Soon to be less borscht at the ISS?

In article om,
says...

On 2016-08-31 19:06, bob haller wrote:
theres no current ability to replace modules. the shuttle ended that ability,.

SpaceX would be able to conjur up a tin can holder and fairing for its
falcon9 rocket in an afternoon.

Possibly, but all their in orbit propulsion is on Dragon. I suppose you
could stuff a Dragon full of extra fuel and oxidizer tanks and turn it
into a tug. But I'd think Orbital ATK's Cygnus (minus its pressurized
module) would be easier to convert to "tug" duty.

It already has the guidance system to bring it within grappling range of
the canadarm. So launching a module should be possible. They did it for
the test bigelow baloon.

So does Cygnus, so there are two potential options to choose from.

And if Russia can do this (TKS tug and Progress propulsion module
derived tug), the US can surely do this too. It's not *that* hard.
It's not like the space shuttle was the only way to launch modules.
Russia sent most of its modules up on Proton and Soyuz launch vehicles!

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
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the gotcha is theres no way to return some modules for close examination on the ground.

things can occur that arent anticipated.

remember the shuttle wiring issues..

bob haller wrote:


unfortunnately i will be proved right, when a major accident occurs..........


No, you won't, although your flawed memory will insist that whatever
happens is EXACTLY what you predicted.


oh i guess we ran it too long......


Oh, I guess Bobbert is reduced to handwavium now.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-08-30 21:30, bob haller wrote:

nasa doesnt want to admit the station is becoming a hazard. deorbiting iss would cut more jobs from the agency

Ending the station essentially puts NASA out of manned space programme.


Certainly if it happens this week. But out in the 2020's, where it's
scheduled to happen, the funding goes to SLS, Ares, and asteroid
fetching.


This is why I am pretty sure they will get budget to pay SpaceX to run
the US segment and pay SpaceX and Boeing to provide taxi service to/from
station for US astronauts.


Then why wouldn't they just keep running it themselves? You
understand they are SELLING the station, right, not putting out RFPs
for a support contract, right?


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

bob haller wrote:


theres no current ability to replace modules. the shuttle ended that ability,.


Don't be silly. Most of the Russian modules were launched on Proton.
As for the rest, let's look at the size of the largest module, Kibo.
It was launched on three separate Shuttle flights and assembled in
orbit (via built in connectors). The largest piece of Kibo is the
pressurized module, which is 11.19 meters long, 4.39 meters in
diameter, and weighs 15.9 tonnes.

You could put that up on Falcon 9. The payload fairing is big enough
and it can put 22.9 tonnes into LEO. There would be some loss of
payload due to the high inclination of ISS's orbit, but 50% margin or
so certainly seems like enough to make up for that. Shuttle lost more
payload capability than that, but Shuttle had to bring along all the
parasitic mass of the Shuttle to the higher orbit.


so how long do you believe ISS will remain operation? 2 years? 5 years? 20 years?


The Russians seem to think there's plenty of life left in the
hardware, since their plan is to take their modules and make their own
station if the US deorbits the parts it is responsible for.


by now ISS should of been deorbited years ago


And why is that again?


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-08-31 19:06, bob haller wrote:

theres no current ability to replace modules. the shuttle ended that ability,.


SpaceX would be able to conjur up a tin can holder and fairing for its
falcon9 rocket in an afternoon.


They already have one. Do you ever bother to look up even the most
trivial things before you drop your trousers here and show your ass?


It already has the guidance system to bring it within grappling range of
the canadarm. So launching a module should be possible. They did it for
the test bigelow baloon.


That is very small and lightweight. Poor example.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

"Greg \(Strider\) Moore" wrote:

"bob haller" wrote in message
...

theres no current ability to replace modules. the shuttle ended that
ability,.

so how long do you believe ISS will remain operation? 2 years? 5 years? 20
years?

by now ISS should of been deorbited years ago


Hmm. I guess that BEAM that was just deployed is a myth.
And I guess the Russian modules are a myth.

Sorry, this is BS.

The reason we haven't replaced modules is because a) we haven't had a need
and b) because given the LAYOUT of the station, it would be fairly
problematic.


And if we did 'replace' a module we would probably not replace it with
an identical copy of the old one. We'd design one or more new modules
to subsume the functions of the old module (plus extra functions) and
replace it with those.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw

bob haller wrote:


the gotcha is theres no way to return some modules for close examination on the ground.


There never was. 'Bring back' is always going to be a lot less than
what you can put up.


things can occur that arent anticipated.

remember the shuttle wiring issues..


Yeah. I mean, everyone could fart at the same time and just blow ISS
up.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

Fred J. McCall wrote:
As for the rest, let's look at the size of the largest module, Kibo.
It was launched on three separate Shuttle flights and assembled in
orbit (via built in connectors). The largest piece of Kibo is the
pressurized module, which is 11.19 meters long, 4.39 meters in
diameter, and weighs 15.9 tonnes.

You could put that up on Falcon 9. The payload fairing is big
enough and it can put 22.9 tonnes into LEO.

Looking at:
http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/f...de_rev_2.0.pdf

page 10 suggests the fairing is 5.2m long "gross" but that is I
suspect just my (understandably) mis-interpreting the way they labled
things there and the 5.2 is the gross width.

Figure 5-2 on Page 36 gives a more complete diagram. The maximum
actual payload dimension is 11m high, and 4.6m wide - but in addition
to being 0.19m short, that 4.6m of width goes only 6.7m. By the time
it hits the 11m mark, payload width is limited to 1.45m

So as far as a like-for-like replacement of that bit of Kibo, it
doesn't look like one could launch it on a Falcon 9 with its current
fairing.

The guide left mass-to-orbit unspecified - a "Contact SpaceX" kind of
thing.

rick jones
--
"You can't do a damn thing in this house without having to do three
other things first!" - my father (It seems universally applicable
these opinions are mine, all mine; HPE might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hpe.com but NOT BOTH...

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-09-01 15:02, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Certainly if it happens this week. But out in the 2020's, where it's
scheduled to happen, the funding goes to SLS, Ares, and asteroid
fetching.

SLS has finite number of engines. It truly is rocket to nowhere. Ares
has long ago been killed off. NASA really has no manned space programme
if ISS is turned off.


No, they're tooling up to build new ones.

ship Mr Mezei telling me **** I already knew and said most of


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn