From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Sabatier Reactors.
Date: 24 Jan 1993 20:50 CST
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: judy.uh.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <1jutp0INNacf@digex.digex.com>, prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes...
> 
> 
>|From: redin@lysator.liu.se
> 
>|-In sci.space you write:
>|Freedom decided not to use methane thrusters.  so instead they are
>|-throwing out waste CO2  and importing hydrazine.  failure oriented
>|-management wins again.  someone thought methane thrusters were
>|-too risky.
>|Methane more risky then hydrazine? but, but, but, oh well :-(
>|I simply dont understand the US pork barrels. Couldent they have
>|launched 4-5 miniature stations with single shuttle flights to test
>|things out? The first 1-2 is junk and cannot be habitable and are
>|scuttled after the shuttle flight, next 3-4 can be manned between
>|two flights or more and number 5 - n can be bolted to a truss and
>|you have your tested, safe freedom with bells and whistles that _work_.
>|You will get at least as much pork and much more space station.
>|Why in hell are they stuck inside CAD simulations and paperbins?
>|Magnus Redin  Lysator Academic Computer Society  redin@lysator.liu.se
>|Mail: Magnus redin, Rydsv{gen 240C26, 582 51 LINK|PING, SWEDEN
> 

I wonder if people like this are just trying to provoke me? The last I heard
was that SSF was going to use LOX/H2 thrusters for orbit maintainance.
Am I wrong? If so, then they are MORE risky than hydrazine.

Also for your information, NASA has been flying station precursors for
over ten years now. They are called Spacelab.  Also the new SpaceHab will
be flying on STS-57 in April.  These are dependent on Shuttle for
utilities, but are doing the most important SSF precursor work, which is
the experiments for microgravity.  Also NASA has sponsored COMET, which will
fly in March, which is a free flying microgravity laboratory with a return
module for returning samples that have been through their process cycle.


So NASA, who you think is stupid, IS doing what you are saying there, and
for a lot more money than a full up program of throwing away hardware.
All of the Spacelab and Spacehab experiments can be used again for very
minimal costs, as well as the experiments returned from the COMET module.

These experiments are all important as precursors to SSF because we can get
all of the bugs out of the experiments and the experiment process before we
fly them on SSF where they can be run in an effective manner, having all of t
eh bugs worked out on less expensive platforms.  See there NASA ain't half
as dumb as the average poster to sci.space.


>The problem is not that methane is risky.  We have been using methane
>industrially for 150 years.  but that SSF management said, no-one has ever
>space qualified a methane oxygen thruster so damn if we will.
>Failure oriented management.   
> 
>and as for the other idea,  i guess that's what skylab was.  of course
>now NASA is such an arthritic bureaucracy, i dont think they really want
>to fly packages so much as study them.  actually  who needs to build
>mini stations.  for small items test them in the shuttle cargo bay,
>for longer duration, test them on MIR.
> 
>but that would be too easy, i guess.
> 
>pat

It is also easy to criticize before you find out the facts. I suggest that
you might take the time to do a little research to find out exactly what is
going on in NASA before you are so blith in your criticism.

There are many problems at NASA, but there is also a lot of good things
going on.

Dennis, University of Alabama  in Huntsville

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Delta II/Small Expendable (Tether) Deployer System (SEDS) flight
configuration during deployment, circa March 1993.

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Newsgroups: sci.space