| Title: | Space Exploration |
| Notice: | Shuttle launch schedules, see Note 6 |
| Moderator: | PRAGMA::GRIFFIN |
| Created: | Mon Feb 17 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Thu Jun 05 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 974 |
| Total number of notes: | 18843 |
From: [email protected] (T.S. Reddy)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: NEW YORK TIMES editorial on the Space Station and ISF.
Date: 18 Jan 88 22:53:03 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
The following is an editorial from the Friday (January 15, 1988)
edition of the NEW YORK TIMES newspaper. Wonder what everyone thinks
of it?
The Space Station NASA wants to build is a luxury hotel with a
sky-high price tag, now at $32 billion. Congress has at last decreed
that the agency should also consider supporting a much smaller,
privately operated space station that costs a mere $700 million and
can do many of the same things. NASA seems petrified that Congress
may next wonder why it needs a palace in space if a mobile home
would do nearly as well.
The Industrial Space Facility (ISF), to be built by Space
Industries of Houston, is an orbiting laboratory designed to be tended
by astronauts, not inhabited by them. That makes it far simpler and
cheaper than the Space Station. It would be launched into orbit on
the Shuttle, and, astronauts would visit periodically to monitor
experiments in low gravity crystal growing and materials processing.
If successful, extra modules could be added.
With no humans lumbering around, the lab would be free of vib-
rations, an essential quality for many space experiments. It has as
much power as the Soviet MIR space station. Devised by Maxime Faget,
once a top NASA designer, the lab is built from off-the-shelf parts
and could be launched in 1991. The Space Station won't be ready until
1997 at the earliest. To erect the Space Station requires 20 Shuttle
flights, the lab just one.
The lab thus seems a better bet than investing in a full-fledged
space station right away. Yet NASA doesn't see it that way. The
space agency apparently prefers hardware to results. If cheap access
to space had been the agency's top priority, it could have pressed
long ago to reduce the cost of launching payloads from the present
$3600 per pound to $400 per pound, a project the Air Force and NASA
have just begun. The agency might have discovered the Antarctic ozone
hole 10 years ago in data from the NIMBUS 7 satellite, but it invests
so little in analysis that most data from space sit unanalyzed in
NASA's vaults.
The agency says it has no need to lease space on the private
orbiting lab, and that the lab does not compete with the Space
Station: Most experiments need to be continuously watched, as the
Space Station makes possible, not merely visited every four months.
But the orbiting lab, with its big solar panels, could supply the
power to double the Shuttle's time in space, allowing for some
extended experiment watching. And doubtless some experiments now
designed for continuous monitoring could be adapted to the lab.
The Industrial Space Facility looks like a carefully designed,
cost-effective way of exploiting specific goals in space. On careful
scrutiny, Congress might find the lab could achieve many of the goals
promised for the Space Station, allowing the Station to be postponed
or scaled down. The money and Shuttle flights saved could then be
invested in getting results from space, instead of building hardware
for hardware's sake.
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 389.1 | I agree | MILVAX::SCOLARO | Wed Jan 20 1988 12:18 | 12 | |
I think I agree with the N.Y. Times.
I have always wondered why the space station should cost upwards
of $10 billion. (Has anyone else heard the $32 billion number?
Thats more than the GNP of many countries.) LEO with TDRS satelites,
ai programs and remote manipulation could not only be more cost
effective, but provide greater spin-off to the commercial market
place.
Now what does the Times say about the moonbase? I hope they not
only desire low cost programs but have vision too.
| |||||
| 389.2 | me too... | LILAC::MKPROJ | REAGAN::ZORE | Wed Jan 20 1988 16:08 | 8 |
I tend to agree too. As I stated in another note, I think that
first we should figure out a reason for spending the BIG $ to be
in space and then spend it. Not spend it first and then figure
out what we want to do once we get there. I have no arguments with
going into space. I think it's our destiny. I do have problems
with the idea of doing somthing simply to do it.
Rich
| |||||
| 389.3 | DECWIN::FISHER | Burns Fisher 381-1466, ZKO3-4/W23 | Fri Jan 22 1988 17:04 | 17 | |
I am very much in favor of a permanently-staffed space station. Notice
that I did not say THE space station. The problem with the current
plan is that it is being done for the wrong reasons and in the wrong
order. I agree with the NYT about that. I tend to agree with Henry
Spencer, whose "editorials" are a regular feature of net.space,
that the most important use for a space station is to provide a
base for assembly of made-in-space stuff (like lunar landers?)
and satellites (which can then be build without having to withstand
the rigors of launch) and to serve as a base from which person-tended
stations like the ISF can be tended.
