Expandable space stations will be tested and proven in space within12 months and then larger modules will increase space station size per costby over ten times

In article om,
says...

On 15-09-01 08:42, bob haller wrote:

there was a story that congress passed a law to prevent transhab type modules. it was a long time ago

This may not contradict the budget thing. The way I recall it, NASA was
interested in transhab, but would have needed more money, and congress,
seeing the cost overruns and delays for station refused additional funding.

This refusal could be seen as preventing transhab, or seen just as a
technologically neutral control of budget overruns.

This is a more accurate summary than what Bob put forth.

After Transhab was not funded by Congress, Bigelow Aerospace negotiated
the rights to use the technology. So, the original research was NASA,
but the engineering necessary to make it a reality has been Bigelow
Aerospace (e.g. BEAM).

Nothing was made "illegal" by Congress. This wasn't some sort of
conspiracy to suppress new technology, this was Congress putting its
foot down when NASA came to it requesting additional funding to fully
develop this new technology. Time and again, other various new
technologies intended for the space station fell by the wayside due to
cost and schedule overruns. Unfortunately for Transhab, it appeared to
Congress to be yet another new bit of tech that might not pan out.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

On Wednesday, September 2, 2015 at 6:03:35 AM UTC-4, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

By the way, where do we stand on the centrifuge that was proposed to attach to the ISS?

Not going to fly.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

it would induce vibration in the station making things like growing crystals impossible.

ISS really needed a unmanned companion flyer from the beginning.

astronauts would visit perodically and service the experminents

On Wednesday, September 2, 2015 at 2:44:04 PM UTC-4, JF Mezei wrote:
On 15-09-02 11:23, Fred J. McCall wrote:

And that's about what I expected. Bobbert, as usual, was spun right
out of his mind...

On the other hand, while the policians may have turned down the budget
request, it may have been because they did not have confidence in NASA
deploying a brand new technology succesfully. (aka: high risk factor).

So in a background where NASA had shown it had difficulty staying on
budget with conventional tech, when NASA comes in with high risk
unproven tech, politicians are more likely to say no.


Also, didn't they also prohibit NASA from spending further R&D money on
transhab ? As I recall NASA also had prohibition to do R&D on a mars
mission. So the precedent on micromanaging where NASA could spend its
R&D budget did exist.

and within the last year nasa was ordered to scale back funding for companies like space x

In article ,
says...

On Tuesday, September 1, 2015 at 2:28:00 PM UTC-4, JF Mezei wrote:
On 15-09-01 08:42, bob haller wrote:

there was a story that congress passed a law to prevent transhab type modules. it was a long time ago

This may not contradict the budget thing. The way I recall it, NASA was
interested in transhab, but would have needed more money, and congress,
seeing the cost overruns and delays for station refused additional funding.

This refusal could be seen as preventing transhab, or seen just as a
technologically neutral control of budget overruns.

of course transhab would of cost less and be more resistant to debris impacts.

Cite? I don't see how a module which was bleeding edge tech at the time
would cost less than a conventional aluminum module.

but it would of endangered existing contrators

More like it would have increased the risk of schedule and cost overruns
like other canceled tech for ISS (solar dynamic collectors, high
frequency power supply, and etc.).

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

In article om,
says...

On 15-09-02 11:23, Fred J. McCall wrote:

And that's about what I expected. Bobbert, as usual, was spun right
out of his mind...

On the other hand, while the policians may have turned down the budget
request, it may have been because they did not have confidence in NASA
deploying a brand new technology succesfully. (aka: high risk factor).

Yes, that's pretty much what I said, because so many other bits of new
tech were cut along the way as well (e.g. solar dynamic power, high
frequency power supplies, and etc.).

So in a background where NASA had shown it had difficulty staying on
budget with conventional tech, when NASA comes in with high risk
unproven tech, politicians are more likely to say no.

Yep, given its track record, what else are they to do? It's hard to
tell which bits of new tech will pan out from Congress' point of view.

Also, didn't they also prohibit NASA from spending further R&D money
on
transhab ? As I recall NASA also had prohibition to do R&D on a mars
mission. So the precedent on micromanaging where NASA could spend its
R&D budget did exist.

They didn't want NASA to divert funding from other sources to these
projects which Congress had explicitly decided not to fund. In other
words, it didn't want NASA going around its back. They didn't make the
inflatable habitat technology illegal, which is why Bigelow Aerospace
was able to negotiate the tech transfer rights for it. Congress just
didn't want anymore taxpayer money funding it anymore.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

In article ,
says...

On Wednesday, September 2, 2015 at 2:44:04 PM UTC-4, JF Mezei wrote:
On 15-09-02 11:23, Fred J. McCall wrote:

And that's about what I expected. Bobbert, as usual, was spun right
out of his mind...

On the other hand, while the policians may have turned down the budget
request, it may have been because they did not have confidence in NASA
deploying a brand new technology succesfully. (aka: high risk factor).

So in a background where NASA had shown it had difficulty staying on
budget with conventional tech, when NASA comes in with high risk
unproven tech, politicians are more likely to say no.


Also, didn't they also prohibit NASA from spending further R&D money on
transhab ? As I recall NASA also had prohibition to do R&D on a mars
mission. So the precedent on micromanaging where NASA could spend its
R&D budget did exist.

and within the last year nasa was ordered to scale back funding for companies like space x

You keep phrasing this wrong Bob. NASA isn't exactly ordered around by
Congress. Congress provides funding for specific projects. How much,
or little, funding they provide does influence the progress of said
projects.

