Posted on 08/30/2011 7:47:13 PM PDT by Nachum
WASHINGTON — The risk of an unprecedented evacuation of the International Space Station will spike if Russian craft cannot resume their missions and return by November, a senior NASA official has warned.
"There is a greater risk of losing the ISS when it's unmanned than if it were manned," Michael Suffredini, the ISS program manager for the US space agency, said in a conference call with Russian officials.
"The risk increase is not insignificant," he added.
Russia on Monday delayed its next manned mission to the ISS by at least a month after an unmanned cargo vessel crashed into Siberia instead of reaching orbit on August 24. The head of Russia's manned spaceflight programme also warned that a significantly longer delay would force the six people on board the station to abandon the orbiter due to fatigue and supply problems.
The station crew normally consists of six -- currently three Russians, two Americans and one Japanese -- working six-month rotations.
Staff safety and the "very big investment" that the Russian and US governments have made in the ISS would guide future decisions, Suffredini said during the call on Monday.
"We prefer not to operate in that condition without crew on board for an extended period of time just to make sure we end up in that situation.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Indeed. He had a space station project, "Freedom" ready to go at a fraction of the price. The 'Rat Congress and RINO GHWB killed it in the late '80s and threw our lot in with the Russians to build Alpha.
You mentioned "Industrial Central Planning" in post #37.
well, ain’t that a kick in the head for space exploration..
The replies I have heard to your comments sound like people in the 1500s saying why go to the new world? its expensive and its a long trip. what good is it to explore?
I wish we had a new fleet of shuttles making frequent trips into space and a new manned lunar exploration program.
Yea? You consider that grounds to smear me as a conspiracy theorist?
Where exactly do you think we are going to explore? And how does this contraption get is there?
It was sarcasm, Francis.
A smear? You're certainly paranoid enough to believe in conspiracies.
Oh, sarcasm. That makes it all better.
It's called "The Universe."
Forever I do not know, but man as a mortal in the present age and the one to come... yes. After that, I venture no guess.
Grow up. All you have is hate toward the program.
Do you have any concept of how big the universe is?
Yup. All the others forgot the verify part. I don’t believe RR would’ve entered into the ISS effort simply because verifying the quality of the Russian work would be impractical. They dragged their feet like crazy, resulting in a couple of lengthy delays, produced defective parts right and left, costing us tens of millions more than it should have, maybe a hundred million more. And now they’re about to abandon it and there isn’t a whole lot we can do about it except squawk. And Obama won’t even do that.
Explore space with a Conestoga wagon.
Calm down. Chill out. No hatred in any of my posts. Really, you have problem.
Yeah, if squatters move in, you’ll never get them out.
Agree 100%. We have a disturbing number of Luddites and ill-educated (on space) people on FR, though. No wonder NASA went down under Obama.
It's a great big universe/And we're all really puny/We're just tiny specks/'Bout the size of Mickey Rooney....
No, my FRiend, you came in with a bad attitude.
Obama doesn’t give a SHIT about this. He wanted to TEAR DOWN American Exceptionalism. He got it.
I have NEVER been sooooo pissed in my life. As a child, I wanted to be an astronaut. I went to Cape Canaveral before the ‘shoot to the moon’ took off to view the rocket on the landing pad. All the way back from trip.....”Man on the moon! Man on the moon!” It struck awe and wonder in me. Couple of weeks later.....watching the black and white images and hearing the “beeps” to “Houston”. We ran out in the front yard and took a Polaroid of the moon.
This area BOOMED after that. Filled with hope and promise. Now we have to ‘hitch a ride’, and NASA is used for ‘Muslim Outreach’.
I think you skewer that analogy pretty effectively.
So we should just stay home and forget about it?
How big did the unknown look to the ocean explorers of a thousand years ago?
Unless you have some practical idea how to traverse distances that are beyond our wildest imaginations......
You needed an analogy that you can understand.
NASA has never promised they could explore the universe.
So you’re one of those “Space exploration isn’t in God’s plan” people?
I’m totally disgusted by the way it unraveled. Now we’re going to have to wait for another Republican administration that’s not wet-behind-the-ears when it comes to understanding the ill will much of the rest of the world has for us, before we get another leg up in space again, and hope it remains in office long enough to get us off the ground. It’s hard to be optimistic.
It took months to cross oceans and continents as little as 200 years ago. With your attitude, it still would.
I’m betting they will evacuate, and let the thing die. The truth is probably we no longer want anything to do with it, and letting it go in such a way would be a way to politically save face, while making it look like a failure on the part of the Russkies. I doubt the Russians want anything to do with it either.
It's just sad.
Your analogy is inapplicable. People crossed ocean for thousands of years using technology available to anyone.
No one has any idea how to cross the void of space even to the nearest star.
So? No guarantees in life either.
You mean OBAMA and his leftist rats want nothing more to do with it.
As for the Russians, you couldn't be more wrong. They're in it for the long haul...they have been since 1957. They're a lot more patient than we are.
You mean OBAMA and his leftist rats want nothing more to do with it.
As for the Russians, you couldn't be more wrong. They're in it for the long haul...they have been since 1957. They're a lot more patient than we are.
I don’t understand what you’re saying to me.
All kinds of proposals have been put forth. At this point it would have to be a multi-generation ship.
But progress will happen. We went from ZERO powered flight to a manned lunar landing in 65 years, seven months.
Nope. It just ain’t gonna happen now. And that’s just using common sense. We’re all about to collectively destroy the world as we know it - ending the present “age”-, and then it’s gonna take a while to rebuild it (the commoing age) with the new Leadership. Space exporation won’t the be the number one priority for a while.
Besides, the current technology will not take us anywhere. A paradigm shift in knowledge is needed before space exporation is even possible.
We have had the war on cancer going on for the last 40 plus years 10’s of if not 100’s of Billions of Dollars on research and where are we. No closer to a cure than we were.
I’m glad not everybody has your attitude. Thank God for Bigelow, SpaceX, Branson and others.
As I said, we went from ZERO powered flight to a manned lunar landing in 65 years, seven months.
None of these are practical proposals. The theories depend on energies that no one can conceive of generating.
I believe in basic research. No one can predict where basic research will lead. I HATE these stories that excoriate scientists that put crickets on treadmills.
You mean like jet engines and nuclear power in 1890?
Dunno about that. There’s one experiment called “I-Foam” or “Italian Foam.” I didn’t read the details, but maybe its about deep-space cappuccino foam. Now that would be useful for the exploration of Mars.
I know this saddens me beyond belief. As a young kid I wrote letters to NASA asking about the space program. They sent me all these glossy picks about everything. It was so cool, we felt that we were in on the adventure. Now we have a POS in the White House who could give a rats ass. Don’t worry Zero we are coming for you. We will make things right again in this county, we will make things right in this world again.
God bless our soilders, their families!
Looks like a lot of “fluff” and mission justification to me.
:*-(
Amen, and AMEN!
No, like nuclear power time 10^1000
A lot of it is corporate. They don't usually spend money on "fluff."
Which today looks to use like a rudimentary reactor looked to the people of the early 20th century.
You seem to believe that human scientific progress has been halted as of now.
When will we spend millions of dollars on the war on death?!! Cancer is nobel enough to be sure, but who wants to die of death?!! Don’t whip me, crown me with thorns, make me carry my cross, nail me to my cross, then pierce me with a spear. Please! I don’t want to die! Rapture me now! Save me from your pain Lord. I can’t be like you.
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