However, in the real world, we are probably not going to get that.
So I'm still on the fence. I don't think we are doing the right
thing with the space station, but I'm afraid if it gets canned,
nothing will replace it.
Burns
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| 389.4 | Space Construction should come later... | LDP::WEAVER | Laboratory Data Products | Sat Jan 23 1988 11:52 | 13 |
I also tend to agree. I think the Soviets have the right aproach.
Build it on the ground, and dock it in space. No EVA's are required
to get the first space station online. NASA is talking about 8
hour workday's for astronauts in "blue collar" spacesuits. While
I feel that space construction will be required in the future, lets
not wait for the technology before we get a space station into orbit.
There is no way they can assure the same construction quality in
space as they can on the ground. I would think the thermal
expansion/contraction of building materials will be a major problem
in space as a futher detriment to quality construction.
My 2� worth,
-Dave
| |||||
| 389.5 | ISF model on tour | MTWAIN::KLAES | All the Universe, or nothing! | Mon Dec 30 1991 12:50 | 82 |
Article: 2240 From: [email protected] Newsgroups: clari.tw.space,clari.tw.science Subject: Private industry's model of space laboratory going on tour Date: 23 Dec 91 15:24:47 GMT HOUSTON (UPI) -- A full-size model of a 35-foot cyclindrical laboratory, deigned by Space Industries International, is the centerpiece of an education collection of NASA and private industry products going on tour. The exhibit is slated to visit 50 U.S. and Canadian cities in 1992 and 1993 and will be presented at national home shows, state fairs, world travel shows, medical conventions and other public events. The Industrial Space Facility is a pressurized laboratory designed to orbit near the space station. The real ISF also could be used as a manufacturing plant and even a power plant for the space station. Former astronaut Joseph P. Allen, president and CEO of Space Industries, calls the ISF a kind of outbuilding for the space station. The real ISF will be the primary cargo of a shuttle mission, taking up much of the cargo bay. In orbit, it will be available to private companies and government agencies. Developed solely with private funding by Space Industries, the ISF is designed to provide a microgravity environment to serve as a companion to the Space Station. In 1988, NASA seemed to have agreed to a five-year, $700 million lease on the Industrial Space Facility, which it saw then as an interim step toward the space station. But Congress balked at funding. The facility appears on a ``Payloads Request'' document released by Johnson Space Center. Its launch is tentatively planned for July 1997 or later. The launch is considered a huge step forward in the privatization of space. The ISF would not be permanently staffed, but it would be visited by people periodically who might gather experiment results or manufactured products. While on board the ISF, workers would be in a pressurized ``shirt- sleeve'' environment. Eventually, several ISFs might orbit together near the space station, organizers have said. The exhibit, called ``Discovery -- The Next Giant Step,'' is expected to attract 20 million people during the tour. Space Marketings Inc. of Atlanta is cooperating with NASA and Space Industries in the tour. Michael F. Lawson, Space Marketing president and chief operating officer, and Ted C. Conrad, Space Marketing director, participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony of the exhibit late last week. ``By taking an active role in promoting math, science and technology nationwide to young students and their families, we, NASA and Space Industries believe we are generating excitement about science and education,'' Lawson said. The exhibit also seeks to educate the public about the benefits of the space program and cooperative projects between NASA and private enterprise, he said. Other parts of the exhibit include a 1/15 scale model of a space shuttle orbiter, an Apollo space suit, a space food display and a section of spinoffs, technology developed for space that has found applications on earth. Examples are Velco, microwave ovens and freeze- dried foods. The Discovery exhibit is slated for the following stops: Travel World, Boston Jan. 10-12; Minneapolis Home & Garden Show, Minneapolis, Feb. 12-16; Charlotte Home & Garden Show, Charlotte, N.C., Feb. 22-March 1; Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show, Pittsburgh, March 6-15; St. Louis Home & Garden Show, St. Louis, March 18-22; Edmonton Home & Garden Show, Edmonton Alberta, April 1-5; Atlanta Home & Garden Show, Atlanta, April 23-26; Las Vegas Home & Garden Show, May 13-16. Other stops will be at home and garden shows in Anaheim, San Diego, Philadelphia and Seattle, organizers said, adding details on those shows are pending. | |||||