Space Stations: Past, Present, And Future

[willedoo]

Next attempt at the Crew Dragon launch is around 3.30am Sunday morning. It was still interesting watching the abort procedure. It took about an hour after the original lift off time before the astronauts were out of the capsule. First and second stages had to be pumped clear of fuel and the area declared safe before the abort crew were allowed back to the launch pad. It took them quite a while to equalise pressure and remove the heat shielding from the door locks.

 

Spacex have done well; it's a very nice piece of gear. It just takes a bit of getting used to the modern, Star Trek look of the whole show. Watching the seat rotation before egress was worth waiting for. And they're still using knee pads, albeit very high tech ones.

[willedoo]

Just an edit to the above time. Latest is 3.22pm on the 30th. their time. Adding 14 hours should make it 5.22am Sunday morning on the 31st. our time, AEST.

 

Weather forcast for both time slots on the weekend are about the same as the aborted attempt mid week, about 50% chance.

Edited May 30, 2020 by Guest

[octave]

[octave]

[octave]

Edited May 31, 2020 by Guest

[willedoo]

Watching the launch live was one of life's memorable experiences; this was a really big deal. What an achievement, and full credit to the Spacex and NASA teams. The whole show made a big statement of " take a look folks, the future is here". Watching the Falcon 9 land back down on the landing pad was amazing.

[octave]

[willedoo]

Watching the footage of the ladies at the sewing machines reminds me of the Apollo suits. Most probably know the story, but for those that don't, the Apollo suits were designed and manufactured by Playtex. During the tender process they experienced a lot of resistance, as many thought a ladies underwear maker wouldn't be up to the job. In the final test, the Playtex design worked best and was adopted.

 

There were eleven separate suit layers, and there was no machine sewing. Playtex's top seamstresses had to hand sew every stitch. On inspection, if they were found to have a single sub standard stitch, the suit was rejected.

[willedoo]

Roscosmos are sending the only current female cosmonaut to the ISS in 2022. Anna Kikina has been in the programme as test cosmonaut since 2014, so she will have had an eight year journey to get into space. The last Russian woman to fly into space was Elena Serova in 2014/2015. Anna Kikina will be the fifth Soviet/Russian female cosmonaut to go into space. Cosmonauting seems to be a fairly blokey occupation when you consider only four Russian women have gone to space since Valentina Tereshkova became the world's first woman in space in 1963.

 

 

 

Best guess is Anna will be keeping that hair in a plait in zero gravity.

 

Edited July 11, 2020 by willedoo

[nomadpete]

In this enlightened age of equality, shouldn't all crew members be given equally short 'crewcuts'?

 

Imagine the problem of shed hairs clogging up an air filter.

[willedoo]

Pete, good luck on that one. Trying to get a Russian woman to cut her hair is like pulling teeth. But you would think the problems with washing and maintaining long hair in near zero gravity would drive anyone to cut it short. I remember seeing videos of one of the American lady astronauts with shoulder length hair not tied back and it looked like it would get pretty annoying floating all over the place.

[octave]

Karen Nyberg Shows How You Wash Hair in Space

[onetrack]

A female Redhead in Space?? There goes any thoughts of planned work being done!!  

[Old Koreelah]

15 hours ago, onetrack said:

A female Redhead in Space?? There goes any thoughts of planned work being done!!  

I'll share that with my (highly successful) Redhead daughter and her three girls.

[octave]

How to jump start your Lunar Module

[willedoo]

The head of Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, has said that Russia and China have agreed to work on the construction of a joint Moon research facility. He has also said that Russia is not interested in working with the United States on lunar exploration. It's looking like the soon to be end of the ISS might be the end of an era of space cooperation between NASA and Roscosmos. For sure, some direct interaction would remain, but it's looking increasingly like the present level of partnership will diminish. I wonder if the ESA will be the glue to hold everyone together in space cooperation.

[Old Koreelah]

Trump's "Space Force" shows his attitude to cooperating with other nations.

[willedoo]

NASA has launched the new Mars rover Perseverance. It has a small helicopter they'll be testing and a unit to try to produce oxygen and rocket fuel from the CO2 rich atmosphere. Also a drill for core sampling.

 

 

[willedoo]

They will need traffic control on Mars soon. Next February, American, Chinese and UAE missions will all arrive in the same month.

[Old Koreelah]

1 hour ago, willedoo said:

They will need traffic control on Mars soon. Next February, American, Chinese and UAE missions will all arrive in the same month.

That'll just make it harder for the locals to stay out of sight; dodge one UFO and along cames a couple more!

[willedoo]

The SpaceX test astronauts have landed safely. There didn't seem to be much media attention leading up to it compared with the launch.

[willedoo]

The part I don't understand about the SpaceX suits is that during the trip to the ISS, after a certain amount of time, they were able to remove the suits. So I wonder if they have enough O2 in the event of a depressurization to keep enough capsule pressure up until they can don their suits and plug in.

[willedoo]

Dr. Charley Lineweaver seems to be an enthusiastic sort of bloke.

 

 

[octave]

Successful test hop of Spacex SN5

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJvEEp1i9K0

Edited August 5, 2020 by octave

[octave]

Some better footage of space  x hop test

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1HA9LlFNM0