The International Space Station (ISS)

Toroid

Founding Member
NASA has cancelled an all women spacewalk because they can only offer one suit that would fit them.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/nasa-women-space-walk-suits-sexism
NASA is facing accusations of sexism after it canceled the first-ever all-women spacewalk due to what officials said was a lack of spacesuits that could be made ready that would fit the women.

Astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch were scheduled to take their spacewalk together March 29, but the event was canceled by NASA on Monday “due in part to spacesuit availability.”

According to a press release, only one appropriately sized spacesuit could be made available, so one of the astronauts, McClain, was forced to forfeit her spot.
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“McClain learned during her first spacewalk that a medium-size hard upper torso — essentially the shirt of the spacesuit — fits her best. Because only one medium-size torso can be made ready by Friday, March 29, Koch will wear it,” NASA said.

The unique event was therefore canceled, and McClain was “tentatively scheduled” to make her spacewalk on April 8 with Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques, a man.

After announcing the news on social media Monday, a flurry of responses were shared online.

Some tried to make seemingly sexist jokes about the change of plans. “I am not going out there wearing the same outfit as HER,” one Twitter user quipped. “Did you forget pockets?” another added.

However, as the news traveled, many became increasingly angry by what they said was evidence of sexism.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKpcJKSLxpY
 

Toroid

Founding Member
Trash is a major issue aboard the ISS. My understanding is they even discard their clothes because they have no way of washing them.
NASA Announces Trashy Award-Winning Ideas for Cleaning Space Station
NASA recently selected three winning ideas to compress trash in space with a minimum of fuss.

Because astronauts have limited space in their living quarters — and because nobody likes the danger that ejected space debris poses to spacecraft — dealing with trash is a constant issue for spaceflyers.

That's why NASA, in partnership with the company NineSigma, created a Recycling in Space Challenge to encourage the public to think of ways of processing and feeding trash into a high-temperature reactor. This will allow NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems directorate (which develops prototype systems and validates operational concepts for human exploration), as well as the agency's space technology programs, to develop methods to recycle waste and convert the trash into useful gases.

Three winners were selected from a NASA Tournament Lab crowdsourcing challenge, according to a statement from NASA.


The award recipients are:

  • Aurelian Zapciu, Romania — $10,000 for first place, Waste Pre-Processing Unit. This uses space-saving features, as well as ejectors that are cam-actuated (they use a rotating or sliding piece in a mechanical system) to move trash through a system. Then, another mechanism brings the waste products into a reactor.
  • Derek McFall, United States — $2,500 for second place, Microgravity Waste Management System. This uses a hopper to deal with solid waste, as well as controlled air streams for liquid and gaseous waste.
  • Ayman Ragab Ahmed Hamdallah, Egypt — $2,500 for second place, Trash-Gun (T-Gun). This uses air jets to compress trash before moving it through the system, overcoming the problem of operations in microgravity, where everything floats and makes compression difficult.


The submissions had to take into account several factors besides the lack of gravity, including the amount of space available, the sound level created, and the amount of power used as well as crew safety, according to the NASA statement. The proposed systems couldn't use a lot of consumables, either. (Consumables are items such as oxygen, water and power.)

"The challenge produced ideas that were innovative and that we had not yet considered," Paul Hintze, a judge for the competition, said in the statement. Hintze is also a chemist with NASA's Kennedy Space Center exploration, research and technology programs. "I look forward to further investigating these ideas and hope they will contribute to our human spaceflight missions."
 

nivek

As Above So Below
It would be nice to have a space shuttle program once more to support the space station...

NASA Live

Today's successful launch of Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft that will deliver ~7,600 pounds of science & supplies to the Space Station.

D4ZSejwW4AEhf4g.jpg large.jpg
 

Toroid

Founding Member
The Cygnus supply capsule arrived at the ISS.
Cygnus supply ship delivers 3.8-ton cargo load to International Space Station – Spaceflight Now
NASA flight engineer Anne McClain grappled Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus supply ship with the International Space Station’s robotic arm Friday, marking the automated cargo freighter’s arrival after an abbreviated day-and-a-half-long journey from a launch pad in Virginia with nearly 7,600 pounds of experiments, food and provisions.


Commanding the Canadian-built robot arm from a control station in the cupola module, McClain guided the arm’s end effector over a grapple pin on the rear end of the Cygnus spaceship as the cargo craft held steady roughly 30 feet (10 meters) below the complex. Mission control in Houston declared a successful capture of Cygnus at 5:28 a.m. EDT (0928 GMT) as the station sailed 258 miles (415 kilometers) over northeastern France.

Northrop Grumman christened the Cygnus the S.S. Roger Chaffee, after the late astronaut who perished in the Apollo 1 fire in 1967 alongside Gus Grissom and Ed White.

“It’s to have the S.S. Roger Chaffee officially on-board, and we look forward to working with the over 7,000 pounds of cargo for the next few months,” McClain radioed moments after the capture of Cygnus.

