Good news on ISS **** distillery?

Time will tell:
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/st...d9/index5.html

Pat

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...

Time will tell:
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/st...d9/index5.html

The story is a bit disturbing. The centrifuge in the unit is mounted on
dampers to help with noise and vibration (which is a bad thing for
microgravity experiments mounted on ISS). The solution to the problem
involves removing the dampers and hard mounting the thing. This would seem
to be a *bad thing* for experiments on ISS.

The other disturbing tidbit in the news story is that there is NO backup
hardware for this unit. They've got to get THIS unit working on ISS or they
can't expand the crew from 3 to 6. WTF? NASA has money to burn for
Griffin's pet projects, but none for spare hardware that's critical for ISS.
This deserves a facepalm:

http://www.forumammo.com/cpg/albums/...o-facepalm.jpg

Jeff
--
beb - To paraphrase Stephen Colbert, reality has an anti-Ares I bias.

Jeff Findley wrote:
"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
Time will tell:
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/st...d9/index5.html

The story is a bit disturbing. The centrifuge in the unit is mounted on
dampers to help with noise and vibration (which is a bad thing for
microgravity experiments mounted on ISS). The solution to the problem
involves removing the dampers and hard mounting the thing. This would seem
to be a *bad thing* for experiments on ISS.

The other disturbing tidbit in the news story is that there is NO backup
hardware for this unit. They've got to get THIS unit working on ISS or they
can't expand the crew from 3 to 6. WTF? NASA has money to burn for
Griffin's pet projects, but none for spare hardware that's critical for ISS.
This deserves a facepalm:

http://www.forumammo.com/cpg/albums/...o-facepalm.jpg

Not only do I find the story not facepalm-worthy, I don't even find it
disturbing. This is a first-of-its-kind piece of equipment, of a type
NASA has little experience with, so if it doesn't work the first time,
it is *extremely* likely to be due to a design flaw rather than a
manufacturing defect. That means any backup hardware would be extremely
likely to suffer the *exact* *same* *failure*. Much smarter to hold off
on further production until you know why the first unit failed.

Now, if NASA had sprung for multiple copies of the hardware and they'd
*both* failed for the *same* reason - *I'd* consider that worthy of a
facepalm.

It is also worth pointing out that although this equipment is in the
critical path for 6-person ISS ops, NASA *did* account for the
possibility that debugging might be required... or did everyone else but
me fail to notice that the first six-person crew isn't scheduled for
nearly a whole *year*?

Now could people *please* stop hyperventilating about this?

Pat Flannery wrote:

Time will tell:
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/st...d9/index5.html

Pat

This is actually good news.

This equipment is an ESSENTIAL piece of hardware to be tested
before longer trips can be even considered, specially the trips
to Mars.

We see how difficult it is to develop apparently "simple" things
like a water recycling system in space!


--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32

In sci.space.history Pat Flannery wrote:
Time will tell:
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/st...d9/index5.html

Hmm, between this and Ares I NASA seems to be dealing with a lot of
unpleasant vibrations...

Apart from having a different lineage and the ostensible benefits of
multiple sources, what is supposed to make this unit any better than
the Russian one?

rick jones
--
denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, rebirth...
where do you want to be today?
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

Jeff Findley wrote:
The story is a bit disturbing. The centrifuge in the unit is mounted on
dampers to help with noise and vibration (which is a bad thing for
microgravity experiments mounted on ISS). The solution to the problem
involves removing the dampers and hard mounting the thing. This would seem
to be a *bad thing* for experiments on ISS.


I hadn't thought of that aspect, but you are right; although the crew
moving around can screw those up also.
There's also metal fatigue from the vibrations to consider.
It's still not working right even without the grommets BTW.
They have now extended the mission by a day to give them more time to
work on it.
I get a sneaking suspicion though that it is going to be coming right
back down to Earth again for examination on either this or a future
Shuttle flight.
I should have bookmarked the story, but a couple of weeks or so back,
the Russians said they may not be ready to stick the extra rescue Soyuz
onto the ISS till 2010 rather than for the planned six-crew missions
that were planned for 2009.

