I did not get to see the NASA news briefing yesterday which supposedly addressed the issues I brought up so forgive me for trying to clarify.
Did they say how MUCH farther out the ISS orbit is than what the current ability of the Shuttle is? Could they upgrade the engines for future missions or would larger engines weigh too much?
Obviously, it is a moot issue for the Columbia, but I seem to remember that when the Space Shuttle was first being "sold" to us, astronauts were going to be able to be just "shuttled" back and forth, e.g. with the "Shuttle" planes. If not these "Shuttles," which ones were they talking about? I don't recall what vehicles got the current astronauts to the ISS. Do you know?
KOZAK WROTE: "Repairing the tiles? Each tile is a custom fit. Do they carry spares for the entire heat shield?"
I understand that each tile is a different shape, prohibiting them from taking enough individual tiles for complete replacement.
My thought, however, is that since they typically only lose a "few" tiles, and since they are made of EASILY-CUT, light-weight STYROFOAM which has a heat-shield coating, they could take a sheet or two or three of it with them (e.g. 3-2x4 foot sheets) to CUSTOM CUT them down as specifically needed.
With an ABILITY to EXAMINE and REPLACE the heat-shields via an EMERGENCY SPACE WALK, they could look up the size they needed (or make templates) and cut and glue them on as needed. As easily as the styrofoam heat-shields come off, having that EMERGENCY SPACE WALK ABILITY IS CRITICAL.
KOZAK WROTE: "A Soyuz rescue mission would actually take at LEAST 4 missions as the Soyuz carries 3 passengers at a time. Thats 1 pilot and 2 shuttle crew at a time. Since there were 7 shuttle crew do the math. Do you think the Russians have them on the pad in six packs?"
It is my understanding that the Soyuz is bringing up supplies to the ISS wihin a day or two---UNMANNED. If so, it seems that it could have brought back three at a time (and might have EMERGENCY SPACE for more). Maybe we should have a BACKUP Shuttle (capable of reaching the ISS, e.g. the Shuttle "sold" to us as mentioned above), ready to go in an EMERGENCY (or one which could could be QUICKLY CONVERTED from a scheduled future mission).
KOZAK WROTE: "Space is a dangerous place. Just like military aviation there are situations which you cannot recover from. NASA has done an amazing job considering the complexity and danger involved in this area of exploration."
I understand and agree, EXCEPT that, who would have ever thought Apollo 13 could have recovered from so MANY problems---all with "SPARE PARTS" engineered out of ordinary and unrelated items?
Of course not. They should carry several sheets of the 2"-thick stuff and a CDROM with the templates for each of the 26,000 tiles. Or however many CD's it takes to hold them all. And a master file that would show which tile is in which location. Even a tyro web designer could come up with the point-and-click to do this.
And they should carry some kind of bonding agent that will cure in a vacuum, like epoxy. And a tile-cutter.
This is a ridiculously-simple kit to put together.
Michael