More ET foam woes

On Fri, 2 Dec 2005 20:02:42 -0600, tobarn wrote
(in article .com):


Jake McGuire wrote:
wrote:
Jeff Findley wrote:

I still support ISS "completion" so that it can be used for something
useful,

This probably sounds snarky, sorry, but is just meant as a
straightforward question:

What useful things, as specifically as possible, is the "completed"
ISS supposed to be used for?

1) On-orbit testing/qualification of subcomponents intended for use in
zero-G.

Except many on them are russian and already qualified. And any others
could be much easily and cheaply qualified on Russian launchers.

NOTHING in the U.S. Lab or Node segments, nor the MPLMs, is Russian at
all, nor is anything significant in any of the truss segments, PV
arrays or external TCS. Furthermore, nothing in the Russian-built
segments has any applicability to CEV/return to the moon.

2) Further characterizing the influence of zero-G on humans.

Dont need to. The russians have already down this to death.

No, they really haven't. Not to the extent needed to seriously
consider long-term 1/6 g or micro-g living on the order of years.

3) Determining effectiveness of remedies to the negative effects of
zero-G.

Nope..None planned nor even theorised except rotation. Something
documented by the russians almost a century ago.

Bull**** - there's a lot more to counter-acting micro-g environments
than centrifuges. Exercise, isometric muscle condition, medication,
nutritional supplements, etc.

4) Characterizing the effects of partial G on living organisms (but I
think the CAM is dead.)

Already done by the russians.

Lots of stuff has "already [been] done." That doesn't mean it's been
done thoroughly enough, nor well enough.

The only purpose of the ISS is to utilise Russian knowhow to build a
station so that NASA can pretend to the US people that their actually
capable of it.

Right. That's why all the largest volume is the U.S. Lab, the core to
the design are the Nodes and the whole thing is hanging off the U.S.
truss.

**** the Russians - they were brought in as a way to save costs and all
the money and technical know-how built up during Space Station Freedom.
They're involvement has only complicated things, resulted in endless
redesigns and rescheduling to accommodate the higher orbital
inclination, and actually increased total program costs.

Sure there is some american involvement hence why its
over budget and a joke.

You're an idiot.

(Rest of blather snipped)

--
"Fame may be fleeting but obscurity is forever." ~Anonymous
"I believe as little as possible and know as much as I can."
~Todd Stuart Phillips
www.angryherb.net

wrote in news:1133546830.018157.155840
@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:

Ground shuttle permanetely, fast track CEV and heavy lifter, use soyuz
progress to continue ISS.

Stupid idea. ISS is useless without the shuttle to complete its assembly.
If you ground shuttle, you ditch ISS (and HST). It's that simple.

Keep the workers not retiring on the payroll
somehow.

Really stupid idea. You keep railing against the cost of the shuttle
program without realizing that most of those costs are *people* costs. If
you don't cut the workers, you're in the same situation as now, where the
shuttle consumes $4 billion per year without even flying.

If it takes too long deorbit existing iSS and send grounded modules on
heavy lifter too NEW station in a better orbital location!

The grounded modules are insufficient to make a new station; you'd have to
build replacements for the ones already launched. Really, really stupid
idea.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

wrote:


What useful things, as specifically as possible, is the "completed"
ISS supposed to be used for?



A. Provide jobs for NASA personnel.
B. Funnel federal money into the aerospace industry.
C. Give the Russians somewhere to send space tourists.
D. Look real bright in the night sky.
E. Maybe some science stuff too. :-)

Pat

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Stupid idea. ISS is useless without the shuttle to complete its assembly.
If you ground shuttle, you ditch ISS (and HST). It's that simple.



And the downside is? ;-)

Pat

Jorge R. Frank wrote:



Incorrect. The Russians have a nasty cultural tendency to
compartmentalize information and not write things down.


Now come on! They write things down all the time...they're a pack of
half-truths and outright lies, but they do write them down.
"The fire? Oh, that little thing...it was out in ten seconds."
"So there was a itsy-bitsy little collision between them."
"Air leak during reentry? Well that hardly constitutes an 'air leak' in
our estimation. No one even died."

Pat

Herb Schaltegger wrote:

**** the Russians - they were brought in as a way to save costs and all
the money and technical know-how built up during Space Station Freedom.

Umm... and as a way to get *anything* built. For all the complaints
about the consequences of internationalization, the real political
alternative in 1992-1994 was not a nifty all-American station in a
lower-inclination orbit, but none at all.

They're involvement has only complicated things, resulted in endless
redesigns and rescheduling to accommodate the higher orbital
inclination, and actually increased total program costs.

Considering how much we'd burned through with no hardware to show for
it *before* their involvement, one could argue that the "total program
costs" 1984-1992 were effectively infinite.

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...


wrote:


What useful things, as specifically as possible, is the "completed"
ISS supposed to be used for?


A. Provide jobs for NASA personnel.
B. Funnel federal money into the aerospace industry.
C. Give the Russians somewhere to send space tourists.
D. Look real bright in the night sky.
E. Maybe some science stuff too. :-)


F) keep Russian aerospace workers from getting recruited by Iran

h (Rand Simberg) wrote:


Which in retrospect would have been better.

Could well be, if the same funds had been used for space (not a given)
and more productively (ditto).

I'm not a big fan of the ISS we got, but -- as with the shuttle and
other topics -- I prefer to measure what we got against the
alternatives available at the time, not best-of-all-possible-worlds
hindsight. YMMV.

Pat Flannery wrote in
:



Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Stupid idea. ISS is useless without the shuttle to complete its
assembly. If you ground shuttle, you ditch ISS (and HST). It's that
simple.



And the downside is? ;-)

If you're not a fan of ISS/HST, no downside, obviously. If you're one of
the naive space cadets who believes we can have a useful ISS/HST without
the shuttle, then there's a big downside.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

On Sat, 03 Dec 2005 14:39:58 GMT, Monte Davis
wrote:

Considering how much we'd burned through with no hardware to show for
it *before* their involvement, one could argue that the "total program
costs" 1984-1992 were effectively infinite.

It was about $8 billion, according to official NASA budgets.

Brian