The other disturbing tidbit in the news story is that there is NO backup
hardware for this unit. They've got to get THIS unit working on ISS or they
can't expand the crew from 3 to 6. WTF? NASA has money to burn for
Griffin's pet projects, but none for spare hardware that's critical for ISS.



Here's a interesting thought... imagine if the thing broke down on the
way to Mars rather than in Earth orbit?

Pat

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...
Not only do I find the story not facepalm-worthy, I don't even find it
disturbing. This is a first-of-its-kind piece of equipment, of a type NASA
has little experience with, so if it doesn't work the first time, it is
*extremely* likely to be due to a design flaw rather than a manufacturing
defect. That means any backup hardware would be extremely likely to suffer
the *exact* *same* *failure*. Much smarter to hold off on further
production until you know why the first unit failed.

So, it woudn't have been wise to have an identical unit on the ground as a
starting point for debugging or ground testing of potential modifications to
the ISS unit?

Now, if NASA had sprung for multiple copies of the hardware and they'd
*both* failed for the *same* reason - *I'd* consider that worthy of a
facepalm.

It is also worth pointing out that although this equipment is in the
critical path for 6-person ISS ops, NASA *did* account for the possibility
that debugging might be required... or did everyone else but me fail to
notice that the first six-person crew isn't scheduled for nearly a whole
*year*?

Now could people *please* stop hyperventilating about this?

Mostly I'm wondering what ever happened to the philosophy of having
duplicate hardware on the ground for use in simulations, debugging, and etc.

Jeff
--
beb - To paraphrase Stephen Colbert, reality has an anti-Ares I bias.

Rick Jones wrote:

Apart from having a different lineage and the ostensible benefits of
multiple sources, what is supposed to make this unit any better than
the Russian one?


The Russian one turns out water that can be used for cleaning things or
washing oneself, but isn't okayed for drinking.
People who have tasted it say it tastes a little odd, but it isn't
dangerous as such.
I imagine one thing you really want to watch out for isn't the chemical
content of the water, but that it's biologically sterile.
Since some of the water to be recycled will come from the dehumidifiers
on the ISS, it could have a lot of airborne microbes in it that would
need to be killed or filtered out of it.
That particularly seems wise after those oddball results of Shuttle
experiments where common microorganisms seemed more dangerous after
exposure to weightlessness:
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/03...cause-disease/

Pat

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Not only do I find the story not facepalm-worthy, I don't even find it
disturbing. This is a first-of-its-kind piece of equipment, of a type
NASA has little experience with, so if it doesn't work the first time,
it is *extremely* likely to be due to a design flaw rather than a
manufacturing defect. That means any backup hardware would be
extremely likely to suffer the *exact* *same* *failure*. Much smarter
to hold off on further production until you know why the first unit
failed.

Now, if NASA had sprung for multiple copies of the hardware and they'd
*both* failed for the *same* reason - *I'd* consider that worthy of a
facepalm.

It is also worth pointing out that although this equipment is in the
critical path for 6-person ISS ops, NASA *did* account for the
possibility that debugging might be required... or did everyone else
but me fail to notice that the first six-person crew isn't scheduled
for nearly a whole *year*?
Now could people *please* stop hyperventilating about this?

Last time I saw that many stars in that small of a area, I was looking
at M13 through a 8" Celestron. :-D

Pat

Jeff Findley wrote:
"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...
Not only do I find the story not facepalm-worthy, I don't even find it
disturbing. This is a first-of-its-kind piece of equipment, of a type NASA
has little experience with, so if it doesn't work the first time, it is
*extremely* likely to be due to a design flaw rather than a manufacturing
defect. That means any backup hardware would be extremely likely to suffer
the *exact* *same* *failure*. Much smarter to hold off on further
production until you know why the first unit failed.

So, it woudn't have been wise to have an identical unit on the ground as a
starting point for debugging or ground testing of potential modifications to
the ISS unit?

It would be wise. But that *is* *not* the same as a *flight* *spare*.

There is indeed a ground test unit. I personally witnessed co-workers
drinking from a bottle of water that had been processed by it.

I realize the news media can be imprecise with their terminology. That
is why it is unwise to take their words as gospel.