80's style Stations Modules...

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 11:47:40 -0600, in a place far, far away, "Jorge
R. Frank" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

wrote:
On Feb 16, 10:50 am, (Rand Simberg)
wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 09:39:48 -0600, in a place far, far away, "Joseph
S. Powell, III" made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

With all the excitement experienced during the past few days with the
attachment of the Columbus module to the ISS, I was reminded of the types of
Space Station modules proposed back in the 1980's....
These tended to have a longer design, filling up the entire payload bay of
the Shuttle.
Does anyone know why these longer modules were rejected in favor of the
shorter ones now used on the ISS?
The older designs certainly had much more room.
Probably at least partly because longer ones would have been too heavy
for the Shuttle to get to the high-inclination ISS orbit. In the
eighties, the station was planned to be put at 28 degrees. But that's
just a guess.

Rand is right. Also $ was factor

Actually, you're both wrong. The modules were shortened as part of
the infamous "Fred" redesign of Space Station Freedom in 1991, two years
before the Russians were brought into the project and the station's
planned orbit moved from 28.8 to 51.6 degrees.

Astronautix is normally suspect as a source, but their Fred article was
guest-written by Marcus Lindroos and is fairly well researched:

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/spanfred.htm

"The length of the crew modules was reduced to 8.2 meters to reduce the
weight while allowing them to be tested, integrated and outfitted on the
ground rather than in space."

Well, as I said, just a guess. I didn't follow the program that
closely.

On Feb 16, 10:56*am, bob haller safety advocate
wrote:

the shuttle was a great idea poorly executed and remainded way too long

When should it have been permanently grounded, in your opinion?

Right after it's "execution" by Reagan/Bush/Graham (Challenger
destroyed; shuttle grounded nearly three years; endless Thiokol pork
barrel in Utah)?

Right after its "execution" by GWB/Cheney/O'Keefe (Columbia destroyed;
shuttle grounded; endless Lockheed pork barrel in Louisiana)?

Maybe you think it should have been grounded before it flew, say in
the Carter administration?

JTM

On Feb 16, 1:17 pm, John Doe wrote:
Brian Thorn wrote:
$ was *the* factor.

Once you have the CBM, end cones and general frame tooling, does it
really cost that much more to add a metre or two to the length of a module ?

You'll still have the same amount of testing to do, same electronics and
subsystems. Is that where most of the costs are ?
the cost purely a matter of the number of shuttle launches
required to assemble the station ? The lighter the modules, the more you
could launch at a time and the fewer flights you'd need ?

Outfitting, meaning racks. The electronics and subsystems are in
racks, not the module shell.

On Feb 16, 12:32 pm, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 09:39:48 -0600, "Joseph S. Powell, III"

wrote:
With all the excitement experienced during the past few days with the
attachment of the Columbus module to the ISS, I was reminded of the types of
Space Station modules proposed back in the 1980's....
These tended to have a longer design, filling up the entire payload bay of
the Shuttle.
Does anyone know why these longer modules were rejected in favor of the
shorter ones now used on the ISS?

The Kibo Lab is the same dimensions it has always been planned to be.

The U.S. modules shrank in a cost-cutting move during one of the
redesigns in the early 1990s (this happened before the Russians came
aboard and the inclination changed, so it wasn't because of that.)

Columbus uses the MPLM spaceframe, probably as another cost-saving
move. The MPLM was sized that way to leave room in the payload bay for
non-pressurized cargo, if necessary.

Brian

The first "M" in MPLM used to be for Mini. It was another cost saving
measure. The original PLM were bigger

On Feb 16, 2:05 pm, "
wrote:
On Feb 16, 10:56 am, bob haller safety advocate


Look, they even flock together

On Feb 16, 2:05�pm, "
wrote:
On Feb 16, 10:56�am, bob haller safety advocate
wrote:



the shuttle was a great idea poorly executed and remainded way too long

When should it have been permanently grounded, in your opinion?

Right after it's "execution" by Reagan/Bush/Graham (Challenger
destroyed; shuttle grounded nearly three years; endless Thiokol pork
barrel in Utah)?

Right after its "execution" by GWB/Cheney/O'Keefe (Columbia destroyed;
shuttle grounded; endless Lockheed pork barrel in Louisiana)?

Maybe you think it should have been grounded before it flew, say in
the Carter administration?

JTM

should of haver been certified for manned flight without launch boost
escape.....

and remained in service way too long, should of been been replaced
after challenger.......

iss SHOULDNT HAVE been designed to use it

On Feb 16, 7:06 pm, bob haller safety advocate
wrote:
On Feb 16, 2:05�pm, "
wrote:



On Feb 16, 10:56�am, bob haller safety advocate
wrote:

the shuttle was a great idea poorly executed and remainded way too long

When should it have been permanently grounded, in your opinion?

Right after it's "execution" by Reagan/Bush/Graham (Challenger
destroyed; shuttle grounded nearly three years; endless Thiokol pork
barrel in Utah)?

Right after its "execution" by GWB/Cheney/O'Keefe (Columbia destroyed;
shuttle grounded; endless Lockheed pork barrel in Louisiana)?

Maybe you think it should have been grounded before it flew, say in
the Carter administration?