Engineers on the ground later took over the arm, which launched aboard the space shuttle Endeavour 18 years ago Friday, to place Cygnus on a berthing port on the nadir, or Earth-facing side of the station’s Unity module, where a series of latches and bolts closed to create a firm connection at 7:31 a.m. EDT (1131 GMT).

Friday’s arrival marked the end of a shorter-than-usual rendezvous profile for the Cygnus spacecraft following its launch from Wallops Island, Virginia, on Wednesday aboard an Antares rocket. Northrop Grumman modified the Cygnus flight plan to include a pair of automated altitude boost burns shortly after separation from the Antares launcher, giving the supply ship a head start on the way to the space station.

The change is one of several new upgrades and features on this Cygnus mission, the 11th and last resupply flight by Northrop Grumman under the company’s $2.89 billion cargo transportation contract with NASA signed in 2008. Northrop Grumman has a follow-on contract with NASA for at least six additional Cygnus missions beginning in October.

Under the second contract, Northrop Grumman will provide expanded cargo capacity to NASA, including the ability to load time-sensitive equipment into the ship’s pressurized module less than 24 hours before launch, and the revamped rendezvous profile to get to the station faster. Officials rehearsed the new procedures on this mission, designated NG-11.

On the next Cygnus mission, the Antares rocket’s main engines will fly at higher throttle settings, allowing the mission to carry up to 10 percent more cargo.

The station astronauts planned to open hatches leading to the Cygnus spacecraft’s internal cabin later Friday to begin unpacking the equipment inside, which includes a carrier containing 40 mice for researchers to study their immune systems in space by examining their bodies’ response to tetanus vaccinations. The rodents and their habitat were loaded into the Cygnus supply ship the night before launch, the first time mice have rode a Cygnus mission to the space station.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuQp8T8M2vE
 

nivek

As Above So Below
On the next Cygnus mission, the Antares rocket’s main engines will fly at higher throttle settings, allowing the mission to carry up to 10 percent more cargo.

Clever idea, just don't push the engines too much...

...
 

CasualBystander

Celestial
The ISS was a colossal waste of time and money.

We should have done a "US only" space station. Much cheaper and more control.

What is worse is that in 2026 we are going to deorbit it because nobody is willing to pay to support it.
 

CasualBystander

Celestial
Probably should have added that we should have created a space station with at least one centrifuge element if not the whole station.

We know zero G isn't good for people, why keep proving it?
 

humanoidlord

ce3 researcher
The ISS was a colossal waste of time and money.

We should have done a "US only" space station. Much cheaper and more control.

What is worse is that in 2026 we are going to deorbit it because nobody is willing to pay to support it.
why even have space stations at all?
focus on the moon or mars
 

CasualBystander

Celestial
why even have space stations at all?
focus on the moon or mars

It depends on what you are doing.

If you want to send a spacecraft to Mars you would want to do final assembly in space.

Moon has some advantages - the gravity would mitigation some of the problems zero-G causes.

Payload fraction taking off from earth is about 5%.

Payload fraction taking off from the Moon is over 50%.
 

Shadowprophet

Truthiness
I like Russia don't get me wrong. personally I feel Russia gets bad press in America for whatever reason. I mean in almost every boots on the ground war Russia has had our back. with that said. I'm certain NASA would help repair the leak if Russia would simply allow the assist.. it's sad that forign relations are so tense.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
It depends on what you are doing.

If you want to send a spacecraft to Mars you would want to do final assembly in space.

Moon has some advantages - the gravity would mitigation some of the problems zero-G causes.

Payload fraction taking off from earth is about 5%.

Payload fraction taking off from the Moon is over 50%.

These are not a new idea. Could easily be a horrifying weapon but the concept is interesting

Could Moon Miners Use Railguns to Launch Ore into Space? | Space

Could Moon Miners Use Railguns to Launch Ore into Space?
HVh8T7gnR38jsdeKgCbiQW-320-80.jpg


The United States Navy fired a projectile at Mach 6 during a recent test with an electromagnetic railgun, suggesting that early ideas about using such tech to launch payloads from the lunar surface might not be so sci-fi after all.
Mach 6 (six times the speed of sound) is 4,567 mph (7,350 km/h). The escape velocity at the moon is just a shade faster than that — 5,300 mph (8,530 km/h).
The Office of Naval Research work on the EM Railgun launcher is being pursued as a long-range weapon that fires projectiles using electricity instead of chemical propellants. [The Most Dangerous Space Weapons Ever]
missing-image.svg

Magnetic fields created by high electrical currents accelerate a sliding metal conductor, or armature, between two rails to launch projectiles.

In 1974, Princeton professor and space visionary Gerard O’Neill first proposed using an electromagnetic railgun to lob payloads from the moon.

"Mass drivers" based on a coilgun design could be adapted to accelerate a nonmagnetic object, O'Neill suggested. One application he proposed for mass drivers: tossing baseball-size chunks of ore mined from the surface of the moon into space, where they could be used as raw material for building space colonies and solar power satellites.

O'Neill worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Henry H. Kolm and a group of student volunteers to construct a mass driver prototype. Backed by grants from the Space Studies Institute, later prototypes improved on the concept, showing that a mass driver only 520 feet (160 meters) long could launch material off the surface of the moon.

