What is involved in 'safing' a shuttle?

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/...les _999.html

Talks about making the shuttle safe for disposal, what does that
involve?
Also wasn't there a plan to add one more shuttle flight to add the AMS
to the station?
Also how much flight ready station hardware is there that won't make
it to the station?
Or anything that was deleted from the final design was never
completed?

Just curious

Keith W AKA Space Cadet

On 2/23/2010 6:24 AM, Space Cadet wrote:

Also how much flight ready station hardware is there that won't make
it to the station?
Or anything that was deleted from the final design was never
completed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interna...celled_modules
As far as safing the Shuttle for museum display, they have a series of
articles here about getting a SR-71 ready, and it would probably be
quite a bit like that: http://www.vam.smv.org/aircraft/week_1.asp
One thing they will obviously have to do is carefully flush out all the
propellant tanks and plumbing that had hydrazine or nitrogen tetroxide
in them, due to the high toxicity of those two chemicals (hydrazine also
gets used in the APUs).

Pat

On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:24:15 -0800 (PST), Space Cadet
wrote:

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/...les _999.html

Talks about making the shuttle safe for disposal, what does that
involve?

Draining propellants, removing pressure vessels, etc.

Also wasn't there a plan to add one more shuttle flight to add the AMS
to the station?

Yes, and approved as STS-134, which will fly in July between STS-132
and STS-133. STS-134 will take up AMS and more spare parts.

Also how much flight ready station hardware is there that won't make
it to the station?

Just the Multipurpose Logistics Module "Donatello", which was built to
haul cargo to and from the Station aboard the Shuttle. The third MPLM
will now never fly. MPLM 1 Leonardo and MPLM 2 Rafaello have both
flown repeatedly. (Leonardo will be outfitted to become a permanent
part of the Space Station, called the Presurized Multipurpose Module,
and installed on STS-133.)

Or anything that was deleted from the final design was never
completed?

Lots. Hab module, Centrifuge module, Crew Return Vehicle. All
cancelled in 2001. That's just on the US side. The Russian side lost
most of its additional modules.

Brian

Brian Thorn wrote:
On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:24:15 -0800 (PST), Space Cadet
wrote:

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/...les _999.html

Talks about making the shuttle safe for disposal, what does that
involve?

Draining propellants, removing pressure vessels, etc.

And removing pyros, etc.

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:24:15 -0800 (PST), Space Cadet
wrote:

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/...les _999.html

Talks about making the shuttle safe for disposal, what does that
involve?

Draining propellants, removing pressure vessels, etc.

Specifically, the OMS/RCS propellants and the APU fuel are extremely toxic
and hazardous.

One upon a time there was a plan/proposal to refit the shuttle with
non-toxic propellants and electric APU's. Never happened. It would be very
nice if follow-on spacecraft (especially if they are to be reusable) don't
have toxic propellants.

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon

Jeff Findley wrote:

Specifically, the OMS/RCS propellants and the APU fuel are extremely
toxic and hazardous.

One upon a time there was a plan/proposal to refit the shuttle with
non-toxic propellants and electric APU's. Never happened. It would
be very nice if follow-on spacecraft (especially if they are to be
reusable) don't have toxic propellants.

Ayup. There's a number of "upgrades" that I think would have made the
shuttle a much more viable vehicle. Those alone would have greatly
simplified ground processing.



Jeff

--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.

On Feb 23, 9:31*pm, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote:
Brian Thorn wrote:
On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:24:15 -0800 (PST), Space Cadet
wrote:

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/...For_Displaying....

Talks about making the shuttle safe for disposal, *what does that
involve?

Draining propellants, removing pressure vessels, etc.

And removing pyros, etc.

Replacing good electronic devices with mock-ups.

On Feb 24, 3:10�pm, Eric Chomko wrote:
On Feb 23, 9:31�pm, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote:

Brian Thorn wrote:
On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:24:15 -0800 (PST), Space Cadet
wrote:

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/...For_Displaying....

Talks about making the shuttle safe for disposal, �what does that
involve?

Draining propellants, removing pressure vessels, etc.

And removing pyros, etc.

Replacing good electronic devices with mock-ups.

so what onboard electronics can be used elsewhere?

besides as historical articles ideally they would be preserved intact
as much as possible

On 2/24/2010 7:18 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:

One upon a time there was a plan/proposal to refit the shuttle with
non-toxic propellants and electric APU's. Never happened. It would be very
nice if follow-on spacecraft (especially if they are to be reusable) don't
have toxic propellants.

The problem is that if you run your RCS on LOX/kerosene, you need some
sort of igniter system that has to work on every start of the thrusters.
Russia did get this to work on Buran, but it was not supposed to have
been simple to design by any stretch of the imagination.
There's some photos of their RCS engines he
http://www.buran.ru/htm/vsu.htm
....looking far more complex than those on the Shuttle.
As far as the APU's go, ditch the hydrazine system and then you end up
with heavy batteries or some sort of H2O2 driven turbine.

Pat

"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote in message
m...
Jeff Findley wrote:

Specifically, the OMS/RCS propellants and the APU fuel are extremely
toxic and hazardous.

One upon a time there was a plan/proposal to refit the shuttle with
non-toxic propellants and electric APU's. Never happened. It would
be very nice if follow-on spacecraft (especially if they are to be
reusable) don't have toxic propellants.

Ayup. There's a number of "upgrades" that I think would have made the
shuttle a much more viable vehicle. Those alone would have greatly
simplified ground processing.

Somewhat. The above mentioned upgrades would have been very nice to have.
But some of the proposed upgrades were really "pie in the sky" like liquid
fly-back rocket boosters and had essentially zero chance of ever being
funded.

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon