Making Better Use of an Orbital Outpost
Critics doubt value of International Space Station science, Orlando Sentinel
“The old adage is that if you build it, they will come,” said Keith Cowing, a former NASA space station payload manager who runs the popular website NASA Watch. “Well, it’s there, but NASA has a lot of catching up to do in terms of fully utilizing the capability of the space station.”
“… Another way NASA has tried to better use the station was hiring a nonprofit group in 2011 to manage the part of the station designated as a U.S. national laboratory and to entice non-NASA researchers to do their work there. But the Florida-based group — the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, or CASIS — had early management problems and was able to get its first sponsored payload onboard the station just this month.”
– CASIS Defines Bedtime Stories on ISS as “Major Payload”, earlier post
– CASIS Is Clueless, earlier post
It says CASIS just launched their first major payload. Was THE major payload the Bedtime Stories from ISS? If so, that is a real embarassment.
http://ark1.iss-casis.org/ You read more there.
Space ref had this to say:
“Research on this flight consists of a variety of payloads, including an investigation focused on antibiotic research examining physical and gene expression changes in bacteria in space with hopes of creating new and improved drug therapies on Earth. Multiple education payloads also will head to the ISS, such as Ants In Space – which will observe the colonization habits of ants in a microgravity environment and compare their patterns to those on Earth. Additionally, Procter & Gamble is teaming with Zin Technologies to investigate the absence of buoyancy-driven convection, specifically within colloids for the potential production of commercial products.”
http://www.spaceref.com/new…
None of these sound very useful. There is no evidence that any physical product can be produced in space and returned to earth at a profit. Most of the miracles of mirogravity science have turned out to be hype.
In the 70’s there were two major ideas for ISS; spacecraft servicing and observation of the earth and sky. Neither has been pursued, but they still represent the best ideas. A serious proposal to do final assembly and checkout of medium-sized astronomical telescopes on ISS, getting around some of the massive risks in JWST, has been left unfunded. A few earth observing systems have added but nothing like what could easily be done. One high-res multispectral camera could produce more data per minute than all the microgravity science we have had.
I believe it was they didn’t have any faith in the antares. If you look at the site and compare what SpaceX is going to launch versus what they had antares take there .. a bit different.
Earth observations for most coverage is best handled unmanned. There are definite possibilities for a manned vehicle in LEO but they are more happenstance-chance you’d be in the right place at the right time or scheduled infrequent observations. Something like SIR flew for ten days and the data is still being analyzed (on the ground), 10 years later.
Satellite servicing turned out to be a dud. It is usually cheaper to throw satellites away and build a new one on the ground and then launch it unless its a super expensive one of a kind satellite like Hubble. Technology changes too rapidly. How many medium sized astro telescopes have been budgeted? Are any of the telescopes built for Shuttle available?
“It is usually cheaper to throw satellites away and build a new one on the ground”
An interesting statement. I can think of at least one benefit to repairing satellites on orbit: lower cable bills.
Information transfer costs have built-in huge amounts for throw away rockets and short-lived birds.
Once the launcher is cheaper (SpaceX, etc.), and the ability to fix the orbiting machines is established, we will experience a huge reduction in data transfer costs. This will have untold affects on our economy.
If you need a special mission to service a satellite, like the Hubble, it is more expensive. The strategy proposed for Station in 1970 was to place astronomical satellites in the same orbit so the space tug could retrieve them back to the station for servicing. Parts could be brought up on the regular logistics flights. Earth observation systems can simply be mounted on the truss since the ISS overflys most of the earth’s surface. This makes them readily accessible for servicing and upgrades, and avoids the expense of a separate spacecraft and launch for each instrument.
Sounds like a smart plan. What happened????
Good question. After the Space Tug was cancelled NASA also cancelled the pressurized and unpressurized hangar modules (where assembly and servicing would have been performed) and got wrapped up in the hype about microgravity processing (perfect semiconductors, perfect ball bearings, monodisperse latex, purification of drugs by continuous flow electrophoresis). Industry would pay for human spaceflight. Unfortunately when a few observers tried to point out that these ideas were not commercially viable they were looked on as not being team players.
