implies
connecting a line and pulling. But it sure as heck can be used as a
push vehicle - albeit that I don't think shuttle has anywhere near the
capacity to send the space station off to Jupiter.

For that job you'd most likely need a rather powerful rocket to break
it away from the earths gravity. And seeing as the space station
hasn't been designed as a navigational craft I think it's a non
starter anyway.

There's a guy called Brad Guth who has posted the idea of putting the
station into orbit around Venus - he believes there's intelligent life
there which NASA is covering up. But it can't be done. ISS is far too
fragile to move without an ion engine, and one that can move a
hundred-ton spacecraft doesn't exist. The space shuttle burns are so
gentle they are barely noticeable, I gather.


It would be better to build a suitable vehicle (or vehicles) which
found its way to Jupiter or its moons, and then made itself into a
habitable space station.

A manned flight to Jupiter is fantasy without something extraordinary in
shields - you'd need Star Trek technology. The radiation belts (horrible
old-fashioned phrase, I suspect) are much stronger than the Earth's van
Allen belts, and even the radiation-hardened Galileo orbiter is showing
damage after a few years.
--
"Roads in space for rockets to travel....four-dimensional roads, curving with
relativity"
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia.fsnet.co.uk is welcome.
Or visit Jonathan's Space Site http://www.merseia.fsnet.co.uk

In message , Andrew McKay
writes
On Sun, 06 Jul 2003 18:46:24 GMT, David Knisely
wrote:

Doing so would kill everyone on board Bert! The radiation levels around
Jupiter are horridly high and would take a huge amount of shielding to
protect the astronauts inside. This is why we probably will have to use
unmanned probes to explore the inner and more interesting Jovian moons
like Io and Europa.

You don't even need to go that far away from the earth to meet life
threatening radiation - the moan hoax stories describe the Van Allen
belt.

And the idea that the Apollo astronauts were at any risk from their
brief exposure has been disproved so many times that the dimmest
moon-landing-hoax proponent should have got the message by now. The
actual doses received by the astronauts are available on-line.

It seems from what I've read that that radiation belt is only 20
miles outside of the earths atmosphere.

Where on Earth did you read that? The van Allen belt is about two
thousand miles up. Orbiting spacecraft go nowhere near it.


It sure wouldn't surprise me if a trip to one of the other planets
incurred a fatal dose of radiation.

That's been discussed extensively. AFAIK, there's a real risk of fatal
exposure if a solar flare occurred at the wrong time, and even if it
didn't they take a substantial dose of radiation - enough to increase
their chance of cancer. One more reason we won't see a manned flight
soon.

--
"Roads in space for rockets to travel....four-dimensional roads, curving with
relativity"
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia.fsnet.co.uk is welcome.
Or visit Jonathan's Space Site http://www.merseia.fsnet.co.uk

On Sun, 06 Jul 2003 20:31:23 +0100, Andrew McKay
wrote:

threatening radiation - the moan hoax stories describe the Van Allen

The "moan hoax stories"?

What have I been drinking?

Andrew

Do you need a handyman service? Check out our
web site at http://www.handymac.co.uk

You posted:

You don't even need to go that far away from the earth to meet life
threatening radiation - the moan hoax stories describe the Van Allen
belt. It seems from what I've read that that radiation belt is only 20
miles outside of the earths atmosphere.

Well, I am afraid that you have heard wrong. The Van Allen Belts around
the Earth are much less intense than those of Jupiter (Jupiter has a
stronger and much more extensive magnetic field). The lowest
terrestrial Van Allen belt has a start at around 1000 km (600 miles)
with a "patch" of somewhat lower intensity over the south Atlantic ocean
around 250 km (156 miles) above the Earth's surface (the "South Atlantic
Anomaly"), but its mean height is 1.5 times the Earth's radii above the
equator. The effects of both belts on manned spacecraft are mitigated
by shielding and limited exposure time. However, Jupiter's Belts are so
large and intense that it would take an immense amount of shielding to
protect people who wished to venture inside of them for a long period of
time. The ISS doesn't have that kind of shielding in place, so putting
the station in close orbit around Jupiter would be a death sentence to
anyone on board. Clear skies to you.
--
David W. Knisely
Prairie Astronomy Club: http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org
Hyde Memorial Observatory: http://www.hydeobservatory.info/

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