Comments on: Senate Appropriations chairwoman “deeply troubled” by proposed NASA budget

By: Rand Simberg

Rand Simberg — Wed, 07 May 2014 16:11:41 +0000

Thanks. When will I see the review at Amazon?

By: Hiram

Hiram — Wed, 07 May 2014 02:20:56 +0000

That’s a good reason to have one body on board. How many times, now, has the station lost power?

And I’ll buy that. You need a body on board to open doors for people. They could even wear a real-life doorman cap, with some gold tassel on it.

Look, I think having astronauts on ISS is great, and it’s teaching us a lot about human factors that are essential for spaceflight. But it’s increasingly about those human factors as remote control gets more sophisticated.

Excellent book, by the way.

By: Rand Simberg

Rand Simberg — Tue, 06 May 2014 15:05:06 +0000

That doesn't help if the station has lost power, though. Also, for berthing, I think that someone has to be aboard the ISS to deal with the hatch opening/closing. I discuss this in the book.

By: josh

josh — Tue, 06 May 2014 08:05:47 +0000

@Hiram

Wow, is that windy’s looney little homepage? Let’s say it wouldn’t surprise me at this point…

By: Hiram

Hiram — Tue, 06 May 2014 02:58:27 +0000

“If everyone is trying to leave the ISS, someone has to stay behind to operate the robot arm.”

It should be understood that, as of a few years ago, at least Dextre is NOT operated locally. It’s actually quite fascinating. In fact, by the time Dextre was launched in 2008, the “ROBO” flight control team already had several years of experience doing ground-ops with Canadarm2. Dextre had such complicated control software that it was simply impossible for the on-orbit astronauts to maintain proficiency with it. The tasks were detailed enough that they took several days to perform, making it impossible for an astronaut to be responsible for them. The astronauts are there pretty much to fix “oops” moments. Not sure how often that actually happens.

I believe an on-orbit astronaut needs to be in the loop when Canadarm2 is servicing an EVA, however. But that’s rare.

Canadarm2 and Dextre are now largely operated telerobotically from the ground.

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 06 May 2014 02:22:03 +0000

Quite true. I’ve personally experience that reaction where my comments were not in line with the editor’s.

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 06 May 2014 02:20:32 +0000

Now then we would have a ‘real’ hero/ine.

By: Michael Kent

Michael Kent — Tue, 06 May 2014 02:03:42 +0000

Good grief, Robert. While Lockheed is primarily a government contractor, the vast majority of Boeing’s business — probably more than 3/4 of it — is not with the U. S. gov’t.

By: Jeff Foust

Jeff Foust — Tue, 06 May 2014 01:45:39 +0000

Please keep the discussion on the topic of the post. Thank you for your cooperation.

By: common sense

common sense — Tue, 06 May 2014 01:23:30 +0000

Oh well…

http://unicornwings.stores.yahoo.net/