Unique imagery of Shuttle docked to ISS released There's been something of a wait for it, but unique imagery showing the International Space Station with a Space Shuttle docked has now been released. The vid above and photo below were taken from a Soyuz spacecraft which departed the station on 23 May carrying Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, NASA astronaut Cady Coleman …
Have you checked recently how much it cost, and what we're getting out of it?
Don't get me wrong, I think getting ourselves a permanent space base is the essential first step to permanent settlements somewhere other than this planet. Problem is that it's cost a vast amount of money, global politics and finance have made substantial dents in getting it running in the intended timeframe with the intended facilities, and its location means that quite a few potential gains from a permanent space base just aren't happening anyway.
We can't, because shuttles haven't got solar panels. Their electricity is provided by fuel cells, which entails their max autonomy is about two weeks; in the '70s energy efficiency wasn't a major project consideration for crew-carrying space vehicles.
A shuttle could probably be made to work with a hookup to the ISS power systems, but then its usefulness as lifeboat would be moot.
"We can't, because shuttles haven't got solar panels. Their electricity is provided by fuel cells, which entails their max autonomy is about two weeks; in the '70s energy efficiency wasn't a major project consideration for crew-carrying space vehicles."
I thought this also. It is no longer the case.
"A shuttle could probably be made to work with a hookup to the ISS power systems,"
This *does* exist and the Shuttle is modified to use it, but it came late to the party The burn to undock and trigger reentry comes from storable propellants and they have on orbit storage for *years*. Likewise the APU's that drive the control surfaces use a storable monopropellant.
*But* the electrics, including the flight computers run off those fuel cells. US crewed spacecraft have *always* used H2/O2 fuel cells since Gemini as they supply drinking water and it's quite a power requirement (9-12Kw on takeoff/landing IIRC) to keep up for up to 14 days.
That would make Shuttle problematical for emergency undocking/return to Earth.
I'd like to think a modern design would make different trades. NASA *should* have either learned to get comfortable with *long* term on orbit cryogenic storage or gone the other way with a direct drive electrical generation system off a mono propellant APU, ideally with electric actuators (you might like to find a report called "The electric shuttle" written in the mid 80s). Note that Hydrogen peroxide *is* such a monopropellant but can be catalytic ally broken down into water and Oxygen. It's dense and *relatively* safe to handle (heavy rubber gloves and overalls, not nerve gas proof suits and separate air supplies). The boiling hot O2/steam mix coming from a cat pack is hypergolic with pretty much any reasonable hydrocarbon.
However it fails the NASA "Performance uber alles" test being inferior (but currently 6x cheaper) than the nasty MMH/NTO/UDMH stuff Shuttle uses for it's different systems.
Solar panels are a red herring. A Smart car battery pack could do the re-entry (but *not* the on orbit power and NASA would worry about "But what if you can't open the cargo bay doors, you'll run out of power with no way to recharge the batteries for the reentry".
The development of Shuttle systems really failed to find or use *any* cross sub system efficiencies.
Saw these yesterday, they are looking just as impressive this morning.
To be there must be so humbling
Being one of the shuttle generation I remember watching the first landing in primary school so its kinda sad to know the program is over.
Currently listening to an early Orb track - Peace in the middle east with that awesome sea of tranquility sample!
"Dammit, we should be on Mars already!"
And Von Braun thought we would be.
Of course if NASA is forced to work on a launch vehicle *designed* by Senators in an appropriations act you can pretty much forget it in your life time.
Look up "Tanker mode" and the findings of the last Augustine commission to see how.
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