An official at the Office of Naval Research, contacted by Inside Outer Space, said this of O'Neill's seminal work on mass drivers: "Very interesting proposal to use electromagnetic launchers for space vehicles. Considering the fact that the railgun is working with a small hypervelocity projectile, and requires significant power and thermal management, I suspect working out the details for movement of larger space vehicles/payloads is a long way off.

"But I also believe that current efforts will be successful, and electromagnetic thrust will eventually be considered for other applications, including space," the official added.

You can check out a video showing work on the U.S. Navy's EM Railgun here:

O'Neill, who died in 1992, founded the Space Studies Institute (SSI) in 1977 with the hope of opening the vast wealth of space to humanity. For more information on SSI’s ongoing work, go to: Space Studies Institute | Technology for Human Space Settlement

 

wwkirk

Divine
These are not a new idea. Could easily be a horrifying weapon but the concept is interesting

Could Moon Miners Use Railguns to Launch Ore into Space? | Space

Could Moon Miners Use Railguns to Launch Ore into Space?
HVh8T7gnR38jsdeKgCbiQW-320-80.jpg


The United States Navy fired a projectile at Mach 6 during a recent test with an electromagnetic railgun, suggesting that early ideas about using such tech to launch payloads from the lunar surface might not be so sci-fi after all.
Mach 6 (six times the speed of sound) is 4,567 mph (7,350 km/h). The escape velocity at the moon is just a shade faster than that — 5,300 mph (8,530 km/h).
The Office of Naval Research work on the EM Railgun launcher is being pursued as a long-range weapon that fires projectiles using electricity instead of chemical propellants. [The Most Dangerous Space Weapons Ever]
missing-image.svg

Magnetic fields created by high electrical currents accelerate a sliding metal conductor, or armature, between two rails to launch projectiles.

In 1974, Princeton professor and space visionary Gerard O’Neill first proposed using an electromagnetic railgun to lob payloads from the moon.

"Mass drivers" based on a coilgun design could be adapted to accelerate a nonmagnetic object, O'Neill suggested. One application he proposed for mass drivers: tossing baseball-size chunks of ore mined from the surface of the moon into space, where they could be used as raw material for building space colonies and solar power satellites.

O'Neill worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Henry H. Kolm and a group of student volunteers to construct a mass driver prototype. Backed by grants from the Space Studies Institute, later prototypes improved on the concept, showing that a mass driver only 520 feet (160 meters) long could launch material off the surface of the moon.

An official at the Office of Naval Research, contacted by Inside Outer Space, said this of O'Neill's seminal work on mass drivers: "Very interesting proposal to use electromagnetic launchers for space vehicles. Considering the fact that the railgun is working with a small hypervelocity projectile, and requires significant power and thermal management, I suspect working out the details for movement of larger space vehicles/payloads is a long way off.

"But I also believe that current efforts will be successful, and electromagnetic thrust will eventually be considered for other applications, including space," the official added.

You can check out a video showing work on the U.S. Navy's EM Railgun here:

O'Neill, who died in 1992, founded the Space Studies Institute (SSI) in 1977 with the hope of opening the vast wealth of space to humanity. For more information on SSI’s ongoing work, go to: Space Studies Institute | Technology for Human Space Settlement

My dream (nightmare?) weapon is a railgun firing an antimatter projectile. w24
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
My dream (nightmare?) weapon is a railgun firing an antimatter projectile. w24

I think a rock launched from one of those things would suffice. But what the hell, in for an antipenny in for an antipound.

This is a version of what an Abrams tank does. It fires a 120mm projectile in a sabot that peels away from a depleted uranium penetrator rod. 20 pounds of inert hurt traveling in excess of 5K fps.

The Pentagon’s New Super Weapon Is Basically A Weaponized Meteor Strike

The Pentagon’s New Super Weapon Is Basically A Weaponized Meteor Strike

In 2013, the U.S. Air Force 846th Test Squadron and civilian researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory successfully test-fired a kinetic energy projectile, a tungsten-rich shell moving at 3,500 feet-per-second — more than three times faster than the speed of sound — on a specialized track at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. More recently, the Pentagon has tested the Navy electromagnetic rail gun’s hypervelocity projectiles with the help of conventional U.S. Army howitzers; the Navy hopes the completed cannon will be able to launch shells at up to 4,500 mph, six times the speed of sound.

Explosives may be dazzling in their destructiveness, but there’s an elegant, almost Newtonian lethality to the kinetic energy projectile, explains Matt Weingart, a weapons program development manager at Lawrence Livermore.

“The classic way of delivering hurt against a target has been to pack a lot of chemical explosive into a container of some kind, a barrel or a cannonball or steel bomb,” Weingart told Task & Purpose in a phone interview. “The violence comes from the chemical explosive inside that bomb sending off a blast wave, followed by the fragments of the bomb case. But the difference with kinetic energy projectiles is that the warhead arrives at the target moving very, very fast — the energy is there to propel those fragments without the use of a chemical explosive to accelerate them. The more mass, the more violence.”
 
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