Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

One hull crack located in ISS, another one suspected

tass.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 330 posts

Re: One hull crack located in ISS, another one suspected

#111

Post by ChuckMcM »

gizmo686 wrote: post #93
ChuckMcM wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Station keeping. The L4 and L5 points are nominally self stable, if you put something there it won't wander off. (this isn't true of the L1 point which is more dynamic). To do station keeping you need reaction mass and working thrusters. That level of infrastructure requires some maintenance, whereas you could put an empty/abandoned ISS in the L4 or L5 point and it would just sit there for no additional cost.

Right, but why do you need to do station keeping at all. Tracking objects is cheap, and a normal graveyard orbit isn't going to be perturbed so much that it would be notably harder to reach again in any reasonable timeframe.

Few chances to have a collision with existing space junk in either L4 or L5.

Re: One hull crack located in ISS, another one suspected

#112

Post by akeck »

lsllc wrote: post #42
ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

Materials aging in space is a pretty deep subject. That it is the Russian Zvevda module that is leaking/cracking is likely related to the fact that it is also the oldest module in the ISS. The ISS is/was scheduled to be retired in 2024 (aka 3 years from now) but there are calls to keep it going. My fantasy would be to have SpaceX move it into the Lunar L1 Lagrange point which would keep it in use but it would have to…

I think we need a "Space New Deal", I'm honestly saddened by the lack of progress in space in my lifetime. I mean we've done some great work, but we haven't made any giant leaps since getting to the moon 51.5 years ago. Thankfully, we do have SpaceX et. al. who really are making some big strides -- but how do we multiply & speed up that effort? ... sorry, I'm being selfish, but I really want to go to Mars.

I feel like we sort of did get a "Space New Deal" in the form of "Let's just send robots everywhere." Not great from a human space flight perspective, but political will is what it is.

Re: One hull crack located in ISS, another one suspected

#113

Post by saalweachter »

spike021 wrote: post #32

Not a big space person, but this makes me wonder: why have we not planned for a new ISS? We must have better tech nowadays from all the working countries/groups currently involved, plus SpaceX and other space companies' backing that would not have existed as it does now back when this ISS was first designed/created.

The ISS is modular.

There's no need for a "new" ISS, per se. You just attach new modules and, if need be, detach and deorbit old modules.

It's less exciting, kind of like maintaining an old code base.

Re: One hull crack located in ISS, another one suspected

#114

Post by fuoqi »

spike021 wrote: post #32

Not a big space person, but this makes me wonder: why have we not planned for a new ISS? We must have better tech nowadays from all the working countries/groups currently involved, plus SpaceX and other space companies' backing that would not have existed as it does now back when this ISS was first designed/created.

There are plans on the Russian side. If it will be decided to discontinue ISS after 2026, then the new Russian modules (Nauka, Prichal, and SPM-1) will be undocked to form core of a new station. Depending on negotiations it could either become ISS-2, or sovereign OPSEK [0]. But unfortunately I don't have high hopes for those plans to be implemented in reality for a number of reasons.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Piloted_Assembly_and_E...

Re: One hull crack located in ISS, another one suspected

#115

Post by curiousllama »

onethought wrote: post #95
snoshy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Largely because it's a fantastically expensive undertaking, and hasn't quite borne out the fruits that were speculated about over the years. USA provides a huge bulk of the funding, expertise, and personnel required to keep the program running. That's not to say that Russia, Canada, Japan, etc. don't do their part, but it's really not as much of a truly global joint effort as you might be led to believe. Then there's…

The problem with Privatised space industry is your country doesn't control the agenda. SpaceX is a pretty rare thing, the rest of the private space industry (Blue Origin, Virgin, Boeing) is as much of a money pit as NASA was. Then you have rapidly progressing government run space programs like China and India. The fact that the US banned China from the ISS and banned Non-Americans from participating in what it deems…

> you don’t control the agenda

True, but not really in the way you describe. The US is the main (often, the only) customer of US space companies. If you control the money, you control the operational agenda. If you want a a new ISS? Just write up the contract.

The way in which you don’t control the agenda is only inasmuch as the strategic interests of the space company diverges from those of the US govt. But typically, with outsourced high-value work, vendors will evolve to MORE closely align to their big customers. (It screws the small customers often, but hey, the govt isn’t small).

The issue in my mind is much more value extraction & leverage, but as long as there’s multiple players (including an in-sourced option), I don’t see how it’s a problem.