Just recently a very viable proposal to assemble medium-sized astronomical telescopes on the ISS and put them in orbit after checkout was put in hibernation for lack of funding. At least there is now a tiny bit of funding for earth observation systems.
“There is no evidence that any physical product can be produced in space and returned to earth at a profit.” What the hell is happening to our country? Is profit the only acceptable product?
And in any case NObody predicts in advance the value of pure research.
Folks:
ISS is underutilized? Only by the unimaginative!
Everybody seems to forget the decade of experience constructing ISS in the first place. It wasn’t just a ‘let’s get it over with’ phase, it was the most important skill development in space history. Now that ISS is ‘complete’, we should carry on with construction… using the station as a staging platform for constructing more space infrastructure.
The Russians already have a plan for expanding the station, starting with a new ‘lab’ module some time this year. After that, they plan to launch a 6 hatch node to attach to it, followed by other modules (if they can ever afford to).
There’s been talk lately about an Earth/Moon L2 station. What better place to construct and test it than at the ISS. How about free-flying crewed spacecraft for satellite repair and refueling?
We could have done a lot of this kind of work during the three decades of Space Shuttle flights but wasted that opportunity. Let’s not waste the opportunity that the ISS gives us this time!
tinker
Except that aside from one or two more Russian modules (the same kind BTW that they’ve been launching for 35 years), there are no plans for expansion, and we have lost the main system with which assembly was done (Shuttle) and most of the people who did the work and gained the skills have left the program. You were right, there should have been continuity, but there wasn’t.
Littow:
Maybe so…
http://www.russianspaceweb….
but, like I said, if the Russians can afford to, they’ll take ISS utilization farther in the hardware development department than the rest of the partners.
Europe’s ATV and Japan’s HTV will be retired after a couple more flights. How is that sustainable? Where is the return on investment?
Shuttle was not necessary for ISS construction. NASA purposely designed modules and construction techniques that made it impossible for anything but a crewed Space Shuttle to assemble it. If they used other launch vehicles, ISS would have looked a lot different, but it would still have been built (and at a lot lower cost too)
For instance. If you used one Falcon Heavy launch to put up a single pressurized module 60 feet long and 24 feet in diameter, It would house every science rack and support hardware rack that’s in seven modules now… and launch it with all the racks installed as well.
Just because NASA did it ‘their way’ doesn’t mean it was the only way.
tinker
Folks:
A Falcon Heavy Super Module would look something like the picture below. The thing that looks like an over-sized fairing is the module. It could hold 80 standard ISS science/service racks and still have enough elbow room left over to slide the Japanese lab module down the center with clearance to spare.
tinker
Respectfully, what’s on those 80 ISS Racks it the issue.
The ISS for the AMS… worth it.
The ISS for VASIMR (is this still happening?)… worth it.
It the ISS for testing new robotics and space flight technologies… worth it.
The ISS for science involving ant colonies in space? Or bacterial cultures? Collectively, not even worth remotely the $3 billion a year. That’s the cost of research, development and clinical trials for three prescription drugs / compounds, for ten years.
Criticism of the ISS is really easy. People are pretty well attuned to what things should cost… almost instinctively. And they look at the ISS with it’s handful of astronauts doing mostly marginal science and they know exactly what it is. Building the ISS is one of the most important technological achievements in human history. A permanent human presence in space is important. But the science on the ISS? No. It’s not. If the ISS is there… sure why not. But as a reason for keeping it? Nope. Not even close. That’s $3 billion not being spent on say a Cassini-style flagship mission to Europa complete with a Huygens style lander. Or a mission to Uranus. Or money spent towards building that Gateway station near the moon (for example).
Those better be some very impressive ants.
Jonathan:
ISS is a versatile platform. I agree, science isn’t enough to warrant it’s existance. What I meant was that it should be used as a platform to expand human existence in space.
NASA should allow for commercial expansion of the ISS by ‘selling’ docking rights to spacecraft and capsules. ISS could also provide bandwidth and supplementary power. This would be a shorter and less risky way for purely commercial ventures to get a foothold in orbit.
tinker
As far as continuity, the Russians run a program that is focused on continuity, so much so that the boosters they still use are based on the boosters of the 1950s and 60s, and the modules they used in ISS are based directly on their original Salyuts of the 70s. It doesn’t mean they do not make upgrades-they do, but they are sure not to lose what they already have. The US, NASA on the other hand is all for throwing away the past and starting over, which we have done now several times and which is why the US program spends more than all the other nation’s space programs combined.
