Shuttle program extension?

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:01:33 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

Remember, most Titantic boats didn't even carry a full complement of
passengers. So having even more lifeboats wouldn't have helped all that
much.

It would have helped enormously. Many hundreds died on deck for lack
of lifeboats. Yes, a few lifeboats were launched half full, but that
was made up for later by overloading the remaining boats after it was
clear that seas were calm enough to safely do so and that the
Carpathia (and the mystery ship which turned out to be the
Californian) was only hours away. Even more could have been saved if
all of the lifeboats had been overloaded, but the Titanic crew was
slow to that realization.

Brian

Jeff Findley wrote:

True, that's a horrible scenario that even Soyuz doesn't solve. Too bad the
docking and berthing systems on ISS aren't *all* compatible with each other.
If they were, then Soyuz could be used to move them to the functional side
of the station.

Consider that PMA2 can possibly be used as an airlock. If you have some
primitive pressure suits stored in node2, then the stranded crewmembers
could ingress PMA2, close the hatch to the station, then depressurise
(equalise with the ship on other side which happens to be "vacuum" :-)
and open hatch to outside and then move towards a waiting Soyuz ship and
ingress through its airlock. (attach line to PMA2, then propell yourself
towards the nearby soyuz, if you fail to latch on to the soyuz, you pull
yourself back to station and try again).

If NODE2 has no spare suits, then someone in the soyuz would have to EVA
with spare suits, place them in an already depressurised PMA2, close
the hatch, let the crew then repressurise it, put the suits on and then
egress.

If a crewmember went from 14.7 to 5psi with only O2 pre-breathe for a
few minutes+ whatevcer time it takes for a PMA2 to equalise to vaccum,
how long before "the bends" symtoms would appear ? Could they go for say
30 minute at 5psi in pure O2 and then repressurise in the soyuz and be
relatively OK ?

not enough lifeboats for everyone.

If you have fewer lifeboats than people on a station, you then have a
very serious "human" problem of who gets to decide who gets to evacuate
and who gets to die. Soyuz having individual seat liners does provide
some "guidance", it is those who have a seat on the available soyuz that
goes down.

But If you have 3 seats on the soyuz, and only 2 or the 3 are present
(third stuck in different module and unable to reach the soyuz, then you
have the problem of who gets the 3rd seat even if the liner isn't
matched perfectly).

The only solution to this issue is to have a station with sufficient
redundancy and either racetrack layout so that failure of one module
still permits circulation across the station, or airlocks at both ends
with emergency eva suits to allow transfer to the safe side of station.

You also want to have much redundancy with regards to ECLSS and
food/toilet. Right now, the USA ECLSS "core" (aka: the O2/N2 tanks in
Quest) are attached to node1 and controled by Destiny. Someone stuck in
Columbus would not have access to this if there were a fire in either
node1 or destiny.

Perhaps the last shuttle flight to the station should install a modified
PMA device on node2 which would allow a soyuz to dock (even if
manually). This way, rescues would become possible once the shuttle is
retired and the USA has nothing to replace it.

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

Really? Can you find a diagram of Los Angeles class submarines and tell me
where the lifeboats are?

They have no rubber dingies that can be inflated if the sub has surfaced ?


And doesn't the USA have the DSRV which could theoretically rescue
people from a sub ? (China just bought a similar sub from the UK for
submarine rescues, it can rescue 19 at a time).

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:01:33 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

Remember, most Titantic boats didn't even carry a full complement of
passengers. So having even more lifeboats wouldn't have helped all that
much.

It would have helped enormously. Many hundreds died on deck for lack
of lifeboats. Yes, a few lifeboats were launched half full, but that
was made up for later by overloading the remaining boats after it was
clear that seas were calm enough to safely do so

Cite on that? My understanding is that pretty much ALL lifeboats,
regardless of the time were pretty much underloaded.


and that the
Carpathia (and the mystery ship which turned out to be the
Californian) was only hours away. Even more could have been saved if
all of the lifeboats had been overloaded, but the Titanic crew was
slow to that realization.

Brian

"John Doe" wrote in message
...
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

Really? Can you find a diagram of Los Angeles class submarines and tell
me
where the lifeboats are?

They have no rubber dingies that can be inflated if the sub has surfaced ?


I don't know the full details, but the problem there is "surfacing".


And doesn't the USA have the DSRV which could theoretically rescue
people from a sub ? (China just bought a similar sub from the UK for
submarine rescues, it can rescue 19 at a time).

Yes. In theory. Just like they have escape trunks. Makes Mom feel good at
home.

Brian Thorn wrote:
Tell that to the guys at the South Pole research station. Where's their
lifeboats?


Last I checked, dry-land facilities don't require lifeboats, no matter
how remote. Ships universally do.


There was a case several years back where a female member of a antarctic
research station's crew came down with a severe and fast-advancing type
of cancer, and they had a hell of a hard time landing a aircraft to
evacuate her in mid antarctic winter.

Pat

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
Really? Can you find a diagram of Los Angeles class submarines and tell me
where the lifeboats are?


The Russians actually put escape spheres for the crew on theirs.
The only time it ever got used operationally was then the "Mike" class
sub K-278 "Komsomolets*" sank and some of the crew separated the escape
sphere from the sail... only a few of the crew survived the ascent, but
without it the whole crew would have been dead:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_...78_Komsomolets

* Strange name... it refers to the Soviet youth organization the
"Komsomol" - picture a communist version of the Boy Scouts.or Hitler Youth.
I actually got drunk enough at a party in Russia to call a young member
of the Russian Army's tactical missile forces a great Komsomol member.
Then I got punched out, although thanks to the vodka I didn't even feel
it. :-D

Pat

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:08:38 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:53:06 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:

So did the Titanic. Now we have lifeboats for everyone.

Tell that to the guys at the South Pole research station. Where's their
lifeboats?

Last I checked, dry-land facilities don't require lifeboats, no matter
how remote. Ships universally do.

Really? Can you find a diagram of Los Angeles class submarines and tell me
where the lifeboats are?

Submarines aren't ships, they're boats. Boats don't have lifeboats.

Mary "It's only the targets that have them"
--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer
We didn't just do weird stuff at Dryden, we wrote reports about it.
or
Visit my blog at http://thedigitalknitter.blogspot.com/

On Sep 16, 9:57�am, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:
"Brian Thorn" wrote in message

...





On Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:03:56 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

"J Waggoner" wrote in message
. ..
Excellent point on the lifeboat... Thanks for cancelling it Mr.
Goldin. �You dick.

And how did you expect him to pay for it when Congress of course the one
writing the checks?

That said, Rand does bring up a good point I had overlooked. �While
continuing the shuttle reduces the requirement for us paying for rides,
rescue seats home are still required.

(Though one could argue that at some point one may want to simply accept
that lifeboats aren't required for 100% of the crew.)

Never gonna happen. That's a political non-starter.

It's a political non-starter, but it's a bit silly.

ISS currently had many redundant systems and modules. �With the US and
Russian segments, you have completely separate systems for life support.
Even if something catastrophic happened, it's not very likely to take out
both sets of life support systems.

If safe haven wasn't such a political non-starter it would actually be a
viable way to run the program without the US relying on the Russian Soyuz..

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

as apollo 13 proved incompatible designs can have issues. remember the
incompatilble air ducts? it sounds good but 2 complete different
designs isnt all good