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Action-reaction in space: the "gyrodine war" heats up (Oberg)



 
 
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Old February 28th 05, 06:40 PM
Jim Oberg
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Default Action-reaction in space: the "gyrodine war" heats up (Oberg)

The Space Review:

Action-reaction in space: the "gyrodine war" heats up

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/331/1



photo: Water vapor emitted by Russian spacesuits, like the one astronaut
Michael Fincke wore on a spacewalk outside the ISS last year, may create a
torque on the station, as well as torquing US-Russian relations. (credit:
NASA)



Action-reaction in space: the "gyrodine war" heats up

by James Oberg

Monday, February 28, 2005

In an increasingly strident campaign of cosmic complaints, Russian space
officials earlier this month blamed "an American operator's mistake" for
wasting over 13 kilograms of precious rocket fuel in the Russian section of
the International Space Station. The complaint followed a report by
msnbc.com of NASA alarm over what the American side saw as careless Russian
oversight of a spacewalk in which an astronaut could have been exposed to
hazardous thruster firings.

Since then, this reporter has learned (and a NASA official has
confirmed) that a joint US-Russian investigation team concluded last week
that these preliminary American concerns were justified. Meanwhile, though,
several anonymous Russian space officials were quoted in the Russian press
as attributing the NASA concern only to the American side's growing sense of
inferiority connected with the grounding of the space shuttle fleet, and
they seemed to blame the spacewalk hazard on failed American hardware.

Lost in all of this exchange of complaints is the fundamental
engineering problem of what actually is forcing the Russian thrusters to
fire during spacewalks. American and Russian space workers have strikingly
incompatible theories about the causes. With another space walk coming up in
mid-March, a consensus is urgently needed so that effective countermeasures
can be developed.


 




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