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Working Hand In Glove
That's not the title of my latest Fox Column, but it should have been.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111821,00.html |
#3
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Working Hand In Glove
Rand Simberg wrote:
That's not the title of my latest Fox Column, but it should have been. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111821,00.html Excellent column, Rand! In addition to better suits, I think better remote controlled robotic hands would be useful. Remote controlled robotic hands presently exist but it's my understanding they're not nearly as dextrous as real hands. It seems to me better robotic hands is an attainable goal. I should think these would be useful in many non-space industrial applications. They would be helpful to space exploration beyond orbital construction also. For example, it would be good for the occupants of a lunar hab to be able to do outside maintenance without opening and closing air locks. I also believe something like an X-prize awarded to first people to repair something complicated in a vacuum is a good idea. -- Hop David http://clowder.net/hop/index.html |
#4
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Working Hand In Glove
h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
That's not the title of my latest Fox Column, but it should have been. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111821,00.html Rand, I remember a book with a 1962 copyright that itemized six ways of getting to the moon. Only the sixth way involved heavy lift--and the author considered that approach not worth further discussion. I wish I could give you a reference, but I evidently loaned the book and didn't get it back. As for risk, I never saw the "logic" behind the belief that building a Saturn V on a tight schedule was less risky than building a lot of proven Saturn I's and going for assembly in low Earth orbit. As a side bet to the Saturn I, I wanted us to try to develop a fully reusable space transport. This would have avoided the obvious (from a 1962 perspective) dead-end nature of the chosen approach. Best regards Len (Cormier) PanAero, Inc. (change x to len) http://www.tour2space.com |
#5
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Working Hand In Glove
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111821,00.html
The glove-prize does seem like a good idea. Especially in terms of the "can be won in a garage" part. I'm not sure whether I'd pick the first contestant to achieve the task, or have a panel of judges pick the best design (I'm sure there are plenty of designs which would win the prize but have problems working in a real spacesuit, for example), or what. But the contest would be cheap enough to run, that there isn't much to lose. Now, exactly how much assembly I'd do via EVA, and how via docking, refueling (a la Progress), and the like is also an open question. The ISS approach is EVA-intensive (and if you think that's bad, you should see earlier incarnations of Freedom/Fred/etc), and it is far from clear to me that there are big gains from doing it this way. |
#6
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Working Hand In Glove
"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
... That's not the title of my latest Fox Column, but it should have been. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111821,00.html Consider also that our goal then was not to open up space in any sustainable way, but to simply beat the Russians to the moon. On what do you base that statement? Many people had many goals. Many people had the goal of opening up space in a sustainable way. Politicians form coalitions. Why would labor union workers and gays be members of the same party? Better space suits would be nice, but they have nothing to do with on orbit assembly. Linking up a lunar lander with a command module is essentially a docking task (unless you're talking about lots of little parts). Who do you envision doing the assembly -- people on a space station, or the people who want to go to the moon? |
#7
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Working Hand In Glove
"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
... That's not the title of my latest Fox Column, but it should have been. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111821,00.html Hasn't anyone thought of using some sort of pressurization control (preferably mechanic, as electronic is failure prone) to enable the suit to automatically adjust to joint motion? In-orbit assembly does have its share of problems, though. What are you gonna do if one launch fails and you have a partly assembled spaceship in orbit? How are you gonna keep it there? Do we need to build everything in doubles to compensate for a launch failure? How much manual assembly (i.e. by humans) are you going to require or is it all going to be click-n-snap? |
#8
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Working Hand In Glove
"Mike Rhino" wrote:
Better space suits would be nice, but they have nothing to do with on orbit assembly. Other than the well known and long standing problems existing suits have caused workers on orbit and in vacuum, no, there's no connection. D. -- The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found at the following URLs: Text-Only Version: http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html Enhanced HTML Version: http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html Corrections, comments, and additions should be e-mailed to , as well as posted to sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for discussion. |
#9
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Working Hand In Glove
"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
... "Mike Rhino" wrote: Better space suits would be nice, but they have nothing to do with on orbit assembly. Other than the well known and long standing problems existing suits have caused workers on orbit and in vacuum, no, there's no connection. What's the proposed assembly plan? Are you talking about docking two ships together or putting 20 pieces together? If you are talking about people putting things together, which people -- people heading to the moon or people in a space station? |
#10
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Working Hand In Glove
On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 00:43:52 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
"Mike Rhino" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that: "Rand Simberg" wrote in message .. . That's not the title of my latest Fox Column, but it should have been. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111821,00.html Consider also that our goal then was not to open up space in any sustainable way, but to simply beat the Russians to the moon. On what do you base that statement? History and reality. Better space suits would be nice, but they have nothing to do with on orbit assembly. Really? |
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