Orbiting utility vehicle

I hope my posting of this suggestion is not a rehash of something that
was considered and rejected. It may be a solution to two or more of
NASA's current problems. I will appreciate the group's evaluation and
opinion of it. I am a retired engineer who worked on space problems in
the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo era.

NASA needs to restock and repair the Hubble telescope without risking
the loss of a shuttle craft and it needs a vehicle in orbit that could
inspect a shuttle craft in an orbit other than with the space station.
It could also rescue crew members from a damaged shuttle craft or
transport a repair crew with parts to a shuttle stranded in orbit.

The vehicle must do all of the following:

Normally be fully supplied and operational immediately when needed.
Can be operated by one crew member or remotely from earth.
Match the orbit of any known object in earth orbit and return to the
space station.
Rescue by EVA the maximum projected crew that could be on a space
shuttle and the space station. (Just to cover the possibility of a
very disastrous docking maneuver.)
Serve as a backup to the current emergency crew safety measures for
the space station.

It will NOT have any capability for reentering the earth's atmosphere.
Think of it as a utility vehicle on a construction site used to help
solve unexpected problems.

Q Leap

Q Leap wrote:
Match the orbit of any known object in earth orbit and return to the
space station.

Impossible.

Rescue by EVA the maximum projected crew that could be on a space
shuttle and the space station. (Just to cover the possibility of a
very disastrous docking maneuver.)

Rescue them and carry them where?

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

NASA needs to restock and repair the Hubble telescope without risking
the loss of a shuttle craft and it needs a vehicle in orbit that could
inspect a shuttle craft in an orbit other than with the space station.
It could also rescue crew members from a damaged shuttle craft or
transport a repair crew with parts to a shuttle stranded in orbit.

The vehicle must do all of the following:

Normally be fully supplied and operational immediately when needed.
Can be operated by one crew member or remotely from earth.
Match the orbit of any known object in earth orbit and return to the
space station.
Rescue by EVA the maximum projected crew that could be on a space
shuttle and the space station. (Just to cover the possibility of a
very disastrous docking maneuver.)
Serve as a backup to the current emergency crew safety measures for
the space station.

It will NOT have any capability for reentering the earth's atmosphere.
Think of it as a utility vehicle on a construction site used to help
solve unexpected problems.

Q Leap


A space truck, a very useful and needed item. But it would be impossible for it
to go anywhere in earth orbit, thats just too big a area. If ISS continues one
day a shuttle or soyuz might abort to orbit and be unable to deorbit or reach
the station. such a truck might save a very bad day. osters here will dismiss
it, like they did to my pre columbia question of a shuttle getting stuck at
station, impossible, never happen, dont worry, bobs a chicken little

A truck might not be able to save a crew stuck at statrion but has a wealth of
other practical uses, I hope it gets built someday.

Its rocket section, with self directed revendous and docking might be a
excellent part of a redeploy satellite or more common name space tug.
HAVE A GREAT DAY!

"Q Leap" wrote in message
...
The vehicle must do all of the following:

Normally be fully supplied and operational immediately when needed.
Can be operated by one crew member or remotely from earth.
Match the orbit of any known object in earth orbit and return to the
space station.
Rescue by EVA the maximum projected crew that could be on a space
shuttle and the space station. (Just to cover the possibility of a
very disastrous docking maneuver.)
Serve as a backup to the current emergency crew safety measures for
the space station.

It will NOT have any capability for reentering the earth's atmosphere.
Think of it as a utility vehicle on a construction site used to help
solve unexpected problems.

If what you want is a vehicle that is based at ISS and would be capable of
changing its orbit to match Hubble, then change its orbit to match ISS, what
you're proposing is science fiction. Orbital dynamics and the state of the
art of high thrust, high efficiency rocket engines puts such a vehicle well
beyond the current state of the art.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

Jeff Findley wrote:
If what you want is a vehicle that is based at ISS and would be capable of
changing its orbit to match Hubble, then change its orbit to match ISS, what
you're proposing is science fiction.

