Object/debris shed from ISS?

On Fri, 13 Jun 2003 20:13:53 GMT, "James Oberg"
wrote:


Now fast forward several years. Crew members in flight appeared to share my
concerns about viewing capabilities. About a month after the first crew
arrived on the International Space Station, I heard one of them remark by
radio that the ISS was just as bad as Mir. "We told them we needed more
windows on the station, in all directions," the cosmonaut complained on
December 2, 2000. "On the ceiling there is not a single window." If they can
wait, a special all-window module called a cupola may eventually be attached
to ISS to relieve this continuing limitation. But as a temporary measure,
the ISS began to use cameras mounted on the Canadian robot arm that was
installed in April 2001 to occasionally obtain spectacular outside views.

Excellent points. In many accidents such as Columbia and Challenger,
and lesser problems on unmanned craft (like the flapping solar panels
on Hubble, or even the jammed high-gain antenna on Galileo), to
paraphrase the old saying, one camera might have been worth a thousand
sensors.

It seems like the NASA engineering culture's relationship with video
was frozen a long time ago, and is in severe need of an overhaul. The
Apollo astronauts generally seem not to have been fond of taking video
at all (with some justification, given the heavy and fickle video
equipment of the time), and the guys on the ground were forced from
the beginning to "fly by braille," depending mostly on telemetry,
radar, or engineering calculations to operate their spacecraft, and
determine what was happening to it in flight.

Of course, anyone who's ever used one of the old tube-based cameras of
the 60s and 70s knows how very far we've come with the tiny (and
amazingly high quality) cameras of today, knows how far we've come,
but I don't seem much evidence that NASA thinking has progressed
beyond the vidicon days.

Cameras are small, light, cheap, and have the potential to return a
wealth of data (and some pretty pictures as a bonus), especially in
unexpected situations or failure modes. Sensors and indicators are
great at returning the information you anticipate far in advance that
you'll need. Challenger and Columbia have reminded us, it's the thing
you don't anticipate that will kill you.

Of course, support equipment (wiring, on-board storage or recorders,
and most especially the bandwidth to get the pictures to the ground)
are perhaps more significant issues than the cameras themselves now,
but I see these are engineering challenges, not deal-breakers. It
seems to me that the Shuttle and ISS should be studded with cameras,
both to image the operation of the spacecraft, and to increase
visibility in blind spots. It also seems to me that consideration
should be given to giving unmanned satellites and spacecraft at least
limited self-imaging capability in case of problems (or unplanned
photo-ops).

I could speculate as to why this isn't done (trade-offs of weight,
cost, and complexity are always necessary in space flight), but I
think there are other factors at work. I have to wonder if many
engineers don't actually TRUST pictures. After all, photo/video
interpretation is tricky and can be highly technical. Moreover, as
both Challenger and Columbia launch videos prove, such video invites
quick amateur misinterpretation by the public and the news media.

One could even speculate that these attitudes contributed to the
decision not to request that the spooks image Columbia.

Any thoughts on this?

James Steven York wrote in with:
On Fri, 13 Jun 2003 20:13:53 GMT, "James Oberg"
wrote:

[...]
But as a temporary measure,
the ISS began to use cameras mounted on the Canadian robot arm that was
installed in April 2001 to occasionally obtain spectacular outside views.

Excellent points. In many accidents such as Columbia and Challenger,
and lesser problems on unmanned craft (like the flapping solar panels
on Hubble, or even the jammed high-gain antenna on Galileo), to
paraphrase the old saying, one camera might have been worth a thousand
sensors.

It seems like the NASA engineering culture's relationship with video
was frozen a long time ago, and is in severe need of an overhaul. The
Apollo astronauts generally seem not to have been fond of taking
[...]
Cameras are small, light, cheap, and have the potential to return a
wealth of data (and some pretty pictures as a bonus), especially in
unexpected situations or failure modes.
[...]
It seems to me that the Shuttle and ISS should be studded with cameras,
both to image the operation of the spacecraft, and to increase
visibility in blind spots. It also seems to me that consideration
should be given to giving unmanned satellites and spacecraft at least
limited self-imaging capability in case of problems (or unplanned
photo-ops).

I could speculate as to why this isn't done (trade-offs of weight,
cost, and complexity are always necessary in space flight), but I
think there are other factors at work. I have to wonder if many
engineers don't actually TRUST pictures. After all, photo/video
interpretation is tricky and can be highly technical. Moreover, as
both Challenger and Columbia launch videos prove, such video invites
quick amateur misinterpretation by the public and the news media.


Considering the numer of cameras carried by the crew (small, light,
possibly cheap-in-space-terms professional versions of consumer video
cameras), I don't think NASA is camera-phobic at all, nor frozen in
the "Apollo-vidicon mindset".

The astronauts frequently use video cameras to communicate status to
Principle Investigators, to help debug experiments, etc.

For the shuttle, cameras are all over the payload bay, in more than 1
location on the RMS, and on EVA helmets.

I'm not sure how many external cameras ISS has, other than the ones on
the arm, but the arm can reach an awful lot of the places where a
camera would be wanted. And many of the earth-obs are done with video
rather than still, although the window limitation is still there.

I'm not sure that there are good places on the shuttle to put
additional cameras, due to re-entry considerations. It's okay to have
to replace the camera, I suppose, but we've already found it isn't
nice to mess with smooth flow of plasma over exposed surfaces. Also,
there are limits to what you can look at with a fixed-base camera. I
think the strongest argument at this point might be to keep a door
open on the belly (say, next to the film camera that shoots the ET at
sep) to remove a blind spot during orbit ops.

Also, is J.O. saying that more windows would help with the trash
situation, or with just being able to better handle maneuvers with
other craft?

/dps