Your statements that “Shuttle was not necessary for ISS construction” and that “NASA purposely designed modules and construction techniques that made it impossible for anything but a crewed Space Shuttle to assemble it” are completely illogical.
Shuttle and ISS were proposed together originally. By the time Station was approved the US had no other manned space vehicle. In 1970, a Shuttle, or an alternative was required because the President and Congress had decided years earlier they would not support continuing Saturn production. Existing Saturns were already corroding and past their certification age (even the last two Skylab boosters had problems). The entire idea behind Shuttle was an 18-wheeler with an attached work cab housing the assembly crew. Get a copy of Launius’ Space Shuttle Legacy and read about how a Shuttle like spaceplane had been in theoretical planning since the 1920s and why even today many feel that a winged Orbiter is still the best way to fly to and from space. The 15 foot diameter US and INTL ISS modules are about as small a diameter you can effectively use-have you ever been in the narrower modules the Russians use?
Sure there were lots of alternative possibilities in space vehicle design for launchers or stations; but at the end of Apollo the skills of the Apollo workers were maximized given the constrained budget.
Tinker?
And yet every major proposal actively avoids that skill at construction. Indeed the whole premise of heavy-lift is to avoid EOR construction and assembly.
What makes this amazing is the number of (political) statements that Constellation (and then SLS) was utterly unquestionably necessary in order to “preserve knowledge” from the shuttle (even though the last orbiter was built over 20 years ago.) But not one word about “preserving knowledge” of designing modular spacecraft, and doing orbital assembly, after spending tens, perhaps a hundred, billion dollars gaining that skill.
By the time SLS is out of the way, whether cancelled or actually flying, and someone realises that they need to build an actual “space ship” for, say, a manned Mars mission, they’ll need to completely reinvent the wheel to relearn how to design, build and assemble a modular vessel; inevitably jacking up the cost by tens of billions and adding a decade of delays and overruns.
Congress was against that. The Vision for Space Exploration made a point of saying that in the future NASA needs modular design with in space construction of space vehicles.
“In the days of the Apollo program, human exploration systems employed expendable, single-use vehicles requiring large ground crews and careful monitoring. For future, sustainable exploration programs, NASA requires cost-effective vehicles that may be reused, have systems that could be applied to more than one destination, and are highly reliable and need only small ground crews. NASA plans to invest in a number of new approaches to exploration, such as robotic networks, modular systems, pre-positioned propellants, advanced power and propulsion, and in-space assembly, that could enable these kinds of vehicles.”
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/555…
When President Obama tried to fund any of these technology paths in his NASA budget congress shot it down and gave us SLS.
“congress shot it down and gave us SLS”: I sent email and snail mail to Sen Nelson (my senator) asking him why SLS in the face of Falcon. No response, but then, it’s only been 60 days…
The major problem with space station utilization is that it is not being used as a “station” as in “railroad station”. Currently it is really a space laboratory, not primarily a logistics base, as it was first envisioned to be used for by Dr. von Braun and others. Ignoring the fact that the station was built without a clear idea of what it would eventually be used for, and that building it probably cost three times more than it should have, the fact is that we have learned a huge amount about space operations from operating the station. That process should continue. The impending Reusable Rocket Revolution will shortly make trips to the station a lot cheaper. Let’s take advantage of this.
Both science and logistics are vital to enable future space exploration and development. For over two decades, science has been placed on a pedestal as the main rationale for human space activities. We are finally starting to realize that science is not the only rationale. Protecting the Earth from space threats such as asteroids and solar storms, producing energy in space for use on the Earth, and the eventual creation of human colonies on other worlds are also
valid reasons. The ability to support logistics operations beyond Low Earth Orbit is thus vital for the station’s future usefulness.
To understand the usefulness of the current research, a list of science projects on the station that contribute directly to future space exploration and development should be published and maintained by NASA. Next, rather than criticizing the quality of the current space station science, we should be looking at what additional kinds of work should be done there.