Re: One hull crack located in ISS, another one suspected

#116

Post by curiousllama »

calcifer wrote: post #97
keyle wrote: post #60

I burst into laughter reading the Russian's quotes. I love how casual the astronaut is about it! I'm no astronaut but I wouldn't be sleeping with crack in my hull, leaking air.

They leak 0.3 mmHg per day and are currently at 750 mmHg. An emergency is 0.5-1 mmHg per minute . They really don't have anything urgent to worry about.

Except loud cracking sounds followed by a gentle breeze

Re: One hull crack located in ISS, another one suspected

#117

Post by godelski »

bnralt wrote: post #92
ska wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but how do we multiply & speed up that effort? I think it's pretty much politically impossible. The first big space push was mostly a political pissing match (i.e. not really driven by doing it for its own sake). It's pretty easy to come up with other major challenges that most people will consider more important that also aren't getting funding ... so private industry looks more likely to get some traction. States…

> The first big space push was mostly a political pissing match (i.e. not really driven by doing it for its own sake). My understanding is that the Defense Department was interested in human manned spy satellites liked the planned Manned Orbital Laboratory early on, but that automation progressed to the point where it was preferable. I think that's one thing people miss when they talk about lack of progress in space.…

There's still a lot of defense reasons to go to the moon. You can put much larger telescopes there, though you're back to windows of time you can look at a location but you can have good will and dedicate time to scientists. Though they might not want to reveal the resolution even though this can be roughly back tracked through size. There's also the weapons incentive even though that's illegal. But if you're able to cheaply and consistently put people on the moon then you clearly have the resources to cheaply put large rods of tungsten in orbit (good luck responding to), being able to take out enemy satellites (nav, surveillance, missile launch detection, etc), replace/upgrade satellites quickly, etc. The Apollo missions were always about how much payload you could put in orbit.

It's also beneficial if you want to start space mining, really essential for that actually.

Re: One hull crack located in ISS, another one suspected

#118

Post by interestica »

gizmo686 wrote: post #93
ChuckMcM wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Station keeping. The L4 and L5 points are nominally self stable, if you put something there it won't wander off. (this isn't true of the L1 point which is more dynamic). To do station keeping you need reaction mass and working thrusters. That level of infrastructure requires some maintenance, whereas you could put an empty/abandoned ISS in the L4 or L5 point and it would just sit there for no additional cost.

Right, but why do you need to do station keeping at all. Tracking objects is cheap, and a normal graveyard orbit isn't going to be perturbed so much that it would be notably harder to reach again in any reasonable timeframe.

Orbits decay. Things change. Political priorities change. I mean, they didn't want skylab to come down when/where it did.

Re: One hull crack located in ISS, another one suspected

#119

Post by d_silin »

lsllc wrote: post #42
ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

Materials aging in space is a pretty deep subject. That it is the Russian Zvevda module that is leaking/cracking is likely related to the fact that it is also the oldest module in the ISS. The ISS is/was scheduled to be retired in 2024 (aka 3 years from now) but there are calls to keep it going. My fantasy would be to have SpaceX move it into the Lunar L1 Lagrange point which would keep it in use but it would have to…

I think we need a "Space New Deal", I'm honestly saddened by the lack of progress in space in my lifetime. I mean we've done some great work, but we haven't made any giant leaps since getting to the moon 51.5 years ago. Thankfully, we do have SpaceX et. al. who really are making some big strides -- but how do we multiply & speed up that effort? ... sorry, I'm being selfish, but I really want to go to Mars.

Well, if you want something done, the best way is to do it yourself. How much labour/$$$ are you willing to put per month for the space exploration efforts?

Re: One hull crack located in ISS, another one suspected

#120

Post by khuey »

merpnderp wrote: post #104
lsllc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need a "Space New Deal", I'm honestly saddened by the lack of progress in space in my lifetime. I mean we've done some great work, but we haven't made any giant leaps since getting to the moon 51.5 years ago. Thankfully, we do have SpaceX et. al. who really are making some big strides -- but how do we multiply & speed up that effort? ... sorry, I'm being selfish, but I really want to go to Mars.

Look at the SLS, how much money was spent, and how unlikely it is to ever do anything, and it looks like we aren't even capable of a Space New Deal if we wanted to. Luckily we have SpaceX.

Going to space is only a secondary goal for SLS though. Keeping a bunch of people in politically influential states and congressional districts employed is the primary goal and it's succeeding at that.
Post reply on HN