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Skylab reuse study (NASA PDF)
"Jeff Findley" wrote:
The proposals to dock Spacelab modules (pressurized and pallets) at Skylab would have been interesting. You could fly up, drop off some Spacelab modules, and take back the ones where the experiments were finished. This would have gotten rid of the short time limit on Spacelab experiments (which was limited by the shuttle's flight duration which is best measured in days). This group often forgets that the Shuttle was a return to the von Braun Vision - reuseable spacecraft and a space station working hand in manipulator actuator to forge a bridge to the planets. The varied schemes for Skylab derive directly from that architecture - Congress declined to pay for a station, and Shuttle needed a destination. (It's inherent to the very concept.) Sans station *and* Skylab, then Shuttle loses it's purpose and stopgaps come to represent the function of the craft, obscuring it's true design intent. Keep in mind that Spacelab [as flown] was a stopgap - developed when the space station that the Shuttle was meant to service persistently failed to materialize. Spacelab [as intended] was supposed (IIRC) to be a short term facility for special purpose flights which either didn't require a station, or would have been adversely affected by being attached to a station. (Like the telescope mount that so often appears in early Shuttle illustrations.) The EDO pallet was developed to help extend the on orbit lifetime of Spacelab - but was rarely flown. (Mostly, I think, because there are few experiments longer than the time range of a Shuttle flight yet shorter than the time range of a station.) Noticeably absent in this document is a CRV. Instead, likely due to the shuttle's absurdly high predicted flight rate when the document was written, the approach would have been to use operational (pressurized) areas of Skylab or the additional modules on front, as a safe haven until a rescue shuttle could arrive. One wonders if that didn't also drive the plans for the free-flying Spacelabs. I can't recall if they were intended to be manned. D. -- Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL |
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