SpaceX Dragon gives ISS a helping hand with altitude NASA and SpaceX have demonstrated the Dragon spacecraft's ability to reboost the International Space Station (ISS) with a 12-minute, 30-second burn of the freighter's Draco thrusters. The burn, which went ahead at 1250 EST on November 8, adjusted the orbit of the complex by 7/100 of a mile at apogee and 7/10 of a mile at …
No need for geo. Way back in 1971 the UK's first satellite, Prospero was launched by a Black Arrow into what is classed as LEO. It is not expected to deorbit until around 2070. You don't need to nudge the ISS that much to get it into a similarly medium-term-stable orbit.
Museum piece - good. Refurbishment - well, wanna pay for blasting all that fungicide into orbit, followed by all that toxic-fungicide neutralizer?
"Black Arrow was cancelled before Prospero was launched"
Just before, and the Prospero launch was the final black arrow launch. Rumor has it that the satellite was called Prospero in protest against the black arrow cancellation. Prospero being a Shakespearean wizard who loses all his powers.
Imagine you're in a boat about 150 miles away from a safe harbour and 10000 miles away from another safe harbour. There are sharks in all water and many thousands of other boats, most of which are somewhere between you and the further safe harbour.
Which one would you choose to aim for? Is the potential for future salvage enough to warrant the risks and expense of the journey, especially given the level of re-processing that would be required? (material degrades in space, so without a thorough inspection you can't assume that any space-borne resource is suitable for reuse)
The next common imperial units down from the mile are the furlong at 1/8th of a mile (220yards) and the chain at 1/80th of a mile (22yards).
So 0.7miles becomes about 6 furlongs and 0.07miles becomes about 6chains.
For greater precision you can combine with the next unit down (like you do with specifying someone's height in feet and inches) so the 0.7miles should be correctly described as 5 furlongs 6 chains and 0.07miles should be described as 5 chains 13 yards.
There is a sub division of the chain in to the Rod (also called the pole or perch) which is 1/4 of a chain so comes out at 16.5feet, but is not too useful here and is considered archaic.
Simples!
First up the ISS pressurised modules are cracking up. They leak slowly now because it least one leak cannot be found and even if it could blocking the leak still leaves a crack we cannot fix. This will get worse. Next, if you boost ISS to a higher orbit it will enter a region with more debris. It is a big target. Things will hit the solar panels creating more debris precisely in the orbit to strike the ISS. Lastly the ISS is in a high inclination orbit to make it accessible for launches from Russia. This reduces the payload that can be sent from more equatorial launch sites. It is cheaper to go straight to your destination than to go to ISS and depart from there. (But not as stupid as planning to go to Mars from Gateway.)
Axiom plan to add modules to the ISS until they have enough to be self sufficient and separate to create a new space station. This makes some problems easier at the expense of having the space station in an inconvenient inclination that no longer has any redeeming value. It is cheaper to launch something new directly to the right orbit than to make a significant change to the inclination. Axiom benefit from being able to create specialised modules that are very good at what they do but cannot operate independently.
The Russian segment is mostly made of jack-of-all trades modules. Each can operate independently but do not reap the benefits of specialisation.
Vast space plan a modular station in an orbit more convenient for launch from the US. They plan to solve the boot strap problem by relying on a docked Dragon to provide life support for their first module.
The SpaceX plan is to use a Starship. There is so much space in the payload section that SpaceX do not need multiple modules and save a large amount of mass missing out lots of berthing ports.
Blue Origin's space station will use large modules launched by New Glenn to reduce the number of berthing ports.
We will see which strategy works out. SpaceX and Blue have unlimited funds so they will happen. The others could fail for financial rather than technical reasons.
Speaking of which, AppleTV announced back in Feb they are making a 10 parter of Neuromancer. Probably won't be on until late 2025 at the earliest, more likely 2026. Whether it's good, bad or ugly we shall have to wait and see. I suspect they will keep to the general storyline, but otherwise "modernise" it as per Foundation, ie it might still be a good story, just not the one we expect :-)
Hmmm. I'm still smarting from the film adaptation of Johnny Mnemonic, so I'm not holding my breath.
While I generally find the two-hour (ish) movie format is too short to do justice to a novel, I'm not sure that Neuromancer has enough material to last for ten hours or so. I suppose they could start with Burning Chrome and carry on with the other books. Maybe that could be interesting :-)
Although the blurb at Apple TV has dampened my enthusiasm again:
The series will follow a damaged, top-rung super-hacker named Case who is thrust into a web of digital espionage and high stakes crime with his partner Molly, a razor-girl assassin with mirrored eyes aiming to pull a heist on a corporate dynasty with untold secrets.
' I'm not sure that Neuromancer has enough material to last for ten hours or so.'
Gibson's writing style is pretty dense and would allow some world building around the key narrative but I think the key thing is a good show runner who would be prepared to get away from the episode arc and more towards a series arc. Much like The Wire or Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul where there doesn't have to be some manufactured sub conclusion or cliff hanger at the end of every episode. The story arc is across the series.
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