One of the things we have learned is that it takes the crew a lot of time to operate the station. NASA should begin immediately to develop new habitat modules and equipment to greatly reduce this crew time, so that during a lunar or Mars expedition, or even at an L2 logistics base, the crew can spend much more of their time exploring and much less operating their habitat.
To enable the expansion and improvement of the station in the post-shuttle era, and to enable it to act more like a station or logistics base, we need to add the missing component that was originally supposed to be part of the shuttle-station system, a space tug. Currently, each payload sent to the station has to be its own tug, and no large modules can be added since we have no vehicle in orbit that can move them to the station once placed in orbit. Only one of the current cargo systems is reusable while the others are thrown away after a single use. This is a terrible waste of hardware. A tug should be able to retrieve payloads, cargo or modules placed in the station’s orbit and bring them to the station and berth them.
To allow a space tug to operate at the station, we need a few components on which essentially no work has been done.
– A propellant depot to allow the space tug, and eventually other vehicles) to operate from a base in space, not on the ground. The depot needs to be able to take on, store without loss, and pump the propellants back out to a space tug.
– A tanker vehicle that can bring propellant up to the station, possibly a Dragon capsule modified to act as a tanker. The tanker service can be
provided by a private company under contract to NASA.
– Additional locations for non-pressurized vehicles such as the tug, the depot and the tanker to dock at the station. This could be in the form of a small docking truss with at least 5 docking positions.
To enable the station and future logistic bases to operate safely and efficiently, more work needs to be done on universal docking and berthing adapters, for both pressurized and non-pressurized vehicles and modules.
To enable future logistics bases and docking facilities to be built and operated with a minimum of spacewalks, we need to develop the robotic capability to assemble docking trusses and docking stations and then to be able to move cargo between vehicles docked at positions along such a truss. Such a robot would first build the truss and then operate on rails running along the truss.
John
NASA management starting 20 years ago and far more seriously
in the last 10 years created most of this problem for itself.
Originally Reagan gave a go ahead to ISS because of its prospective commercial value. Later ISS was supposed to be a major exploration
test bed and a way station for crews departing and returning to LEO. After SEI and until the Vision no one was supposed to talk about exploration. Remember, when the discussions started in the late 60s and early 70s Shuttle and Station were just the first elements of an earth orbit based infrastructure that would have people traveling regularly between earth and other worlds. Subsequently basic scientific research became the main reason for ISS.
Starting with the first science done during Apollo, NASA and NASA contractors sponsored the science, providing grants to the scientists, paying for and operating the development, safety, integration and operations. Not only was NASA sponsoring the development and flight of payloads and science but the distribution of funds to scientists, universities and to non-aerospace industry was buying NASA a lot of good will and support.
The existing human space flight engineer-managers decided some time ago, though, that NASA’s job was engineering; developing and flying the spaceships; if someone wanted to do science then there were science organizations for that. They figured NIH or NSF or someone else would pay for the science; that wasn’t NASA’s department. NASA HSF had a voracious appetite for money and they did not want ‘their’ money going to science so NASA academic grants and sponsorships were cut
back and eliminated. There were RFPs and joint agreements with places like NIH and the NASA managers really thought these outside organizations would begin to sponsor the science in the program. But science on ISS, with costs of integration, launch, crew time…is expensive and the scientists got sticker shock. There were other problems. NASA’s withdrawal of grants wrecked many university programs and scientist’s livelihoods. Some scientists said they
would no longer trust NASA and moved away from space science research.
Finally, there is the expense of the payload integration process on ISS. NASA HSF payload integration organization and processes began
to get established in Skylab. While internal NASA processes were time consuming and expensive, when Spacehab, a commercial entity making money based on the quantity of payload they could fly, was brought into the program around 1990, efficiency increased and costs of time and money decreased. The situation improved until the current ISS managers, many with no background at all in payloads or
science, took payload integration over and trashed the efficient processes and documentation and got rid of the people who had been doing the job. Only in the last few years as complaints about the laborious ISS payload integration process increased did
the program management relent and begin to look at improving the situation.