Hubble to be abandoned

"Darren J Longhorn" wrote in message
news
I was talking about the
Revell _Shuttle_ MMU kit which, although it's the shuttle MMU,
actually has the Gemini astronaut!

That's precisely why I didn't buy it.

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 09:22:33 GMT, Dave Michelson
wrote:

OM wrote:

So, on that fateful morning of Christmas Day 1966, I constructed a Space
Station as tall as the tree, with five Space Crawlers underneath it.

....I need to correct myself here. It was Christmas Day 1967. Gah.

Naturally (I hope), you explained to your assembled relatives that in practice
such a feat would be simple given the moon's lower gravity, then backed up the
assertion with some BoTE engineering calculations :-)

....Pop couldn't figure out how I'd gotten the whole thing up that high
without using a chair. However, the trick was assembling it in half,
then putting one half on top of the other.

After seeing a JFK "GI Joe" in the stores this Christmas (complete with
hollowed out coconut!)

....Was the entry hole in the front or the back of the skull?

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 15:58:48 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Those are two different kits...and sizes- the MMU one is smaller. It was
also done by Aurora originally.

....And Aurora took a bath on those kits, because they didn't sell
worth a **** once Gene Cernan had to abandon the attempt to fly the
real thing. IIRC it didn't sell enough to warrant a second press run.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

Andrew Gray wrote in
:

So, hmm. Soyuz-TMA, fourteen-day planned life; this would give you ten
days, reliably, in your mini-station; leaves a safety margin either
side. Interesting concept...

Hmm? Both the TM and the TMA only have a four day "free-flight" capability.
An extended mission at a mini-station would either require the station to
provide life support so that the Soyuz can power down like it does at ISS,
or upgrades need to be made to the Soyuz to allow it to fly longer.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
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Darren J Longhorn wrote:





I'd never get to use that, the kids would nab it first.


How about a small, yet cute and personality-filled MONKEY as its crew?
I want to see the thing's reaction after it gets out after the
flight...you'll be lucky to have a face left.

Pat

In article , Jorge R. Frank wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote in
:

So, hmm. Soyuz-TMA, fourteen-day planned life; this would give you ten
days, reliably, in your mini-station; leaves a safety margin either
side. Interesting concept...

Hmm? Both the TM and the TMA only have a four day "free-flight" capability.
An extended mission at a mini-station would either require the station to
provide life support so that the Soyuz can power down like it does at ISS,
or upgrades need to be made to the Soyuz to allow it to fly longer.

Hmm. I think I may have falled victim to the fabled Extra Digit Typo In
Astronautix... it did seem quite long.

Incidentally, are those four days total, or four days after starting to
free-fly?

--
-Andrew Gray

i'm not entirely sure what supplies bound the Soyuz TMA lifetime,
other than the container used for the toilet gets filled after 4 days
use. Other than the toilet, most other systems on TMA are similar to
those used for the multi-week missions back in Soviet times. As late
as Soyuz T-13, Soyuzes were used to support crews for more than a
week.



"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message ...


Hmm? Both the TM and the TMA only have a four day "free-flight" capability.
An extended mission at a mini-station would either require the station to
provide life support so that the Soyuz can power down like it does at ISS,
or upgrades need to be made to the Soyuz to allow it to fly longer.

In article ,
Explorer8939 wrote:
i'm not entirely sure what supplies bound the Soyuz TMA lifetime,
other than the container used for the toilet gets filled after 4 days
use. Other than the toilet, most other systems on TMA are similar to
those used for the multi-week missions back in Soviet times. As late
as Soyuz T-13, Soyuzes were used to support crews for more than a
week.

I'd assume it's a simple consumables issue, but I don't know. Jim?

(There is a hardware constraint to the total lifetime, which is why
Soyuz get exchanged by taxi flights - seals (in the fuel lines?)
degrade, and can't be totally trusted after about six to eight months -
but I'm not aware of any similar ones which would only be relevant when
powered on. The LEM had something similar; once it was fuelled, it had
to be used within a set timeframe lest the fuel lines corrode)

--
-Andrew Gray

Andrew Gray wrote in
:

In article , Jorge R. Frank
wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote in
:

So, hmm. Soyuz-TMA, fourteen-day planned life; this would give you
ten days, reliably, in your mini-station; leaves a safety margin
either side. Interesting concept...

Hmm? Both the TM and the TMA only have a four day "free-flight"
capability. An extended mission at a mini-station would either
require the station to provide life support so that the Soyuz can
power down like it does at ISS, or upgrades need to be made to the
Soyuz to allow it to fly longer.

Hmm. I think I may have falled victim to the fabled Extra Digit Typo
In Astronautix... it did seem quite long.

Incidentally, are those four days total, or four days after starting
to free-fly?

4.2 days of free-flight, generally broken down as 2.2 days from launch to
docking, and 2 days from post-undocking to landing. Operationally, the
Russians don't use much of the latter; they deorbit within a couple of
hours after undocking. The rest of the two days is to protect against the
case where they have to make an emergency undocking, then wait for a better
landing opportunity.

I'm not sure exactly what factors are behind this limit, but I've seen it
in enough credible source material to know that it's not a typo, and that
the Russians take it seriously.

That is not to say that Soyuz TM/TMA couldn't be modified to do a long
free-flight like the older Soyuz models did back in the old USSR days. It
just means that you can't just pull a stock spacecraft off the shelf and
use it unless the ATV is modified to provide the facilities for the Soyuz
to power itself down, like it does at ISS.

--
JRF

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

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 09:30:33 GMT, "Bruce Sterling Woodcock"
wrote:


Now, Congress and the President will have to say "don't even think of
abandoning Hubble -- our crown jewel -- we'll let you waive the RCC
repair capability, but only for Hubble."

O'Keefe wins either way.

Unless Endeavour comes back from Hubble servicing and
disintegrates, costing us 7 more crew, another shuttle, more
months of delays...

The chances of that are remote once we eliminate the ET foam-shedding
problem. Launch is still the riskiest part of a Shuttle flight, and
ISS missions are just as vulnerable as HST SM-4.

There is no reason to believe ET foam-shedding
will be completely eliminated, nor will other
possible tile damage during ascent and orbit.
Thus, Shuttle still needs to go to the ISS, and
those missions will be less riskier, since ISS
will allow opportunities for on-orbit inspection,
repair, and/or retrieval. HST SM-4 won't
without spending lots more money and
developing an entirely different set of plans,
procedures, contingenices, and so on.

Bruce