Question General Spaceflight Q&A

[Bj]

$55,000 per pound of payload to get into orbit.

source - > http://www.spacedaily.com


270KG == ~595.24Pounds

595.24 * 55,000 = LOTS OF MONEY!!!! $32 Million for the white et's.

(correct me if I am wrong)

 

[ryan]

I wouldnt know if your wrong or right.

 

[James.Denholm]

You want to know what I found curious? In the photos, no-one's upside-down or anything. This can mean only 1 of 3 things:

1. They have a system of which way is down, and can't be bothered with being different.

2. It's a hoax.

3. It's a hoax. Mainly because I forgot point 2 while typing point 1, and hence point 3 became point 2...

 

[pete.dakota]

Well it certainly isn't a hoax.

As the astronauts are constantly working and communicating with each other, naturally they will manoeuvre themselves to be in relative position to their crew mates as they would down on Earth. So that's heads "up", feet "down." Even though there is, technically, no up and down in space. On the station however, laptops and equipment and the like are placed so to simulate a room where there is an floor and there is a ceiling. I believe one module of the ISS actually has a carpet (I'm sure I've heard this somewhere).

It makes it easier for the crew to work with each other and interface with the systems if there is some general logic behind what is up and what is down inside the modules.

 

[Urwumpe]

The ISS has up and down defined inside the modules by colors and labels for reducing the risk of space motion sickness (The whole strategy is called 1G orientation)

 

[ryan]

In luanch there are a number of call outs, but what does press2meco mean?

 

[Urwumpe]

In luanch there are a number of call outs, but what does press2meco mean?

"Press to MECO" = When a single engine fails, don't abort, but fly to a nominal MECO. (At 104% SSME thrust)

There is also "SE PRESS (104)" which is the same, but for the failure of a second SSME.

 

[ryan]

Ohhhh i get it now, thanks

 

[xmariox]

David Griggs, STS-51-D, died in 1989, killed in a crash with a historic WW2 training plane.
Karl Gordon Henize, STS-51-F, died in 1993, because of heart failure while climbing Mount Everest.
Robert F Overmyer, STS-5 and STS-51-B, died 1996, in a crash while testing the Cirrus VK-30 light aircraft.
Charles L Veach, STS-39 and STS-52, died of cancer in 1995.
David M Walker, STS-51-A, STS-30, STS-53 and STS-69, died in 2001, after a brief and sudden illness.

Charles Eldon Brady, STS-78, died in July 2006, uncleared details of death, probably suicide due painful ailment of Arthritis.

 

[Pilot7893]

Why did they design the shuttle with such small wings? Was it so they didn't rip off from atmospheric pressure during launch and reentry?

 

[Urwumpe]

Why did they design the shuttle with such small wings? Was it so they didn't rip off from atmospheric pressure during launch and reentry?

The Shuttle has rather large wings. They had become so large because it should be able to have a huge cross range (maximum distance on the ground from the initial orbit plane) during reentry with a huge payload in it's payload bay. Initially, it should have been able to have a cross range of 1500 NM, so it can land on the same spaceport after a single orbit, but they finally settled on over 1050 NM, which it has now.

Without these requirements, the Shuttle could have flown with much smaller wings.

The loads during reentry are actually pretty harmless compared to what other planes have to take. The wing loading of a shuttle during a high energy reentry is 422.6 kg/m². That's even less as the F-16 with it's smaller wings has.

 

[Pilot7893]

Does the ISS have some sort of autopilot to keep it's global orientation with Earth the same? If so, is THAT why whenever I try to dock, I have to change to ROT every .5 seconds to keep level with the docking port?

 

[ryan]

Isnt the ISS in a sortof bank, to keep a little gravity in there, i suppos thats inplaced into orbiter as well.

 

[Urwumpe]

Isnt the ISS in a sortof bank, to keep a little gravity in there, i suppos thats inplaced into orbiter as well.

Wrong.

1. It is no bank, but actually pitch.
2. It is not for keeping gravity in the ISS. That is impossible in freefall. Actually, they do hard work in some flight phases to avoid any residual gravity.
3. That mode is called gravity gradient stabilization, and works by the fact, that the gravity pull on mass closer to earth is higher than on objects further away. When a object is long enough and the mass of the object distributed along one axis, the gravity difference between the low and the high end of it is enough for keeping a object stabilized in space. That applies to the ISS (the heavy modules form one line), the space shuttle (pressure shell, payloads and engines are forming one line) or many rocket stages.
4. During docking, the ISS is in a LVLH stabilized mode, meaning that the Shuttle docking port is always pointing forward or the Service module docking port always pointing backwards. That is done for saving fuel on the docking spacecraft.

 

[Linguofreak]

What kind of internet access do they get on the ISS/Shuttle? Any?

 

[DaveS]

What kind of internet access do they get on the ISS/Shuttle? Any?

None. E-mails are uploaded/downloaded by MCC-H during crew sleep periods.

 

[ryan]

Do they have any contact to earth apart from the mission control loop?

 

[DaveS]

Do they have any contact to earth apart from the mission control loop?

Yes. There's several IP phones onboard which is very popular and there's also an ham radio onboard.

 

[James.Denholm]

Good lord, are you up there DaveS?

Thanks for the answer dakota and Urwump.

Anyway, I have three questions (Hope you guys charge by the post, not question):

1. What is the emergency procedure in the case of rapid depressurisation? Are there things that seal shut the affected modules or something? How big would a hole in, say, a window need to be for a rapid depresurisation to take place?

2. How big are the interior of these modules? Does it tend to get cramped up there?

3. Is there a definate front and back of the ISS? Do they tend to point one direction prograde most of the time, or do they do a flip-the-coin (as impossible as that would be on the ISS) and say "Ha, looks like the Ruskies are being blasted by the Sun for the next quater orbit"? Not that I have anything against Ruskies

 

[mrspacely]

Good lord, are you up there DaveS?

2. How big are the interior of these modules? Does it tend to get cramped up there?

cramped, but when they first install modules like kibo im sure they enjoy the open space to play in