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One hull crack located in ISS, another one suspected

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

#281

Post by mlindner »

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 think we need a "Space New Deal", I'm honestly saddened by the lack of progress in space in my lifetime.

Space is making progress at incredible rates right now. It's moving faster than it ever has in history. So I'm not sure what the issue is.

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

#282

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

sudosysgen wrote: post #278
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean my whole youth lived around Soviet-made goods is an 'anecdotal evidence'? Well, perhaps I should have tried living in those fantasy Soviet Unions some people on the internet love so much. Those must have been magnificent states!

Well, it does remain anecdotal evidence. The point of the above commenter is that while they could be made the lack of creativity in planned economies lead to them not being made, not that there were made.

You talk about planned economy shows that you learned about it from third-party sources. There was an abundance of creativity, it just wasn't aimed at creating consumer goods, because they just could not be made in the planned economy at all.

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

#283

Post by sgtnoodle »

jldugger wrote: post #156
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.

What do you think the fuel charge would be on a martian round trip?

Since there's virtually no drag between the planets, the distance doesn't linearly determine the amount of fuel. What matters is velocity changes. It's about 10km/s to get into orbit, and 5km/s or so to transit to Mars. Coming back is a lot easier because Mars has less gravity and atmosphere, and you don't need to bring as much stuff back. So maybe let's call it 20km/s total? Fuel has mass, so it takes fuel to bring fuel. If you were to bring all the fuel you needed along, it's probably going to end up being 5-10x the fuel for getting just to low earth orbit. Either you build one giant rocket, or more realistically you launch a few smaller rockets. Alternatively, if you can manufacture fuel on Mars, you only need to take along 15km/s worth of fuel. A single falcon heavy launch could probably handle that.

Said another way, such a mission could probably be completed with one or two falcon heavy launches. That's basically equivalent to 3-6 falcon 9's worth of fuel, and a falcon 9's fuel cost is something like $200k. So, $600k-$1200k in fuel.

A spaceship system actually suitable for going to Mars would probably use cheaper fuel than falcon heavy. By the time it's actually built, though, inflation and politics will have made the fuel expensive again. So my best guess is a cool $1million!

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

#284

Post by TomK32 »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #148
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.

> He underscored that air loss due to the crack are insignificant. "This leak is like as if you’d drill the hull with a 0.2 mm diameter drill. I’m not sure such drills even exist in household. I had to check my collection of PCB drill bits when I was reading it, and yes, I confirm that I'm a proud owner of a 0.2 mm drill at home, it was the smallest one in the box ;-)

still unused?

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

#285

Post by BenjiWiebe »

posix_me_less wrote: post #251
NortySpock wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

low attenuation fiber optic cables? https://madeinspace.us/capabilities-and-technology/fiber-opt... (similar to, but not the same as, zero attenuation fiber optic from the fictional book Artemis by Andy Weir) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_(novel)

Is the new book any good? I liked Martian.

I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't compare it to The Martian.

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

#286

Post by gregmac »

gspr wrote: post #239
hef19898 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pressure difference is one bar, so duct tape is more than enough to hold that. Aging is different story all together, so.

> The pressure difference is one bar, so duct tape is more than enough to hold that. This is something I have to consciously remind myself of a lot when thinking about space technology. I have this reflex-like feeling that "the vacuum of space" must be a huge obstacle. But then one remembers that 1 atmosphere is the equivalent pressure of a water depth of 10 m. This always blows my mind. In some sense, humans do live…

This reminds me of one of my favorite Futurama lines as their ship is going underwater:

"Dear lord! That's over 150 atm of pressure!"

"How many atmospheres can the ship withstand?"

"We'll, it's a spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between 0 and 1."

https://youtu.be/Ewu-zHH5Qwg

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

#287

Post by hef19898 »

gspr wrote: post #239
hef19898 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pressure difference is one bar, so duct tape is more than enough to hold that. Aging is different story all together, so.

> The pressure difference is one bar, so duct tape is more than enough to hold that. This is something I have to consciously remind myself of a lot when thinking about space technology. I have this reflex-like feeling that "the vacuum of space" must be a huge obstacle. But then one remembers that 1 atmosphere is the equivalent pressure of a water depth of 10 m. This always blows my mind. In some sense, humans do live…

Exactly! One of my preferred scenes in The Martian is when he repairs his blown airlock with duct tape, a thin tarp and a tension belt.

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

#288

Post by Faark »

interestica wrote: post #118
gizmo686 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Skylab was in LEO. There is hardly any decay once you get higher up, you're quickly approach "many lifetimes". That's why the new huge LEO constellations won't be a big space garbage problem.

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

#289

Post by carapace »

merpnderp wrote: post #261
etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in the literal sense, the government can raise revenue via tax and employ people. So it's literally true... You might not like it, or it might be ill advised, or might believe that all taxation is theft, but it is what it is.

Money represents work, and the government is waisting billions of dollars of highly trained professional work hours on the SLS. This money could have been used in unaccountably more productive enterprises, but the incentive structures and feedback loops are so broken in government, it can't even build a rocket ship, in an era where every two bit backyard company is building their own. The taxes raised to pay for SLS…

> This money could have been used in unaccountably (sic) more productive enterprises

The space industry is one of the major resource sinks that prevent runaway economic growth that would destroy civilization as we know it: the so-called "economic supernova".

The natural result of scientific progress is a kind of economic singularity beyond which is entirely unknown territory. What happens to our civilization when the primary underpinnings are obviated by technology? No one knows.

So, NASA, FAANG, the Financial Industry, most of the lawyers, accountants, and bureaucrats, etc. are just make-work jobs to occupy productive people to keep them from inadvertently causing the apocalypse.

(FWIW Bucky Fuller calculated that the inflection point to runaway wealth was in the mid-1970's. We're fifty years over due for the end of history.)

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

#290

Post by edgyquant »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #266
edgyquant wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal evidence isn’t evidence. They’re capable, what they lack(ed) is the creativity to do so.

You mean my whole youth lived around Soviet-made goods is an 'anecdotal evidence'? Well, perhaps I should have tried living in those fantasy Soviet Unions some people on the internet love so much. Those must have been magnificent states!

Yes what you present is anecdotal evidence. Also nobody is saying they like the Soviet Union that is an idiotic strawman. My point is that they could be made but the USSR wasn’t gearing its economy towards consumer goods because it was a military state who cared almost entirely about heavy industry to benefit its military industrial complex and competition with the US.
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