In recent years, commercial crew hasn't gotten the funding Administrator
Bolden wants for it. NASA Administrator Bolden wants two commercial
crew providers to allow for a backup. Otherwise, Russia is the backup,
which means we would have to keep paying them money, even if we would
only use them in case of a commercial crew delay or failure.

Recently, Bolden has gotten more boisterous about the impact of Congress
not fully funding commercial crew. With the political/foreign relations
situation in Russia, I don't blame him.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

On Thursday, September 3, 2015 at 6:29:34 AM UTC-4, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

On Wednesday, September 2, 2015 at 2:44:04 PM UTC-4, JF Mezei wrote:
On 15-09-02 11:23, Fred J. McCall wrote:

And that's about what I expected. Bobbert, as usual, was spun right
out of his mind...

On the other hand, while the policians may have turned down the budget
request, it may have been because they did not have confidence in NASA
deploying a brand new technology succesfully. (aka: high risk factor)..

So in a background where NASA had shown it had difficulty staying on
budget with conventional tech, when NASA comes in with high risk
unproven tech, politicians are more likely to say no.


Also, didn't they also prohibit NASA from spending further R&D money on
transhab ? As I recall NASA also had prohibition to do R&D on a mars
mission. So the precedent on micromanaging where NASA could spend its
R&D budget did exist.

and within the last year nasa was ordered to scale back funding for companies like space x

You keep phrasing this wrong Bob. NASA isn't exactly ordered around by
Congress. Congress provides funding for specific projects. How much,
or little, funding they provide does influence the progress of said
projects.

In recent years, commercial crew hasn't gotten the funding Administrator
Bolden wants for it. NASA Administrator Bolden wants two commercial
crew providers to allow for a backup. Otherwise, Russia is the backup,
which means we would have to keep paying them money, even if we would
only use them in case of a commercial crew delay or failure.

Recently, Bolden has gotten more boisterous about the impact of Congress
not fully funding commercial crew. With the political/foreign relations
situation in Russia, I don't blame him.

Jeff
--

nasa is a puppet controlled by congress who pulls its strings.

when the decision to end the shuttle occured, congress used its power to see the existing contractos were helped. by using them for its replacement the ares orion SLS.

just like congressb has ordered the postal service to not close most local post offices, around here many are a mile or less from one another. thats waste at its worse since grocery stores would be happy to host post offices run in their stores, with cheaper grocery workers running the mini post offices...

more convenient for the customer, saving postal service big bucks.

congress meddling in stuff, directed by big campain donors is hurting our country a lot

"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
...

bob haller wrote:

On Sunday, August 30, 2015 at 6:29:18 PM UTC-4, wrote:
"Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas, Nevada, has entered into a joint
agreement with
NASA to leverage the company's B330 inflatable space habitat for use
with NASA's
human space flight program. With the space agency eyeing deep space
destinations
- such as an asteroid and perhaps one day Mars - the systems could
enable crews
to travel deeper into the Solar System than humans have ever been to do
before.

Late this year or early next, NASA will build an addition to the
International
Space Station, increasing the orbital laboratory's size from eight rooms
to
nine. The new room is like no other on the station, and will be very
easy to
construct: Just connect to a docking port, fill with compressed air, and
voilà!
Instant space habitat

Bigelow Aerospace in North Las Vegas needed to create the Bigelow
Expandable
Activity Module, or BEAM. Initially scheduled for a September launch,
BEAM's
test deployment is now delayed due to the post-launch explosion of a
SpaceX
Falcon 9 rocket bound for the ISS on June 28 -- and no one yet knows how
long
that delay will be. Once BEAM does reach its destination, it will
undergo two
years of intensive testing, a trial run for a technology that could play
a
significant role in future human spaceflight and low-Earth-orbit
commercial
ventures: inflatable spacecraft."

See:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/08/exp...s-will-be.html

there was a story that congress passed a law to prevent transhab type
modules. it was a long time ago


I'm going to go out on a limb and say "poppycock" to yet another of
Bobbert's "I distinctly remember (but cannot produce)" misconceptions
about reality...


I recalled this also. But it's not as one seems. I'm pretty sure it was
reported this way but the actual law:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/...Alzd6r:e30153:
" REPLACEMENT STRUCTURE- No funds authorized by this Act shall be obligated
for the definition, design, procurement, or development of an inflatable
space structure to replace any International Space Station components
scheduled for launch in the Assembly Sequence adopted by the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration in June 1999."

So in a sense they were forbidden from spending money on it. But I suppose
how one takes "No funds... shall be obligated..." Seems a rather specific
restriction. But I'm not overly familiar with how Congress

But places such as Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransHab) do
say:
"Finally in 2000, despite objections from the White House,[4] House
Resolution 1654 was signed into law banning NASA from conducting further
research and development of TransHab. An option to lease an inflatable
habitat module from private industry was included in the bill."



--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...

By the way, where do we stand on the centrifuge that was proposed to
attach to the ISS?

Not going to fly.

Jeff

Yeah, cancelled years ago!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centri...dations_Module

One of several items cut to meet the budget.

--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article om,
says...

On 15-09-01 11:01, David Spain wrote:

Any work ongoing to figure out how to add docking ports using a module
that can attach with the CBM?

This has been done already. It is called a node. And there are a few on
the station already, so why not build another one ? Could be placed
forward of node2, or nadir of it.

With the shuttle no longer flying, clearance for tail is no longer an
issue.

ISS nodes have two axial CBM ports and four radial CBM ports, so six
ports total. It would not be difficult to build more copies of ISS
style nodes.

No need to even buy one. We’ve got Node 4.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node_4

I believe all 4 were built by Alenia in Italy. And honestly my impression
of Alenia is they're decent to work with and interested in more work.

Jeff

--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net