Longevity of station

Everyone is saying it can last a long time, but I wonder how long before
either human error, or natural causes cause a serious problem, hopefully not
fatal to the folk on it, but I was wondering what they would do if a fairly
large bit of meteorite hit it. From the description at the moment they have
all sorts of things through hatches etc, which would need to be closed if
the air started to leak. however, I'd imagine anything over a piece the size
of a egg would cause so much damage it would be the end.

Brian

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"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...
Everyone is saying it can last a long time, but I wonder how long before
either human error, or natural causes cause a serious problem, hopefully
not fatal to the folk on it, but I was wondering what they would do if a
fairly large bit of meteorite hit it. From the description at the moment
they have all sorts of things through hatches etc, which would need to be
closed if the air started to leak. however, I'd imagine anything over a
piece the size of a egg would cause so much damage it would be the end.

The CBM's were specifically designed such that the hatches can be closed
without breaking the connections made between modules in the vestibule area.
Jumpers between the two modules are placed in the pressurized area *around*
the hatch itself. Because of this design, there shouldn't be anything in
the hatchways which would prevent the hatches from being closed. The
engineers did good here.

I'm not going to speculate what an egg sized piece of space debris would do
to an ISS module.

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

On 05/24/2010 04:12 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:
"Brian wrote in message
...
Everyone is saying it can last a long time, but I wonder how long before
either human error, or natural causes cause a serious problem, hopefully
not fatal to the folk on it, but I was wondering what they would do if a
fairly large bit of meteorite hit it. From the description at the moment
they have all sorts of things through hatches etc, which would need to be
closed if the air started to leak. however, I'd imagine anything over a
piece the size of a egg would cause so much damage it would be the end.

I'm not going to speculate what an egg sized piece of space debris would do
to an ISS module.


Likely loss of station. The MMOD shields can handle impactors up to 1 cm
diameter; USSTRATCOM can only track objects 10 cm or larger. The sizes
in between represent the danger zone.

If space aliens start throwing eggs at the station, it depends on which
module they hit.

Depressurizing Destiny would jeoperdize the station because there are so
many criticial systems there. Loss of columbus or kibo would allow the
station to remain functional.

How feasable would it be for crews, in EVA suits, to remove the outer
panels and insulation and then bolt on some panel over the
egg sized hole ?

So are we saying that the most likely problems are man made debris, rather
than 'real' space rocks. Every year the Earth passes through many debris
clouds from comets, and I'd have thought these times could well be the most
dangerous, but nobody seems to pay much heed to them, even doing evas while
they are due I seem to recall.

Obviously there is a lot of empty space out there, but what set me thinking
about this was the eva the other day when they were putting tools away and
there were lots of comments about mmod damage causing shar edges on some
of the handrails and surfaces.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...
On 05/24/2010 04:12 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:
"Brian wrote in message
...
Everyone is saying it can last a long time, but I wonder how long before
either human error, or natural causes cause a serious problem, hopefully
not fatal to the folk on it, but I was wondering what they would do if a
fairly large bit of meteorite hit it. From the description at the
moment
they have all sorts of things through hatches etc, which would need to
be
closed if the air started to leak. however, I'd imagine anything over a
piece the size of a egg would cause so much damage it would be the end.

I'm not going to speculate what an egg sized piece of space debris would
do
to an ISS module.


Likely loss of station. The MMOD shields can handle impactors up to 1 cm
diameter; USSTRATCOM can only track objects 10 cm or larger. The sizes in
between represent the danger zone.