JTM

should of haver been certified for manned flight without launch boost
escape.....

and remained in service way too long, should of been been replaced
after challenger.......

iss SHOULDNT HAVE been designed to use it

Wrong. The ISS wouldn't exist without the shuttle. ISS existed to
give the shuttle something to do

On Feb 16, 6:06*pm, bob haller safety advocate
wrote:

should of haver been certified for manned flight without launch boost
escape.....

Did STS-1 through STS-4 fly without an ejection system?

and remained in service way too long, should of been been replaced
after challenger.......

And if Challenger had not ended in disaster?

JTM

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
news
wrote:
On Feb 16, 10:50 am, (Rand Simberg)
wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 09:39:48 -0600, in a place far, far away, "Joseph
S. Powell, III" made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

With all the excitement experienced during the past few days with the
attachment of the Columbus module to the ISS, I was reminded of the
types of
Space Station modules proposed back in the 1980's....
These tended to have a longer design, filling up the entire payload bay
of
the Shuttle.
Does anyone know why these longer modules were rejected in favor of the
shorter ones now used on the ISS?
The older designs certainly had much more room.
Probably at least partly because longer ones would have been too heavy
for the Shuttle to get to the high-inclination ISS orbit. In the
eighties, the station was planned to be put at 28 degrees. But that's
just a guess.

Rand is right. Also $ was factor

Actually, you're both wrong. The modules were shortened as part of the
infamous "Fred" redesign of Space Station Freedom in 1991, two years
before the Russians were brought into the project and the station's
planned orbit moved from 28.8 to 51.6 degrees.

Astronautix is normally suspect as a source, but their Fred article was
guest-written by Marcus Lindroos and is fairly well researched:

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/spanfred.htm

"The length of the crew modules was reduced to 8.2 meters to reduce the
weight while allowing them to be tested, integrated and outfitted on the
ground rather than in space."

And when we changed from 28.8 to 51.6 degrees with the Russians, they
couldn't launch them fully outfitted anymore due to the payload limits
imposed by the inclination change. So we lost some of the benefits of doing
all of the integration and testing while the modules were on the ground. If
I recall, the US Lab was launched with a lot of empty spaces where racks
should have been.

Here's a quote from a NASA website:

When it arrived at the Station, Destiny had five racks housing
electrical and life-support systems. Subsequent shuttle missions
have delivered more racks and experiment facilities, including the
Microgravity Science Glovebox, the Human Research Facility and
five racks to hold various science experiments. Eventually, Destiny
will hold up to 13 payload racks with experiments in human life
science, materials research, Earth observations and commercial
applications.

From the "interactive" bit on the webpage, it looks like Destiny has room
for a total of 24 racks, so launching with only 5 racks installed is
launching the module mostly empty, at least in my book.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein

wrote in message
...
On Feb 16, 12:32 pm, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 09:39:48 -0600, "Joseph S. Powell, III"

wrote:
With all the excitement experienced during the past few days with the
attachment of the Columbus module to the ISS, I was reminded of the
types of
Space Station modules proposed back in the 1980's....
These tended to have a longer design, filling up the entire payload bay
of
the Shuttle.
Does anyone know why these longer modules were rejected in favor of the
shorter ones now used on the ISS?

The Kibo Lab is the same dimensions it has always been planned to be.

The U.S. modules shrank in a cost-cutting move during one of the
redesigns in the early 1990s (this happened before the Russians came
aboard and the inclination changed, so it wasn't because of that.)

Columbus uses the MPLM spaceframe, probably as another cost-saving
move. The MPLM was sized that way to leave room in the payload bay for
non-pressurized cargo, if necessary.

Brian

The first "M" in MPLM used to be for Mini. It was another cost saving
measure. The original PLM were bigger

Wikipedia doesn't agree (but it's obviously not the best source):

The MPLM was originally designed for Space Station Freedom. Initially,
it was to be built by Boeing, but in 1992, the Italians announced that
they would build a "Mini-Pressurized Logistics Module," able to carry
4500 kg of cargo. After the 1993 redesign, the length was doubled and
it was renamed the "Multi-Purpose Logistics Module." Each empty MPLM
is approximately 21 feet (6.4 m) long, 15 feet (4.6 m) in diameter,
weighs 4.5 tons, and can deliver up to 10 tons of cargo to the ISS.

Spaceref seems to agree with you:

Note: the acronym "MPLM" used to stand for "Mini-Pressurized Logistics
Module". During the various space station redesigns in 1992/1994 various
modules were reduced in size to save weight. The Space Station Freedom
program's larger PLM (Pressurized Logistics Module) was reduced in size
and dubbed the "mini" PLM. The acronym stuck, but as the program evolved,
the original name did not.

Astronautix.com (article by Marcus Lindroos) doesn't agree:

When the International Space Station (ISS) was redesigned again in 1993,
it was decided to expand the original Mini-Pressurized Logistics Module
design. The new Multi-Purpose Logistics Module was twice as long and
could carry 9000 kg of cargo to ISS.

It almost seems like there was a Pressurized Logistics Module which got
shortened to a Mini-Pressurized Logistics Module, but the Mini-Pressurized
Logistics Module was then doubled in size to the Multi-Pressurized Logistics
Module. If true, this begs the question, is the current MPLM bigger,
smaller, or the essentially the same size as the original PLM?

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein