| Author | Subject: What a waste of $$$$ |
| chuckster | Posted At 08:30:04 07/16/2001
Space Station Has New $164 Million Air Lock By Broward Liston CAPE CANAVERAL (Reuters) - The International Space Station (news - web sites) sported a new $164 million air lock on Sunday thanks to a pair a space-walking astronauts and their robot helpers. Astronauts Michael Gernhardt and James Really worked outside the orbiting space station, while another pair of astronauts -- Susan Helms on the space station and Janet Kava on the space shuttle Atlantis -- manipulated two robotic arms in a six-hour operation to install the air lock. Helms used the station's Canadian-built Big Arm, a 58-footmulti-jointed grappling tool, to hoist the 6-1/2 ton air lock from the payload bay on Atlantis and deliver it to its new home on the hull of the space station module Unity. It was a milestone not only for the Canadian robot, but also for the space station itself, which now has the ability to actively participate in its own construction. ``The International Space Station reached into the Atlantis payload bay, using its own arm, and pulled a cargo element out and installed it,'' said Paul Hill, the mission's lead flight director. ``And voila! The station has a brand new module.'' The arm stalled several times during run-throughs leading to Sunday's operation. NASA (news - web sites) and the Canadian Space Agency (news - web sites) said the problem was software and should not recur. Helms commanded the arm from a science station in the U.S. laboratory module, Destiny, guided by video. Aboard Atlantis, Kava used the shuttle's smaller arm to move the spacewalkers around like a cherry picker on the construction site, more than 230 miles above Earth. Gernhardt and Really were running about an hour behind schedule as they started the first of three spacewalks planned for the mission. They made short work of the assembly, shaving 61 minutes off the estimated work time. Gernhardt summed up the experience of working with large objects while in zero gravity as he wrestled with a thermal covering for the air lock. ``It's like wrapping a 12-foot alligator and tying it with a 20-foot snake, but I think I got it under control,'' he said. The spacewalkers freed the disk-shaped air lock from its moorings to the shuttle and added a number of fixtures and handrails to its exterior once it was installed. Until this mission, spacewalkers have only exited the station through air locks on the space shuttle. Now the crews, who live for months at a time on the station, will be able to make spacewalks when no shuttle is docked there. The air lock is the first with umbilical connections for both Russian and U.S. spacesuits. The $95 billion space station program is a joint project of space agencies in the United States, Russia, Europe and Japan. Atlantis arrived at the station late on Friday after its launch from Florida's Kennedy Space Center (news - web sites) on Thursday. The Atlantis crew is led by Steven Lindsey, a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, making his third flight but his first in command. He is joined by rookie pilot Charles Hobaugh, a Marine Corps major, and Kava, the flight engineer making her third flight. Gernhardt and Really round out the crew. The three astronauts living on the space station are Russian Yury Usachev and Americans James Voss and Helms. NASA decided on Sunday that it will return a spacesuit contaminated by a leaking battery to Earth rather than leave it on the space station as planned. On Friday, the Atlantis astronauts discovered a two-inch (5 cm) ``blob'' that ground controllers believe was potassium hydroxide from the suit's battery. NASA ordered a full toxic materials response, with astronauts donning protective gloves, wiping down the area with wet towels, bagging the battery and sealing up the suit. |
| Hal |
Re: What a waste of $$$$ (Currently 0 replies)
Posted At 09:32:23 07/16/2001 Can we keep this board to work comp issues please. If you have a beef concerning government spending, find another board to vent your frustration. |
| tim |
Re: What a waste of $$$$ (Currently 0 replies)
Posted At 16:16:41 07/16/2001 They should use the money for workers, instead of 3-4 people to play. |
| tim |
Re: What a waste of $$$$ (Currently 0 replies)
Posted At 16:17:27 07/16/2001 They should use the money for workers, instead of 3-4 people to play. |
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