Propose your ISS extensions here!

[dharak1]

You wouldn't need an Orion to lift a Saturn V into orbit. It's dry mass is around 131 tons. Meaning if you cut off a ton or two you could get it to orbit on SLS Block II and then send refuel missions. No point to it though.

[crazyewok]

You wouldn't need an Orion to lift a Saturn V into orbit. It's dry mass is around 131 tons. Meaning if you cut off a ton or two you could get it to orbit on SLS Block II and then send refuel missions. No point to it though.

I think he may be infering the otherway round. There was a NASA plan to lift a Orion into Orbit with Saturns and then activate the drive in orbit.

I can see why he would lift a Saturn V in Orbit with a Orion I mean whats the point? It owuld completty remove the whole point of pulse propulsion.

[MK3424]

I meant the Orion MCPV, that was first proposed to be lifted with the Ares-1 but canned and later would be send up with either a DeltaIV or the soon to be SLS.

[crazyewok]

I meant the Orion MCPV, that was first proposed to be lifted with the Ares-1 but canned and later would be send up with either a DeltaIV or the soon to be SLS.

We were talking about a poster before that mentioned the Orion Drive, diffrent from the Orion MCPV you meant

[dharak1]

I thought it was a NERVA they wanted to lift into orbit on a Saturn V so that they could land on Mars or do flyby's of other planets.

[crazyewok]

I thought it was a NERVA they wanted to lift into orbit on a Saturn V so that they could land on Mars or do flyby's of other planets.

Your right too.

There was two plans. One for Orion and one for NERVA. Some of NASA were for Orion and others for NERVA and the decsion if I read right was down to Harold Finger who was in charge of the Nuclear engine projects and as NERVA was his he choose that. Though the NERVA never came about anyway. But thats a summary of the history.

[MK3424]

All this NERVA and Orion Nuclear drive is mentioned in the novel i am reading currently: Voyager by Stephen baxter.

So, i know what's up with the advantages and the known disadvantages about Nuclear drives.

[TimMartland]

Mainsail-Powered Human Cannon. Go on NASA. You know you want too.

[crazyewok]

All this NERVA and Orion Nuclear drive is mentioned in the novel i am reading currently: Voyager by Stephen baxter.

So, i know what's up with the advantages and the known disadvantages about Nuclear drives.

Iv been trawling through the unclassified Orion Data. Pretty amazing stuff. Its just that the uneducated masses cant get past the OMGZ!1!!!1 BOMBZ !11!!!!! And all nuclear is bad! Its just not politicaly correct anymore.

Funny enough Im more uneasy with the NERVA concept than the Orion drive.

[kiwiak]

Iv been trawling through the unclassified Orion Data. Pretty amazing stuff. Its just that the uneducated masses cant get past the OMGZ!1!!!1 BOMBZ !11!!!!! And all nuclear is bad! Its just not politicaly correct anymore.

Funny enough Im more uneasy with the NERVA concept than the Orion drive.

Why is that?

[crazyewok]

Why is that?

Well the fallout from a nuclear bomb is pretty short lived. Yeah its deady if your near the blast area (or in orion stupid enough to stand nearby) but theres a reason you can stand in Nagisaki and Hiroshima at ground zero without dying a terrible death. Plus a Nuke is inert unless you activate it. You switch it on and bang thats it.

NERVA relies on a overheated reactor.Now I will admit right now I havent read up the specifics of the reactor used in NERVA, but if its like most nuclear reactors if it melts down the fallout is far more deady and long lived. Try standing at ground Zero in Chenonbyl. And if something starts going wrong with a reactor then its not a simple or easy process to shut a nuclear reactor down. I could be wrong on the specifics of a nuclear thermal rocket reactor so if I am please correct me and Il revise my opinion.

Edited January 19, 2014 by crazyewok

[MK3424]

Because Orion has better shielding, the gas chambers could rupture due to stress etc... could be.

[crazyewok]

Because Orion has better shielding, the gas chambers could rupture due to stress etc... could be.

Another great point.

Orion weight is not a issue, you dont have to shave the pounds.

You canb fit as many saftey precutions you like on it.

[KASASpace]

All of that (except for centrifuge) has already been done and/or is still happening to certain extent. First seed-to-seed full growth cycle in space was first completed onboard Mir station in 90s, current RSOS has greenhouse. Speaking of growing stuff - research onboard Mir have shown that growing crops not only gets food, but also have very positive psychological effect on the crew.

I emant in a closed-loop, separate from the main system. TO test if it has any effects on animals if it is a closed loop involvig plants. As a test for humans in a closed loop. And did I mention hydroponics? Or did they use soil in space? I was talking about scaling it up so the ISS can be less dependent of the Earth.

[Kerbin Dallas Multipass]

I was wondering.. Would it make sense to have a telescope array on a space station?

Hubble underwent 4 servicing missions by the Space Shuttle, so there seems to be demand to do stuff. Some (infrared) telescopes die because they run out of cooling agent, which could in theory be refilled easily. Telescopes might be much lighter and cheaper if they could draw power from the main space station.

