NASA pops repair kit in the mail so astronauts can fix leaky ISS telescope NASA is preparing to launch a repair kit to the International Space Station (ISS) for a telescope that was never designed to be tinkered with by astronauts. The telescope in question is the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), which developed a light leak in May 2023. The telescope is attached near the station' …
The politics are, arguably, necessary to get people to pay for this. Without government support, not much astro-science would get done. It would be nice if gov't support was steady, but every part of gov't becomes part of the usual political games over time -- whether pro (pork-barrel spending) or con (mainly due to ideology) -- and there we agree that it stinks.
Aside from government, not enough rich eccentrics willing and/or able to pay for it themselves. Branson only had so much dough to spend on VG, and Musk built SpaceX to turn a profit, not altruism (and those profits partly paid by gov't via NASA). Not sure about Bezos/Blue Origin.
Base profit-making doesn't strike me as any worse than the saber rattling of the Space Race. Don't forget that especially the early years of it were basic public exhibitions of how the respective side could kill an entire city without warning or defence at the push of a button. Even space telescopes are basically spy satellites pointing in the other direction.
If a consequence of a rich and unpleasant person getting richer is more affordable access to space, that doesn't seem like the worst thing in the world.
> Good thing I'm not an astronaut.
Don't be too hard on yourself. Duct tape, and four maps, were used to fashion a replacement fender on the Apollo 17 lunar rover.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/duct-tape-saves-day/#:~:text=Duct%20tape%20comes%20in%20handy,which%20the%20fender%20was%20made.
Wasn't duct tape also part of the Apollo 13 oxygen scrubber canister fix? I'd say that's even more impressive that a dust shield (what the fender actually did), although I'll give credit for using duct tape in the vacuum of the moon's surface (the adhesive still worked!) while wearing the full environmental suit with those thick gloves.
Thanks... I find the way the rover folds up particularly fascinating. Here's a video about it from the engineer that designed that. One of my bucket list items is to design and 3D print a replica. He still has that one of a kind model from 1968, of course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My4sr87MlhM
He escaped the Russians smashing down the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and in the video he says how sweet it was to help America beat the Russians to the Moon.
He died February 13th this year at 96. See https://www.independent.com/obits/2024/02/26/ferenc-pavlics/
An amazing book about the rover design is "Across the Airless Wilds" by Earl Swift. His point is Apollo 15/16/17 with the rover is where the REAL Lunar exploration was done.
It's space - use whatever tape is available. If you have a choice, use whatever tape is best for the conditions.
Here's a list of every time cloth backed tape was mentioned by Apollo crews as a possible solution for situations, both on the lunar surface and within vehicles:
https://www.nasa.gov/history/alsj/WOTM/WOTM-DuctTape.html
Dave 126,
I always thought it was cheddar myself. But I'm willing to accept it might be stilton.
Although, were I repairing a spacecraft, I'd use halloumi. It doesn't matter how much you cook that stuff, it just won't melt. I'm sure it could be used as heat-shielding for re-entry.
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