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 ...
Notice how fast the shuttles have been deconstructed? The parts and classified construction are probably already in China. Also, wasn’t the last leak out of the former Soviet Union were to shoot this bag of tin foil space junk down?
It was a secret until that drunken old Senator from Georgia stuck his nose into General Scott's business.
The end of a multi-billion dollar jobs program.
Wait! Here's one of those really neat experiments: CEO- Crew Earth Observation. Everyone takes turns looking out the window looking at the earth? That's worth a billion all by itself. Fluff.
Here's the astronaut from my high school, Needham High, Needham, MA. Sunita Williams graduated two years after me. She is currently the female spaceflight duration record holder at 195 days.
Sad attitude.
They didn’t waste any time did they?
Probably the first time in the history of the whole shuttle program that anything got done quickly
Put those luddites to sleep and we could have a huge fleet of massive ships out there right now, exploring every nook and cranny of the solar system, providing us with unbeatable national security, and even making our way out into interstellar space.
Where do you get the idea that NASA is promising you the universe? I guarantee if someone don’t promise you something you aren’t going to get it if from them.
What exactly do you think we are getting for our money spent on NASA? I want to go to the stars. I don’t see NASA is getting us there. Nor do they have any plan to do it.
Hope they know we’re thinking and writing about them as they work out their current situation. This is where the training kicks in.
Won’t that be something. No shuttle. No Ares. No Soyuz. No ISS. It’ll be wide-open skies for China in the early 21st century.
Nothing. I was just responding to your comment that no one has any idea how to get us to the nearest stars. Ideas are coming in fast and furious. Sail technology seems to be leading the pack as most doable in the foreseeable future, though I'm not a big fan myself. Interestingly, DARPA is taking proposals for a 100-year starship study. It's fascinating to me that those guys think that someone might be able to figure it out in the next 100 years.
I would never have gone along with the ISS, if it had been up to me. I'm not a "let's do endless experiments on tadpoles" kind of guy. But now that the taxpayer has paid for it, he should get his money's worth; there are useful experiments that still can and should be done, and the ISS is as good a place as any to do them.
The problem is we are not done paying for it. If we don’t abandon it we will spend billions to keep it up there. Why? Exactly?
For the small percentage of the federal budget that goes to NASA (0.049%), I think we’re getting an acceptable amount of research and PR value (although the PR department needs a shake up.)
catastrophism ping
What value are we getting for that (0.049%)?
The guys up there now are going to be mighty upset if they have to leave the station empty. They work their butts off to keep everything operational.
Life isn't always about pinching pennies, even in times like this. I look at NASA as the "night out at the ballgame" in the family budget.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.