On the other hand: Would orienting and re-orienting of those telescope perhaps distort the microgravity onboard the ISS, interfering with zero gravity experiments? Or vice versa... would ISS stationkeeping interfere with long time exposures of the telescopes?

[Skyler4856]

I emant in a closed-loop, separate from the main system. TO test if it has any effects on animals if it is a closed loop involvig plants. As a test for humans in a closed loop. And did I mention hydroponics? Or did they use soil in space? I was talking about scaling it up so the ISS can be less dependent of the Earth.

Hydroponic systems would be a pain in the *** to maintain. Soil is comparably easier to handle.

[Kryten]

Uzlovoy is scheduled to be sent to the ISS first, to serve as a support module, and then later to be used in the construction of OPSEK after the ISS is concluded.

It's only being sent to the ISS because that's where OPSEK is being constructed; they plan to assemble the whole thing there near the end of the ISS' life and then remove it. Uzlovoy can't really act as a 'support module', because there's basically nothing in there; it's just a node fitted with docking ports.

Edited January 20, 2014 by Kryten

[dharak1]

How many OPSEK modules will be constructed at the ISS just the ones before 2024 obviously but wouldn't that make the ISS for a short period of time one giant station? How many cubic meters would that be? Do they plan to pressurize it? Will there be more than 6 crew on board at any time?

[Nuke]

Why? Just why?

Im not some paranoid fool that hides from anything nuclear by any strecth BUT WHY! Why arm the ISS? If its for propulsion he ISS would be torn apart by nuclear pulse propulsion.

same reason i wanted to install a gatling gun on the space shuttle.

[AlamoVampire]

I'd like an interstellar warp drive module, a Star Trek transporter, and a space brewery.

Sorry, but I find discussions about real possibilities more interesting than conjecture about things that have zero chance of happening.

well... um... landing on the moon at one point was something with 0 chance of happening, then one bold president said: we are gonna do this by this date, end of story, and we did it. right NOW, we have 0 chance of putting a HUMAN on mars, but one day, it WILL happen. Today, we have 0 chance of seeing extra terrestrial life, but some day? we WILL, not you or I perhaps, but maybe our great grand kids? who knows. To say something in the space program has 0 chance of being real is to ignore the will and drive of humans to get our pink selves off this rock.

We will explore, we WILL learn, we WILL leave Earth. There is NOTHING that is impossible so long as we dare to dream it.

[Nibb31]

well... um... landing on the moon at one point was something with 0 chance of happening, then one bold president said: we are gonna do this by this date, end of story, and we did it.

You should revisit your history lessons. The reasoning behind the Apollo program was "what can we do to screw the Russians peacefully with our current technology?". All the studies were done during the Eisenhower administration actually. They sat down around a table, with a bunch of experts and went through a whole lot of different options, until they figured that landing a man on the moon was feasible. The program was well under way before Kennedy's famous speech.

right NOW, we have 0 chance of putting a HUMAN on mars, but one day, it WILL happen.

You're right, I'm pretty sure it will happen. Not in the next 20 years though.

Today, we have 0 chance of seeing extra terrestrial life, but some day? we WILL, not you or I perhaps, but maybe our great grand kids?

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Interstellar travel might never be practical. Maybe it will. We simply don't know yet.

We will explore, we WILL learn, we WILL leave Earth. There is NOTHING that is impossible so long as we dare to dream it.

I disagree. Just because we can dream up something doesn't make it possible. There are hard limits to physics.

[Nibb31]

I was wondering.. Would it make sense to have a telescope array on a space station?

No. The ISS is a bad environment for astronomy:

- First of all, it's pretty dirty. The ISS is surrounded by a cloud of pollution such as paint and insulation flakes, fuel particles, dust, and lots of other microdebris that have accumulated over 16 years.

- Second, there is a whole lot of machinery on board the ISS, that causes constant vibration.

- In LEO, the Earth blocks the view half of the time, which means that you can only observe an area for half of an orbit (~45 minutes) before it's blocked out.

Lagrange points are much better for astronomy, because they are in constant line of sight with the Earth, far enough to avoid interference and pollution, and constantly pointed at the sky. Sun-Earth L2 is the most popular for astronomy. Gaia just arrived at L2 and JWST, Euclid, and WFIRST are going there too.

Edited January 20, 2014 by Nibb31

[crazyewok]

we have 0 chance of seeing extra terrestrial life, but some day?

Actually I think that may be one thing you may be wrong on.

We have the tecnology now to find planets outside of our solar system and we can even do crude spectrometry from the light. If we can get a new space telescope up with more precise spectrometers we could most likley detect the atmospheric composition of extra solar system planets, if there is life there will be markers.

[crazyewok]

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Interstellar travel might never be practical. Maybe it will. We simply don't know yet.

Nuclear pulse is rated at 10-30%. Speed of light.

So scientificaly at least its practical. Any limits come from us humans really. At the moment is not worth it, hell we dont even know a destination yet so no point building a Trillion dollar starship and send it on a 100 year journy to a dead system.

Edited January 20, 2014 by crazyewok