…on the ISS. My thoughts, over at Popular Mechanics.
4 thoughts on “Life After Shuttle”
A dispassionate expression of facts with a pitch perfect tone.
It’s been about a decade since I saw the performance margins, but I seem to recall altitude was limited by Progress. I can certainly be wrong, but I don’t recall altitude ever being limited by STS. Exceptions exist, like lifting the truss work and US lab components, but then the shuttle was flying heavy. But a UF flight had more margin. Still, with construction complete, they should look into flying other altitudes.
The biggest concern I have with ISS post shuttle is junk being left onboard. It was an issue with Skylab and Mir. The crew tends to be hoarders, particularly when throwing something in the Progress means it is burned up and lost forever. With Shuttle and the scant room available on Soyuz, things can be brought to the ground. Lacking downmass to ground will cause junk to pile up in the station.
Dragon will help some with that.
Good piece, Rand. And thanks for the link to the AW&ST article noting that NASA has elected to follow Elon’s advice and go directly for a real cargo delivery mission next and not just a flyby test. I’ve been looking for some word about that for months. Good to be reminded about the very near-term feasibility of a Dragon lifeboat solution too. The real space program proceeds apace.
A dispassionate expression of facts with a pitch perfect tone.
It’s been about a decade since I saw the performance margins, but I seem to recall altitude was limited by Progress. I can certainly be wrong, but I don’t recall altitude ever being limited by STS. Exceptions exist, like lifting the truss work and US lab components, but then the shuttle was flying heavy. But a UF flight had more margin. Still, with construction complete, they should look into flying other altitudes.
The biggest concern I have with ISS post shuttle is junk being left onboard. It was an issue with Skylab and Mir. The crew tends to be hoarders, particularly when throwing something in the Progress means it is burned up and lost forever. With Shuttle and the scant room available on Soyuz, things can be brought to the ground. Lacking downmass to ground will cause junk to pile up in the station.
Dragon will help some with that.
Good piece, Rand. And thanks for the link to the AW&ST article noting that NASA has elected to follow Elon’s advice and go directly for a real cargo delivery mission next and not just a flyby test. I’ve been looking for some word about that for months. Good to be reminded about the very near-term feasibility of a Dragon lifeboat solution too. The real space program proceeds apace.