** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

teaboy5 said:
What is the point in going into space? Why waste billions so we can land a wee RC car on some rock with nothing but dust on it.

Spend that money coming up with different types of energy on earth.

I see going into space as a massive waste of time and money.
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Space research will bring a lot of advancements that are useful on earth too. Going by your argument, why waste hundreds of billions killing each other and researching new ways to kill each other when we can do something else with the money such as eventually colonising another planet?

Most wars on Earth are fought over resources (whether that be oil or "land") - if we had the capability to colonise other planets, we might see a very sudden end to that.
 
OK, so lets say those spacemen walking on that spaceship fall off it.. what happens?

Do they float away, do they just explode, will they fall to Earth etc?

Also how long would they have to live, ie could the other bloke drive the space station to him and collect him?

Things like this I dont have a clue of, but im interested.
 
mehuk said:
OK, so lets say those spacemen walking on that spaceship fall off it.. what happens?

Do they float away, do they just explode, will they fall to Earth etc?

Also how long would they have to live, ie could the other bloke drive the space station to him and collect him?

Things like this I dont have a clue of, but im interested.
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I remember reading something that said that eventually (a few hours) the gravitational influence of the craft or station would be enough to make them drift back. As for how long they would last... about as long as the O2 in their suit. Which I believe (off the top of my head) is about 12 hours usually?
 
teaboy5 said:
What is the point in going into space? Why waste billions so we can land a wee RC car on some rock with nothing but dust on it.

Spend that money coming up with different types of energy on earth.

I see going into space as a massive waste of time and money.
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...he says whilst watching satellite TV ....
 
mehuk said:
OK, so lets say those spacemen walking on that spaceship fall off it.. what happens?

Do they float away, do they just explode, will they fall to Earth etc?

Also how long would they have to live, ie could the other bloke drive the space station to him and collect him?

Things like this I dont have a clue of, but im interested.
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The Space station is in a Low Earth Orbit, basically its travelling at 17,200 miles per hour , held there because at this speed Earth's gravity can't pull it back down, and it isn't going quite fast enough to move away - with nothing to slow it down because space is essentially a vacuum it will theoretically stay going around the earth for as long as we like, just as the moon goes around the earth and the earth goes around the Sun.

Basically any Astronaut who 'falls off' - ie accidentally lost his tether and drifted away from the space station would end up in a permanent orbit around the earth, just another piece of space junk. I guess if his direction of 'drift' was in the direction of earth he would eventually be low enough for atmospheric drag to slow him down at which point he'd start to re-enter the atmosphere and he's turn into a fiery meteor, a long time after his oxygen and life support had run out.

Always a good idea to hold on tight in a space walk :)
 
mehuk said:
OK, so lets say those spacemen walking on that spaceship fall off it.. what happens?

Do they float away, do they just explode, will they fall to Earth etc?

Also how long would they have to live, ie could the other bloke drive the space station to him and collect him?

Things like this I dont have a clue of, but im interested.
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they're usually attached to a safety cable :p
 
Skii said:
with nothing to slow it down because space is essentially a vacuum it will theoretically stay going around the earth for as long as we like, just as the moon goes around the earth and the earth goes around the Sun.
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Yeap and just to touch on that, there are still particles at the height the ISS is at so it's orbit will degrade over the course of a year or two(can't find it on google). But not enough to really bother a man sized object as much.

The ISS will use maneuvering thrusters for about 20-30mins to gain about 5miles in height to correct this. They'll also use it to move away from orbital debris should it ever happen.
 
simulatorman said:
It's called a safety tether.
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Ever been to Go Ape? :D

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/aug/HQ_11-256_CubeSat.html

So who's up for designing (and building) a satellite? In all seriousness, one litre? You could do that for less than £1k. Take some inspiration from near-space balloon projects for tracking and communication, arduino controlled, a few solar cells for power and heat, aluminium foil for insulation and lead foil for radiation shielding. I'm sure there'd be some way of hooking up a webcam (SPC900?) and sending pictures back to Earth... i mean, to get chosen it would probably have to do something other than that, but still :p
 
PermaBanned said:
Ever been to Go Ape? :D

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/aug/HQ_11-256_CubeSat.html

So who's up for designing (and building) a satellite? In all seriousness, one litre? You could do that for less than £1k. Take some inspiration from near-space balloon projects for tracking and communication, arduino controlled, a few solar cells for power and heat, aluminium foil for insulation and lead foil for radiation shielding. I'm sure there'd be some way of hooking up a webcam (SPC900?) and sending pictures back to Earth... i mean, to get chosen it would probably have to do something other than that, but still :p
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iirc there's a japanese company that has been launching these for years 4k a pop.

remember they don't stay up for long only a few weeks/months

irc you get a cube with panels etc already on it, you just have to specify the internals.
 
Tefal said:
iirc there's a japanese company that has been launching these for years 4k a pop.

remember they don't stay up for long only a few weeks/months

irc you get a cube with panels etc already on it, you just have to specify the internals.
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Yeah, no reason you could build one to spec from scratch though. Apparently they're quite popular in amateur satellite communication. I also read something about having a dedicated launch vehicle for them, which could be doable - i mean, Black Arrow is probably the smallest (and cheapest in total project cost) successful satellite launcher in history, and you would only need 1/100th of the payload capability of that.

StriderX said:
Whats this...
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The URL pretty much says it all :p

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/08/nasa-after-the-space-shuttle/100126/

^worth a look
 
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thy launch dozens at once iirc super.

the standard rocket goes up carrying dozens of the things (and iirc some times a normal satellite too) and it just drops them out in a constellation with how ever much space they need.

it's why they're so "cheap" because they ship them in bulk as it were :p
 
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