Posted on 09/03/2020 6:27:05 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Another good point about the origin of manufacture. But there would have to be universal standards for manufacturing techniques, minimum tolerances, operating system coding/compatibility, QC/QA, and the like. If you’re going to build a car with your neighbor, you’re going to be sure sure your engine not only mates to his transaxle, but the horsepower from the engine reaches the road properly. And the internal power is going to be 12 VDC universally, and not 6 VDC like your partner engineered it because that’s the way they do it in his shop. Couplings in brake lines have to mate and be able to hold the same pressure tolerances and viscosity of fluid. A thousand little details when you invite the neighborhood to help build the thing. After all this time, I think we can eliminate a basic ‘oops’ occurring on the drafting table. They’re gonna have to Perry Mason the hell out of this one, methinks.
The Andromeda Strain virus is eating through the hatch seals.
I just read a report on the 2018 leak. I would have thought a 2mm hole would be pretty alarming, but it was considered by MCC-Houston to be small and non-threatening. It was, as this story says, hunted down and patched.
This one must be very small. Merely an annoyance. They sealed all the modules, collected sensor data for a period and still could not isolate to a module.
If this leak is in one of the outer bulkheads, the bigger task is going to be locating it once isolated. I am pretty sure all those modules, certainly all the US, the Japanese and ESA modules, do not have a lot of bulkhead surface not obstructed by some sort of equipment or experiment rack.
What is stunning to me is how casual MCC-Houston has become about leaks. The panic induced by the first leak was a sight to see. Now it’s, “Meh... we’ll track it down when we get some spare time.”
Hard to believe it will be 20 years this November since ISS was first crewed.
The NappyOne
You are right about standards across our international partners, save one. The Russian modules are all from the MIR era of the Soviet space program, some of it even older. When our Science Vice President, ALGORE, pushed us into bringing the Ruskies on board, we pretty much took their hardware as is. Of course we went over their products as best we could with as fine a comb as we had. I can testify that I certified my corner of the partnership on whatever documentation Energia provided and a one week fact-finding trip to Moscow. Still, we did a pretty good job, considering the kluge the White House forced us into has been working just fine these 20 years.
The NappyOne
Officials first noticed a leak last September, but they didn’t do anything about it for nearly a year, since the leak wasn’t major.
The station is very complex. I can see how they would have trouble finding a tiny leak.
I think future leaks will be addressed immediately, rather than waiting until they are a danger. A stitch in time ,,,
look for arts made by the Pat Leahy manufacturing company...
I can see that, but a teaspoon of ground black pepper in the radiator of my Ford 8N tractor fixed a decent sized leak.
Good on ya, then. Even after all the times we and the Russians have flung mud pies at each other over the years, once they found a reliable solution to reach their goal, they stuck with it. Granted, both sides had their share of human losses in the process, but it seemed like Russia took a few extra liberties with their spaceflight hardware and worked their way backwards until they built the family sedan they were looking for. I, for one, always took it as a given when our astronauts were launched to the ISS successfully. A shame they went from Communism to a thugocracy.
As everything is floating just follow the flow....
One thing we always tipped our hats to about the Russians, if they had something that worked they didn’t mess with it. That meant they had production lines that were decades old. There are a lot of problems that get ferreted out over time. Their designs may have been old, but they had earned a reputation for reliability. It also meant we had to restructure ISS to fit the limitations of off-the-shelf hardware designed for something else. And it meant we had to change the orbital inclination drastically, resulting in much smaller lift capacity for the Shuttles launched from the Cape due to increased energy needed to get to the altered orbit.
Oh, well. As my mentor often said, “Change is our most important product.” Indeed.
The NappyOne
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