Reggie, get me one of those jet pack thingees. I need to go save the space station.
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 ...
Good question. Its kind of like Porkulus,
Expensive,worthless and going down in flames.
See post #15.
They all have special suits so that if they have to evacuate they can survive until the next spacecraft comes to pick them up.
Reggie, get me one of those jet pack thingees. I need to go save the space station.
That’s hilarious. /sarc
I stopped reading when I got to ‘BUZZ LIGHTYEAR’............
Oh you poor thang.
How much basic research won’t be done because of all the capital sucked up by this super duper science platform.
Cancer research? Please,,, The cost of the Space Station has been around 100 billion, spread over 30 YEARS. Thats about 10 months of the war in Iraq.
Or try about 18 months of the dept of education budget.
There are legitimate things to criticize NASA for; woman astronauts with the frizzy hair and no sense to put it in a ponytail, Hansen and his global warming Jihad, always having to carry a foreigner and being terrified of ever seeming “American”, the muslim outreach program,,,etc. But the Space Station is about the only thing they’ve done right lately. And there is nothing but a pittance to save by canceling it.
Space exploration and experimentation is great, but the countries of the world are without the means to support it financially.
Make one last trip and push it out of orbit to sit until we can once again do it justice or use its parts for the next space station.
Looks to be primarily PHD welfare with a sprinkling of ethnic and cultural diversity to round it out.
How do they evacuate with no one launching? Do they open the door and parachute out? lol
Thank you, Obama. Without you we might have kept the space shuttles going for a couple more years until a replacement was ready.
Huh? "Out of orbit" means reentry into the atmosphere, as in gone, baby, gone.
If we can re elect him; we might have our technological abilities back to the 1890’s at least.
Maybe we can bring back steam locomotives?
Maybe the shuttles could have a few flights left in them
Letting central planners decide what basic research deserves funding (and what doesn’t) is no more effective than industrial central planning.
The great majority of those experiments have to do with the effect of microgravity on biology (human, ultimately) or on processes (e.g. agricultural; medical) performed in support of human existence in space.
If you don’t put humans in space you don’t need all that data.
The space program was the ultimate display of American greatness during the Cold War. Barack Obama is not only not a believer in American Exceptionalism - he is a militant believer in American Unexceptionalism. To him, the space program is an arrogant display. And America needs humbling.
The man found trillions to dig ditches and fill them again. The only things he cuts are defense - and the space program.
Much of it is corporate, and the companies pay top dollar. My company considered it until the realization that the lack of shuttle access pushed the timeline way back.
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