No U.S. Hab Module may be good news

With the station partners agreeing to a six-person crew and no details
on how that will be atchieved may actually be good news. The good news
is that maybe the U.S. design will not be completed, but the
technology supporting it will (that's what the partners did agree to).
So if the U.S. design isn't completed, why is would that be good.
Because the U.S. design is based on ideas and designs developed in the
80's. Since the 80's, technology has really advanced to the point that
we may actually get a better product for a lower price, and a much
faster timeframe to develop it. It's like saying "Let's a build Viking
(to Mars)" for billions of dollars and at least a decade to develop,
while in 1997 we did something better with Pathfinder to Mars at a
mere fraction development time and money. The same could apply for
station stations. Look, just in recent years we had proposals for
Transhab and an Italian module that were already much cheaper and
faster to build. So imagine what NASA could do today with a
smallish-modest budget and a seperate program to build a Hab module
based on twenty-first century designs?

Then again, we did that with the CSV and lack of progress in that
program is making the House severely cut its budget. And we're still
the 70's space shuttle... But Russia is still flying the 60's Soyuz...

On 25 Jul 2004 02:31:05 -0700, (Peter
Altschuler) wrote:

It's like saying "Let's a build Viking
(to Mars)" for billions of dollars and at least a decade to develop,
while in 1997 we did something better with Pathfinder to Mars at a
mere fraction development time and money.

Except we didn't. There is no justification whatsoever for the claim
"Pathfinder was better than Viking". Viking outclassed Pathfinder on
every level. No, Viking had no rover, but it did something else: it
dug into the dirt to get samples... neither Pathfinder nor Sojourner
could do that. Viking included two Orbiters and two Landers.
Pathfinder one Lander, one bare-bones Rover, no Orbiters. The Vikings
lasted four or five years. Pathinder lasted three months. Each Viking
carried a dozen scientific instruments. Pathfinder, one or two.

Pathfinder laid the groundwork for bigger and better things, namely
the Athena-class rovers now on Mars. But Pathfinder itself was no
match for Viking.

Brian

Because the U.S. design is based on ideas and designs developed in the
80's. Since the 80's, technology has really advanced to the point that
we may actually get a better product for a lower price

Has it?

Sure, computer hardware (for example) has advanced, but how
compute-intensive is life support hardware? Software, on the other
hand, has been depressingly resistant to advance - despite any number
of new innovations in software there is little evidence that software
has become any faster, cheaper, more reusable, easier to produce, or
any other kind of advance.

As for life support technology, is there commonality with non-space
systems? If so, have those systems changed much in the last decade or
two? If not, why would anything be different from the 80's?

Look, just in recent years we had proposals for Transhab and an
Italian module that were already much cheaper and faster to build.

I haven't seen any evidence that Transhab would be cheaper or faster.
Bigger, yes, but that's different.

The Italian thing might be a real advance, but if so probably an
organizational one rather than a technological one. At least, if it
was cheaper, faster, or better due to technology I don't remember
seeing anything about it.

(Peter Altschuler) wrote:

It's like saying "Let's a build Viking
(to Mars)" for billions of dollars and at least a decade to develop,
while in 1997 we did something better with Pathfinder to Mars at a
mere fraction development time and money.

Yes, and for that mere fraction of time and money, we got a probe that
has a mere fraction of the capability and probable productive
lifetime.

FBC gets us more probes, it does not imply that we get more or better
science.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

Jim Kingdon wrote:
The Italian thing might be a real advance, but if so probably an
organizational one rather than a technological one. At least, if it
was cheaper, faster, or better due to technology I don't remember
seeing anything about it.

Building the hull isn't what is expensive, especially now that components such
as CBM and the rack structures are fully designed and many have been built
already.

Outfitting the module with all the wiring and pipes, and then adding all the
components seems to be the costly part, as well as the post construction phase
that involved the testing and debugging of the whole module.

And in terms of technology, I am not sure much can be done to change what was
originally planned. A new module will still have to "plug into" the existing
computer systems of the station with the same interfaces to various components
(comms, alarms, monitoring etc). So advances in technology are moot.

Where technological advances are possible is with the water system since the
US segment currently has no water ECLSS system (except for the condensor which
recuperates excess humidity from the air.)

One must also be realistic about the realibility of such systems. CDRA
certaintly didn't start off as a reliable piece of equipment and I am not sure
it is by now. Elektron on the russian segment has had its hiccups too.
Anything that handles water is problematic in 0g.

If at all, the water ECLSS should be installed in the CAM where simulated
gravity would solve a lot of problems that would otherwise be experienced in 0g.

My understanding is that CBM production has stopped, and there are no
extra CBMs lying around.



John Doe wrote in message ...


Building the hull isn't what is expensive, especially now that components such
as CBM and the rack structures are fully designed and many have been built
already.