Horse manure. The technology for such already exists and has been fully
documented already. One source of documentation contains the schematics and
general principles for such an engine. It is the NCC 1701-A technical manual.
There have already been experiments with anti-matter. All that is needed now
is for Bill Gates to take his money and actually build the thing according to
the plans already laid out in that technical manual.

But history has already recorded that it won't be until 2053 that Zephrem
Cochrane makes his test flight and that the warp drive will actually be proven
to work. So we know that between now and then, Bill Gates will lose his
fortune before ever making an attempt to outdo Steve Balmer's funding for a
tiny plane doing just Mach 3. (Or that Bill gates will make an attempt to fly
the 29th century ship he stole and he will die just before entering a time
warp to bring him to the 29th century where he was hoping to learn more about computers).

And as far asn a real orbiting utility vehicle, it is called "Soyuz". What is
needed is to have a Soyuz compatible docking port at the forward end of the
station so that in an emergency, one soyuz at the aft end could travel to the
forward end to pickup stranded occupants and bring them back to the russian
side of the station.

For all other purposes, the arm and its fancy hand should be enough to perform
most tasks that need to be done outdoors.

If what you want is a vehicle that is based at ISS and would be capable of
changing its orbit to match Hubble, then change its orbit to match ISS, what
you're proposing is science fiction. Orbital dynamics and the state of the
art of high thrust, high efficiency rocket engines puts such a vehicle well
beyond the current state of the art.

Jeff


THEORITICALLY, a truck based near hubble could pick up the crew, dive partially
in the atmosphere and transfer over to a iSS orbit. this would require hjeat
shielding
HAVE A GREAT DAY!

On 23 Jul 2004 11:22:54 GMT, (bob haller) wrote:

osters here will dismiss
it, like they did to my pre columbia question of a shuttle getting stuck at
station, impossible, never happen, dont worry, bobs a chicken little

What Bob doesn't say is that he has "warned" of impending disaster
from a wide variety of potential failure points. Most recently, it was
the inevitible death of spacewalking astronauts at ISS because of
US/Russian suit/airlock incompatibilities.

Even a stopped watch is correct twice a day.

Brian

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 10:56:27 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:

If what you want is a vehicle that is based at ISS and would be capable of
changing its orbit to match Hubble, then change its orbit to match ISS, what
you're proposing is science fiction. Orbital dynamics and the state of the
art of high thrust, high efficiency rocket engines puts such a vehicle well
beyond the current state of the art.

You should add "on a useful time scale". It can be done with
more-or-less existing technology, but not on a short-enough time scale
to be of any use as a rescue vehicle.

Brian

On 23 Jul 2004 22:53:11 GMT, (bob haller) wrote:


If what you want is a vehicle that is based at ISS and would be capable of
changing its orbit to match Hubble, then change its orbit to match ISS, what
you're proposing is science fiction. Orbital dynamics and the state of the
art of high thrust, high efficiency rocket engines puts such a vehicle well
beyond the current state of the art.

THEORITICALLY, a truck based near hubble could pick up the crew, dive partially
in the atmosphere and transfer over to a iSS orbit. this would require hjeat
shielding

But if we had such a truck with "dive in the atmosphere heat
shielding", why go to ISS and not simply re-enter and land? And if we
had *that* sort of truck, why bother sending the Shuttle to Hubble in
the first place?

Brian

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message .. .
If what you want is a vehicle that is based at ISS and would be capable of
changing its orbit to match Hubble, then change its orbit to match ISS, what
you're proposing is science fiction.

As science fiction as Deep Space One.

Granted, Ion Drive would make the whole orbit transition into the time
span of months. So the International Rescue probably wouldn't be using
such engine, at least the engine like Deep Space One use.

Anyway. If there's such thing as O.U.V. , then it should be a sort of
space station on its own. Though parking it near another orbiting
object would be okay, but it's preferable if it's park in an orbit
that allow it go anywhere, a sort of the L.E.O.'s version of L4 and L5
points.

Orbital dynamics and the state of the art of high thrust,
high efficiency rocket engines puts such a vehicle well
beyond the current state of the art.

Ask Groom Lake if they got anything like that.

Jeff